Main Influences

Poster:

While beginning the planning phase for my poster designs, I looked at the work of artists within the film industry such as Saul Bass. Saul Bass has created posters for films such as The Shining and Vertigo. These are some of the most iconic film posters of all time, mainly due to their striking imagery and bold colours. Within films now, many artists use a very generic form of presentation within their work. Films such as the 2014 Robocop film and The Equalizer are just some examples of poor modern posters. Very little thought is given to modern posters within many films and are simply done with a generic pose and bad Photoshop; this tends to be reflected on the generic film in which the poster is advertising. There is not much artistic experimentation at work like you would see within the work of Saul Bass. Within older cinema, each poster would appear as its own piece of art and would translate key story themes. As a result I wanted to use a minimalist art style which would reflect story points and feature a more memorable style of an older point in cinema. I very much liked the influence of many old exploitation films and looked to replicate some of their visual quirks. I looked at Death Proof and Django: Unchained as a balance between old and new film making styles as well as films such as Vertigo in order to create an iconic style of poster.

Repetitive modern examples:





The styles that influence me:



Magazine:

For my research into magazines within the film industry, I found that my key point of influence came from Empire magazine. I found this typically because of the variation in which each issue can take. A lot of their magazines feature special edition covers such as the Star Wars; The Force Awakens character issues. Each magazine can take a different visual style from the iconic Photoshopped cover for Captain America: Civil War to the simple yet stylistic cover for Spectre. As my film is quite grounded and features smaller themes, I have taken more influence from the James Bond shoot, focusing on a more simplistic shoot which can be heightened through the use of Photoshop.