I’m reminded of this story I read about John Cassavetes. By the way, if you are not familiar with Cassavetes or only know him through his acting, do yourself a favor and check out some of his work. He’s a film maverick that was, and still is, far ahead of his time. His movies are a challenge and a bit of an acquired taste, but if you’re willing to do a little work, meaning if you’re willing to be an active viewer instead of just letting the Movie wash over you, they will reward your efforts.
Anyhow, the story goes that after Cassavetes first movie, SHADOWS, came out, someone comes up to him and goes on and on about how much he love the movie. He loved the hand held camera work, the realism, and the grittiness of the movie. Cassavetes flew into a rage. "You son of a bitch! Don't you realize that I didn't have enough money for a dolly! I had to be out there with a goddamn camera on my shoulder!"
This is kind of how I'm feeling lately. We're designing posters to hang in a few theaters letting people know that our movie is coming to town. They look fucking great, and I wish I wasn't such a retard and could upload them to this blog for you all to look at. It's quite a bit different from the DVD cover that most of you have seen. I like what we came up with for the DVD cover. The images get across one of the ideas of the movie quite effectively, but it also sort of panders the more exploitive elements in the flick. Even though the movie deals with prostitution and internet porn, the movie is not about that. They are merely the MacGuffin to get to what we really want to talk about. There is no nudity or sex or anything remotely salacious [visually at least] in the movie [Sorry to disappoint any of you “fans” (read: everyone) who hasn’t yet bought the move]. Still, we designed the DVD cover with the idea of trying to catch the eye of someone walking through the local video store looking for something they might take a chance on. In this sense, the cover works.
So, the movie poster is a lot different. It’s sort of a throw back to the kind of posters they were making in the late 60s and 70s. It really is quite beautiful. It uses an intriguing image from the movie, but it doesn’t really give anything away. There’s a mystery about it. Hopefully, it will cause someone to linger a bit longer and try to figure out what they movie’s about. If I can figure out how to do it, I’ll try and post the image. This isn’t going to make any sense if I don’t.
All this has been a long winded prologue to make this simple point: it’s goddamn expensive to get a movie poster printed. I was truly shocked. They charge you by the square foot, so the poster is 27x40. We’ve received quotes from 50 to 70 dollars per poster. We need 7 to 10 posters, and I’m mathematician but I believe that adds up to a lot of fucking money for some posters. It’s just not cost effective to throw down that kind of cash for posters. The solution is going to be a low rent version of what we would’ve printed up, which will hopefully not equate to something that looks cheap.
On the one hand, I take some pride in the fact that we’re thinking outside of the box, coloring outside of the lines, and doing things differently. There has always been a punk attitude towards the movie and the way we’re going about selling and distributing it. Still, I often find myself in a Cassavetes type mode where it’s like: Does everything have to be so damn difficult? Answer: Yes, of course. And, I guess, it’s probably better that way. It still puts me in a pissing and whining mood once in a while.
Anyhow, the story goes that after Cassavetes first movie, SHADOWS, came out, someone comes up to him and goes on and on about how much he love the movie. He loved the hand held camera work, the realism, and the grittiness of the movie. Cassavetes flew into a rage. "You son of a bitch! Don't you realize that I didn't have enough money for a dolly! I had to be out there with a goddamn camera on my shoulder!"
This is kind of how I'm feeling lately. We're designing posters to hang in a few theaters letting people know that our movie is coming to town. They look fucking great, and I wish I wasn't such a retard and could upload them to this blog for you all to look at. It's quite a bit different from the DVD cover that most of you have seen. I like what we came up with for the DVD cover. The images get across one of the ideas of the movie quite effectively, but it also sort of panders the more exploitive elements in the flick. Even though the movie deals with prostitution and internet porn, the movie is not about that. They are merely the MacGuffin to get to what we really want to talk about. There is no nudity or sex or anything remotely salacious [visually at least] in the movie [Sorry to disappoint any of you “fans” (read: everyone) who hasn’t yet bought the move]. Still, we designed the DVD cover with the idea of trying to catch the eye of someone walking through the local video store looking for something they might take a chance on. In this sense, the cover works.
So, the movie poster is a lot different. It’s sort of a throw back to the kind of posters they were making in the late 60s and 70s. It really is quite beautiful. It uses an intriguing image from the movie, but it doesn’t really give anything away. There’s a mystery about it. Hopefully, it will cause someone to linger a bit longer and try to figure out what they movie’s about. If I can figure out how to do it, I’ll try and post the image. This isn’t going to make any sense if I don’t.
All this has been a long winded prologue to make this simple point: it’s goddamn expensive to get a movie poster printed. I was truly shocked. They charge you by the square foot, so the poster is 27x40. We’ve received quotes from 50 to 70 dollars per poster. We need 7 to 10 posters, and I’m mathematician but I believe that adds up to a lot of fucking money for some posters. It’s just not cost effective to throw down that kind of cash for posters. The solution is going to be a low rent version of what we would’ve printed up, which will hopefully not equate to something that looks cheap.
On the one hand, I take some pride in the fact that we’re thinking outside of the box, coloring outside of the lines, and doing things differently. There has always been a punk attitude towards the movie and the way we’re going about selling and distributing it. Still, I often find myself in a Cassavetes type mode where it’s like: Does everything have to be so damn difficult? Answer: Yes, of course. And, I guess, it’s probably better that way. It still puts me in a pissing and whining mood once in a while.
