A movie poster can tell story

A movie poster can tell story


This is a movie poster designed by an English artist, graphic designer and illustrator called Olly Moss. He is best known for his re-imagining of movie posters. His work is regularly featured in some famous magazines, such as the Empire Magazine.
This is a movie poster of the film Die Hard, which is an action film in 1988. I choose this poster because the design of the poster is very special and the style of the posters (other movie posters) designed by Olly Moss is unique. The movie posters in Hong Kong are usually consist of photos of the protagonists or the main characters of the movies. But you will not see these photos (the photos of the protagonists or the main characters) on the posters designed by Olly Moss. You can only see some simple pictures on his posters. His designs are simple but they effectively represent the film. All the pictures on his posters can represent the plot of the films.

A memorable plot of the movie Die Hard: as the protagonist, John McClane (acted by Bruce Willis, a handsome actor!) arrives in L.A. gets to the office building and meets up with his ex-wife, Holly, and all her fancy friends. He needs a break, so he goes to the bathroom, takes off his shoes and makes « fists » with his toes in the rug. Right then, the terrorist come in to the main room with guns firing…he ducks out when he sees the chance….hence no shoes. After that, he lost his shoes along the chasing scene, and the story has to focus on his soles where he was removing some pieces of glass embedded in the soles. (Because he steps on the broken glasses on the ground barefoot).

The red shoes and the white triangles on the poster simply but effectively represent this plot. The red shoes represent the barefoot protagonist and the white triangles represent the broken glasses.

I think Olly Moss makes these abstractions because
he wants to make the poster represent the internals of the movie more. If the poster only shows the protagonist of the main characters of the movie, it cannot well represent the movie. Some actors and actresses cast many movies. The actors and actresses (I mean the protagonists and the main characters) on the ordinary posters we can see in cinemas cannot well represent the film because these actors and actresses may have casted other movies.
Thus, the culture connotation of movie star on a poster is that it can only represent the externals of the movie. And it also represents the taste (or the preference) of the poster readers (or the movie audience). Why do most of the movie posters contain movie stars? This phenomenon may be generated by audience. The audience do not think of the internals and the implication of movies, and only emphasize the cast of movies. They like watching movies that have handsome actors or beautiful, hot, or sexy actresses only. (I call these movies the “Hollywood Style movies”.)
They do not emphasize the plot, the meaning and the implication of movies. So the culture connotation of a movie star on a post is that most of the audience are shallow. They only emphasize the externals or the appearance of things. Most of the culture expectation of a movie poster is shallow: having good looking movie stars on it.

But using the method of metaphor is different. For instance, the posters designed by Olly Moss can well represent the movie. The culture connotation of the red shoes on the poster is that the red shoes represent the braveness of a man (the braveness of a man is also represented indirectly by the protagonist of the movie), and the culture connotation of the white triangles on the poster is that the white triangles represent the hardship or plight a man encounter.
The red shoes and the white triangles on the poster show that even though the protagonist does not wear shoes, he still steps on the glasses and beat the terrorists. So the red shoes and the white triangles on the poster have another culture connotation – even though a man encounters a more difficult or troublesome incident, he can still face it and solve the problem bravely. Besides these, the design of Olly Moss can gain more resonance with people who have watched the movie, so this kind of design can be attractive among people who have watched the movie. It can also attract people who put emphasis on the plot, the meaning and the implication of the movie. So the culture connotation of the poster designed by Olly Moss is that there are still some people in the society not only put emphasis on the externals or the appearance of things, but also the internals or the connotation of things.

I like this poster because it teaches us what metaphor is.
I think metaphor is a very good method to express your view. We should not always design artworks that show what we think directly. We can express our feeling indirectly by using metaphor. Many of the posters designed by Olly Moss are using metaphor.

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