Film Art and Cinematography : I hate movie covers like this.

I hate movie covers like this.

Where they include all the main characters on a poster as floating heads or bodies not in correlation with each other, splashed across the poster in different sizes and scaling. This is not artistic at all, and only done as a way to tell the onlooker, "Hey, look who's in the movie.!"

Often, the main character's head is bigger than everyone else's head, and the main villain is often but not always seen as overlooking the other characters. Eh, it's an ugly motif.


































Here's my opinion for a good movie poster: Keep everything in one scale; if multiple characters are on the cover, keep them all in one scale and setting as if they took the photo together. Don't superimpose characters and objects together. The poster should look like a natural photo one could take with a camera. Artwork is always a plus.


Here are good movie posters:























Monster, how should I feel? Creatures lie here, looking through the window.

Get used to it….

Get used to it, cause they're never going away.



😺 Schrodinger's Cat walks into a bar, and doesn't. 🤨 Let's go, Brandon! 🤨 Try that in a small town.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

Sorry but I like the floating heads design more. Goodfellas, Scream and Harry Potter are the two I liked the most.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

Stop whining. They aren't meant to be displayed in the Louvre. They're meant to generate interest.

You've seen floating heads movie posters all your life and they drew you and millions of others to the movies. Mission accomplished.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

Actually not true. Most of my favourite movies growing up, that I'd rent at the video store, do not have that style.

I've never seen a floating head movie cover, and thought, "I have to rent this, look at all these actors in it." The only time I rented movies based on their cover, was Monkey Shines, which had the creepy little monkey on the cover.

I feel like movie covers should be about the art and not as a way to advertise which actors are in the movie. It's just a cheap way to tell you who's in the movie.

Avengers Endgame is particularly ugly. They really had to jam-pack all those characters tightly for them to fit. Robert Downey Jr.'s head is bigger than everyone else's. Everyone fits in Thanos's head in the background. The characters were photoshopped together from all different places. Why on Earth they put characters together on a cover who aren't the same dimensions is beyond me - it's gaudy.

The original Avengers cover, I give some credit too, because *at least* it's a photo from the same setting that isn't superimposed. Although, it does seem forced that they're standing in these poses so tightly compacted; it doesn't look natural at all, and Sam Jackson seems particularly forced in the background there when he would not be fighting with these guys. But at least it's a photo of them actually standing together.



This is a good one.



Monster, how should I feel? Creatures lie here, looking through the window.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

You're still whining. The posters showing multiple actors and actresses are effective whether they specifically drew you to rent a movie (or watch it in the theater) or not. You can say you prefer less cluttered layouts but they're very effective on a broad scale. Your whining is not effective. Maybe you should write letters to the studios. Bwahahahaha

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

The Goodfellas one would have looked better if it had just been them and had the bottom black.
The dead body and the street look like a weird afterthought that was slapped on in the last second.

Other than that, after looking over your examples I agree.
I prefer something that is a cool looking graphic or logo with a bit more thought put into it.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

Other than that, after looking over your examples I agree.
I prefer something that is a cool looking graphic or logo with a bit more thought put into it.

And the less words on the cover, the better.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

LOL, if Pulp Fiction had a cover like that:




Monster, how should I feel? Creatures lie here, looking through the window.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

Bruce looks like he is sitting on some futuristic flying machine.
"We don't need wheels in the future!"

Travolta and Stolz both look stoned!

That look on Walken's face!
"He had this watch shoved up his ass and he told me how it tickled him. Tick? Get it? Ah, you will someday."

And the dented or lopsided head of Marcus!
LOL

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

The sun was glaring on him in the original photo making that part of his head very bright white - I couldn't get the cutter tool I used to detect his whole head due to the stark difference in colour. It kept detecting it as part of the sunny background. lol

Monster, how should I feel? Creatures lie here, looking through the window.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.



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Re: I hate movie covers like this.

That Spider-Man one is bad. Too loosely distributed, a lot of weird negative space, nothing looks carefully placed.

I always assumed those Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy posters were sort of copying Star Wars.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

ME TOO!

Other than the Die Hard one!

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

I think the ones which are a close up of a face are equally uninspired, like the Halloween and Joker one in your "good" list.

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

Poster ads from the late 1940's to mid 1950's.

The high brow ads need only feature the main stars to attract an audience that didn't care what the movie was about as long as it was the likes of Brando, Lancaster and Monroe.







Science fiction and horror movie ads hit you between the eyes with garish color and graphics that promised a once in a lifetime theatrical experience. Dismissed as beneath serious consideration, they are now heralded as Pop Art, some of which are worth thousands of dollars.







And This, Too, Shall Pass Away

Re: I hate movie covers like this.

And as we can see, "Sex sells" is nothing new since they used it back then.

"Bosom buddies" with Monroe and those two boobs.
The buxom babe barely wearing anything in Forbidden Planet.
Chicks putting their chests forward for Island Earth.
Etc.
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