Tarsem "The Fall" Poster

I remember the first time I really looked at a Dali painting, it was of the Temptation. Surrealism, "truth beyond realism" fascinates me as it obviously did for Dali. The meaning behind every element can open the door to understanding the artist or his underlying message. I think every college student I knew had something of Dali's because he could touch a nerve.

These days Surrealism is found everywhere, most prominently in music videos. Remember REM's "Losing My Religion" video, trippy huh! So it makes sense for a visionary music video director who made the flick "The Cell" a couple years back to make a children's fantasy called "The Fall". Makes you wonder if his next flick will be, "The Wall" or "The Bell"? So the artists behind the poster have attempted to incorporated the visual style of the film into the poster. Did they succeed?

Likes: The colors and composition, immediately grab you. I also like the title font, it works perfectly and has a middle eastern feel where the film is set.

Dislikes: The problem with Surrealism is that it's not all together good for advertising. At a glance it's kinda interesting but I can't make the connection because I don't know what it is. Is it a period war/romance story? I don't know and since I don't know I assume it's an art house film and most dislike those. Hence why they've added the names David Fincher and Spike Jonze to the top to make it seem mainstream.

Final Thoughts: I like the design. But as a movie poster which is to attract an audience I don't think it's very successful. The artist should picked a genre and focussed on that instead of Dali.

Kinetic Type - Fight Club

Everybody has seen the movie "Fight Club", but nobody has seen it quite like this. Somebody with some extra time on their hands thought of a brilliant idea. Translate visual to the written word. Sure, we've seen this before in movies and commercials. But what makes this different is that it's almost like reading a book.

So, can typography be a powerful visual medium? Well to know for sure watch the video with and without sound.



Watched it???…Good. This could have been a waste of every bodies time (like watching a Saw movie, pick any), but thankfully it wasn't. Everything was done perfectly, this is why:

1. Good choice of font and scale.
2. The environment is well textured and lit to reflect the tone.
   
3. It's choreographed perfectly to the speed and mayhem of the sound
4. The perfect scene form the movie, you're almost in it.
   

Hema Breaks The Rules

I can tell you that building a website is not an easy thing, in fact it's complicated, tedious and a pain in the ass. A dream website to develop would be something that can use flash, cool images or a chance to add humor. The only way you'll find humor on the web is through good writing, actual stories or hilarious images.

















So with that being said, what would you do if you had to design and build a website for a "Target" or "Wal Mart" store? Well some dutch man did it. To this web masterpiece click on the title above "Hema Breaks The Rules" or the image and prepare to be amazed. Give it a second, it last about a minute and you might want to turn your sound down a little.

Banksy's Mark

Graffiti art, some loath it and some love it, the two rarely meet in the middle. Then came Banksy.

But before we get to Banksy, what have we always understood as graffiti art? It's crude, crap, terrible logos, bad type treatment, smeared and hard to read because the kids use the same spot and graffiti over each other. People don't like it because it's a mess and mainly because it's an eyesore. The first thing the city tries to do is paint over it and I would typically agree with them.

I once looked though a book on Graffiti art and tried to understand it better. I realized that these kids were trying to express themselves to the world and say no to conformity and following the rules. This I understand and I think most would agree. But why don't they learn how to be better artists I wondered. Then it hit me. Every artist needs a canvas and they are using what they have which isn't much. I guess that's how Banksy started, he looked at a wall or a bridge underpass and began to express his "political" and "social" conerns. Maybe he was crap in the beginning but now he's a genius.














These two images are only a couple examples of what's he's done. Click on the link above to truly see the scope of his work. He incorporates the surroundings into his art and makes a dull spot suddenly unique. What local person, city official or paid city worker would want to get rid of it. It goes back to experession, freedom of expression which goes to the hart we believe in the UK and US.

Banksy is doing what needs to be done and a long the way adding some irony and humor to what would be a very dull street.

Who Will Watch the Watchmen

Great another Hollywood summer movie with brainless superhero action and zero plot. As long as the effects are good and the kids like it right! But hold-on, these heros have no super strength, no xray eyes and wait a sec it's set in the Nixon era and did I hear that one of the super hero's gets raped? What the hell!

Yep, it's comics meet the real world and in the real world superheros have real problems so I guess we have a plot. The premise seems interesting enough but will the kids see it? The answer that is mr 300, Zack Snyder who also did a pretty decent redo on the Dawn of the Dead flick a couple years back.

So why am I interested in this? The idea of bringing a comic to the big screen isn't new and Sin City has shown that now they can take illustrated panels from the book and bring them to film. What's cool about this is that this story, this film and is going to be a real as possible. Which means gritty, raw, uncomfortable. The images above already show the direction. Desaturated color, roughed up and beaten backdrop, a sense of irony in the characters. It's going to be really interesting how they market this one, stay tuned.

The Wolf Man Cometh

Well not until next year, we'll just have to look at the new image on th right to get a taste of what's to come.

Benecio Del Toro looks magnificent in the makeup on the left. But judging by the below image you can tell that the makeup is only half of it. He is Wolfman which make the brand new image even more exciting. The energy coming from the poster is palpable. Anger, menace, pure animal urge.

Del Toro and the photographer captured them both brilliantly. The desaturation and strong contrast in the shadows and mist are beautiful. The photographer managed to get a great focal point on the right eye. This was obviously Photoshopped as every movie poster is these days. But you have to get as much in the camera as you can and you can tell they spent sometime getting the lighting right. The softly lit movie which creates that flow in the left corner. And the spot light on the center eye. What makes it tricky is the hair, you can't fake the lighting in the hair. That's why you can tell it was shot by a good photographer.

I'm really curious as to what they come out with next, a very good start so far.

5-4-3-2-1 Speed Racer, Go!

Hold on, lets take a minute to figure this poster out before we take off into CGI insanity. It looks speedy like a race movie, has the really edgy logo for a race movie and has the unreal car for a race movie. So I guess it has all the obvious stuff to knock you over the head. This poster is 99% safe and obvious to make sure you don't get confused with any other movie on May 9th.

So what's the 1% originality? It doesn't do the blurred windy effect so many blockbuster movies do. The bright red, yellow and blue colors imply the great cartoonish effect the Wachowski's are going to use. So I guess it has something fairly cool.

Here's the big question, will I remember this tomorrow? Well let me ask you, do you remember the start of the race or the finish?