A clockwork orange, film poster analysis:

After watching Stanley Kubrick's "A clockwork orange", it always led me down a path of wonder when it came down to the various movie and novel art work for this tale.

I was always mythed by the use of the triangle which Alex was appearing through and the use of the eye ball. Bill Gold's choice of typography is to be questioned in this instance, in my opinion.

I feel Bill gold's choice of typeface for this specific poster, based on a film of Ultra violence, rape and harrowing scenes, is a choice which is an arbitrary decision. I'm sure Bill Gold can justify his use of font in this instance, but personally it has connotations  as a juvenile typeface not to be taken seriously, such as the modern Habbo hotel logo. 

Lots of things about Bill Gold's cover of ACO generally make me question things, along with the imagery attached to this novel in general.

The use of the triangle on the cover of the film suggests illuminati to me which is often depicted by a triangle, the eye is something which is questioned by me. I see how the film is based on a alternative England, which abides by similar rules, but is evident how it's not our ordinary England.

Having wanted to research what I was questioning about this film poster, I began enquiring:
http://www.collativelearning.com/ACO%20chapter%2014%20.html

Here is a site which analyses the movie poster, each aspect of it and particularly the parts which require an explanation.

This analysis goes into great detail to compare Bill Gold's film poster, and any Clockwork orange art work, in which Alex is depicted atop of the triangle, as a comparison to the The Eye of Providence, a figure which now is represented as part of the Illuminati conspiracy.

Bill Gold - Designer:

"Bill Gold (b. 1921) is an American graphic designer best known for thousands of movie poster designs. During his 60-year career he worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers, including Clint Eastwood, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Elia Kazan, Ridley Scott, and many more. Among his most famous film posters are those for Casablanca, A Clockwork Orange, and The Sting. Gold designed (and often photographed) posters for 35 consecutive Clint Eastwood films, from Dirty Harry (1971) to Mystic River (2004)."

"All of Gold’s posters have had a distinctive style. Each poster gave a film its unique identity, often creating the only lasting impression of a film that many would get. Gold’s ever-changing style reflected a wide range of current tastes, trends, and approaches, yet never strayed from the tried-and-true basics of film promotion. Together, Bill Gold’s poster art represents many of the most important American films since the advent of color photography."




















Gold designed beautiful posters, each of which could have had an alternative style to another due Bill gold's way of designing changed in an attempt to become more modern and fit the trends of his long spanning career.

Primary research into movie posters - Kiss Kiss Kill Kill, historical spy movie exhibition

I chose to visit Kiss Kiss Kill Kill Exhibition which was displaying European movie posters lost during the Cold War, I thought this would be relevant to my research being movie posters printed onto stock and a wide range of the available to see.

"Kiss Kiss Kill Kill at Leeds College of Art is a full remix of a touring exhibition first developed in partnership with UH Galleries and the Goethe-Institut, London."

"At the centre of the archive is a large collection of film poster graphic art and still photographs from all over the world. Numbering 5000+ pieces, the collection includes original artwork, posters, press books, lobby cards and front of house stills. 

 Preservation includes the complete digital restoration of graphic and photographic art scared by time. All images in the archive have been repaired with fold lines, paper loss, tape burn, scuffs and pinholes erased."

This movie poster entitled 'Inferno Per Pochi Dollari', which translates to 'LSD Flesh of Devil', was created for a film released in 1967. It appears to be similar to a James bond movie, showcasing a protagonist male role, whom is an action craved lothario, or so he appears. 

The film poster appears as rather modern despite it's age, the use of oil paintings or sketches are similar to that of Richard Amsel's work.

It is an Italian film which the poster has been designed by creator - Mario Piovano, having looked into other pieces of his design, it does resemble Richard Amsel's work and his style of execution.

The use of typography and hierarchy on his design is stunning and after it's time in my opinion, it appears to follow modernist views, and is used in a very functional way. 

Georges Kerfyser, an Italian designer has created these two movie posters in 1965/66, similar to Mario Piovano's design creations, they are very stunning pieces of design, making use of detailed oil portraits.

