[anonimo]

Everytime I go to the movies and look at the posters I am always courious on what has been done to the image in the poster! It also happends with magazines,cd covers,etc...!

Have any retouchers worked with movie posters? If so which ones?

Thanks,
George....

[Doug Nelson]

One of my favorite movie poster stories comes via Lee Varis. At the time (and maybe still) his job was compositing the face of the movie's star into the poster designed to sell the movie. The example he gave was the first Lara Croft movie. The studio provided the finished poster, except with an anonymous stand-in, and it was his job to composite in Angelina Jolie's face (no, he didn't meet her, her face shot was also supplied).

Evidently it's far too expensive to have the actual stars pose for their own posters.

[Ant]

I worked on the Mission Impossible 3. There is a company in Manhattan that has a sattelite company in LA that just does movie posters for films. You'd think it would be higher end work considering the budget of a film and how large a production, seemingly the whole film thing is especially with certain films, and then there is how large they are presented, but in my experience it was pretty slap jab work. Monkeys were paid to, as fast as possible, create comps for the two "Art Directors".... I was freelancing, but I remember an egg timer placed on the desks of people and set for say five minutes. "Ok, gimme what we talked about and 4 alternate versions in five minutes" "When that timer goes off.." They'd run around the room looking at people screens saying "Great! Wow....but let's try...Oh! Cool and then lets.." - having accidently glanced at anothers screen on the way to the copier to copy something out of a book on graphic design or something "Wait! That's great, maybe blue instead of green. Stop there, but maybe just ....!" Crazy nightmare, not high end retouching - comp bitch is more apt. I think the final art was assembled in LA by someone who actually knew what they were doing. The NY office seemed to be more 'idea based' and extremely old school. I don't believe the pay was all that there either - speed was of the utmost concern.

[claymation]

I have spent the last 15 years of my career doing movie posters and movie advertisements. What Have I worked on: Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Matrix, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Billy Elliott, Spy Game, American Pie just to name a few.

American Pie for example was shot over a week period with all the actors showing up over that week. They were removed from the background, color corrected to match each other. Then composited together. Then hair was illustrated and shadows were put on to make it appear they were shot at all one time. Then the artwork is shown to the movie house and producers and corrections are made. Replacing heads, Changing clothing and moving people around. With all the shadows and color masks moving as well. From beginning to end when we got all the shots from the photo shoot. The artwork had to be done in three days. The same piece of artwork was used for all Advertisements. No shadows were put in at the feet because of the multiple usages and how bad the shadow would fall apart for some applications.

There is a lot done to every advertisement. Changing heads, Illustrations of things, Recreating photographs because your compositing photos from many different sources (ie different film stock and speed). There is a ton of work done everyday to the posters which is why they look so good. Also they cost a fortune to produce.

As far as "Ants" comment. That is a "Comp" house not a finishing house. COMP houses are factories not Art creators. The job of a comp artist is to get an idea on paper to be able to sell the idea with minimal explanation. There is an vast difference between the two. There are only a handful of finishing houses in LA and they do know what they are doing. There are MANY comp houses in LA. Pay for a "comp" artist is not that great.

For a "Finisher" retoucher with experience in the industry in LA you are looking in the 6 figure range. The "Finishers" still have to be extremely fast but we know what we are doing and have been doing it for a very long time. It is very long hours of sitting in a dark room flying through software programs.

Extremely difficult to get into that part of the industry but WELL worth it if you can. HAVE TO PAY YOUR DUES!!!!!

Good Luck and enjoy the movies!

[Ant]

Just stating my experience with one house. The finishers, as I said were not in NYC, but LA. However, it was sold to me, as a freelancer with interest in a possible position there as a full time employee, as a finished product house. I misunderstood or was mislead. Just my one measly experience.