Movie poster: Lucidius

#1

I’m not entirely sure what this is called, so I called it a poster. It’s the thing you see outside the entrance to a theatre playing a specific movie, or in our case on the homepage of a movie’s website (which isn’t fully up yet). The black space at the bottom under the trees is meant for the shortened credits, which we don’t have yet because not all the roles are filled.

The feeling I am trying to evoke with this image is a difficult one to describe, and I’m not sure that I’ve really captured it in the image. I am trying to evoke a kind of peaceful disturbedness. The inky entity dominating the top of the image should appear fundamentally creepy- not gut-wrenching suspense creepy that makes you jump, but a more deep-seated uneasiness that stays with you. The kind of serene yet utterly destructive violence that obliterates what it touches. Example: you observe a hurricane from high above. As it moves over a city the patterns created seem to waft lazily around and around in an almost beutiful way. The hurricane passes over; the city is flattened, thousands of people have died.

Does that make any sense?

The image is completed entirely in photoshop with a mouse. Any type of non-technical critique at all is greatly appreciated (compositional critiques appreciated as well), unless there is such a glaring technical fault that you are prevented from commenting on the next level.

Thanks!

#2

edit
I thought I was browsing the focused critiques forum, so my comments might not be as correct as they should be for this forum. My excuse for that.
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Hopefully I’m not too harsh on this.

The poster lacks strenght. First of all it doesn’t look like a movie poster to me. These kind of posters can be a work of art but their main purpose is to sell the movie. Now the movie title is too vague. It’s ok to use all kinds of effects and do something with the typography, but you also have to make sure it stands out.

I’m not to sure about the effects you have used now. The texture-effect and that watercolor-effect(?) just don’t work for me. Now it looks too PhotoShoppy. I also would consider getting rid of the black border. I think a border takes away a lot of power in a movie poster.

Well that were some negative comments. Now I will try to make some constructive critisism, allowing you to make a better movie poster. I don’t know what the movie is about, so I may mention some things you may not agree on, but I think you made very well clear what the poster should be about.
To be honest I think you should start all over. There are some fundamental things wrong. Sorry. Before you start you’d might consider getting some inspiration from other movie posters. The first site I stumbled upon was www.ricksmovie.com Although I think you are someone who doesn’t want to make the stereotype kind of poster, it still might be good to study some existing posters.

The poster size.
Maybe not the most important thing, but get your image size proportions right. Doing this makes it more poster-like and gives it more strenght for what it’s intented to do. Now your format is too square. Stretch it a bit more.

The title
Make the title stand out more. Now it’s a light font on a light background. Although you can easily make out the letters, it’s not strong enough. So use a light font on a considerable darker background, or vice versa, or use a strong outline for the font.
As you look at existing movie poster, generally they did some things with the fonts. Sometimes very subtile, sometimes very apparent. For this poster I would go for something very subtile. Just a small alteration, so that when people at it, it looks familiar and yet somehow strange.

Composition
In most posters there is one or more central character. Now you have none, but that’s also possible. You might consider it although. When people watch the movie they will see the characters all the time, why not already on the poster? If you decide to leave the characters form the poster, you’ll have to place a replacement for that. Somekind of interesting object, what that is, is entirely up to you. It can be as simple as a leaf falling from a tree, as long it fits the movie.
For the mood you wanted somesort of disturbing serenity. You can use a light (white) background as well as a dark one. A dark background will make it more creepy and a white background can it make more disturbing, frightening. Make sure your background streches the whole canvas, so you won’t have the borders you have now. Go easy on the effects. Use effects that are there with somekind of purpose and don’t use effects that will make it look PhotoShoppy. If you use effects, make them look like they could have been achieved in the real world with photography or other non-digital techniques.

That are some critisisms for now. I don’t want to be harsh, but to help you further. Hopefully these comments were of help to you and that you post an update.

#3

Thanks very much for the critique.

upon hearing this and realizing that it was just about exactly true, I have decided to start over. I think I will still not go for a white background, I’ll just wash out those colors that are there even more and remove the trees at the bottom. The border might have to stay, because this has to work with a website with a black background.

THe watercolor look is the style that the entire project is animated in, so that’s the reason for that.

Thanks, and I’ll post an update as soon as I have something.

#4

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