Kerfyser's left piece uses desaturated images, which are rather dull then are accompanied by bright flowing flouresent colours in the female character's hair, and a bring shocking pink piece of typography.

Incredible to see how such stunning posters were created in a time of Cold War Europe. 

This designer has created many other film posters, all have a professional feel to them and a style which must be reminiscent of 1960's Europe.
In some cases this Italian designer uses a singular bright colour in his piece which completely sets a tone for the movie.
Like Mario's work, this designer uses stunning Typography which is always very fitting to his design pieces. 

The first poster in this series of two are created by designer Charles Rau, a man whom is hard to find information about on the internet. 

It appears that Charles was a French designer whom similarly to Georges Kerfyser uses a typical bright colour in his designs which sets a tone around the film.

The Spy who went to hell and the Spy I love were both films which Charles Rau was commissioned to designer for.

Richard Amsel - Designer:

Richard Amsel was famous for his design works.

"Richard Amsel was an American illustrator and graphic designer. His career was brief but prolific, including movie posters, album covers, and magazine covers."

As quoted, he created movie posters, album covers, and magazine covers, in my opinion movie posters or album covers would be the medium in which a designer could have most freedom and expressive flair. 

Famous for magazine styles such as these, interesting to see how these compare to his film posters because as I've said, film posters have more freedom, in comparison to a magazine cover, which Amsel would be working towards a set brief.


 Amsel famously designed the movie posters for the Indianna Jones movies which were massive hits in the 80s and 90s, he created a beautiful, fluent poster for the film using a large illustration of the protagonist character, which does the film great justice.

Another film which Amsel designed for is China town, from what I see to be a gangster film set in 20th century America, Amsel's poster sets a great tone and mood to the movie, and again his use of illustration captivates the audience. His movie poster are works of art.

Film screen shots and story:

I have had the idea to take various screen shots from my film of it's content and main story. I felt this could benefit my by jogging my memory of what the film consists of and also could provide me with some imagery of the narrative of the movie.

Green chalk board, iconic in American schools, chalked writing could be an idea.

Main character chewing gum, a trait of the protagonist character, recurring thing in the film

Francesca, Misha Barton, Lead Lady

Bruce willis, Head teacher

Roof Sniper begins assassinating 

Close up of sniper on roof

Various people standing for school president

Close up of sniper various focuses. 

Main candidate giving his election speech.

Shot down.

Finger on the trigger.

Hit by the bullet

Down.. Realised that it's paint.

Another student shot.

Mass shooting.

Panic.

Sniper continuing.

Head teacher shot.

Mischa making eye contact with the Sniper.

Jesus statue defaced. 

Taking aim at Mischa

Sprayed onto foot.

Sniper aprehended.

These screen shots from the film show imagery routes which I could go down for further designs, they also evidence reasons why I made certain choices in my designs.

School colours/ Colour choice:

I have chosen to research school colours as a way to settle on a colour scheme for my poster, this will give me an insight into which colours are good to experiment with, rather than me having no direction.

"Most competitive teams keep two sets of uniforms, with one emphasizing the primary color and the other emphasizing the secondary color. In some sports, such as American Football, the primary color is emphasized on home uniforms, while uniforms for other sports, notably basketball, use the secondary or a neutral color at home. This is done to avoid confusing the two schools' colors. In addition, various groups that generate support for athletic teams, including cheerleaders and marching bands, wear uniforms with the colors of their school."

This gives a description into school colours and why they are important, specifically American colours.

Here are a range of official colours used in certain school uniforms.

There appears to be an abundance of royals blues and surprisingly, shocking pinks, I wouldn't have initially expected this. I think that these colours used on my movie poster would set the wrong tone to what the film's genre was and the tone of the film, shocking pink especially.

Lime green stands out and is rather neutral in the grand scheme of things. 

 

Here shows combinations of colours, green is used  a lot and seems rather effective, Green and red can work well together as evidenced below.

 

The colour green and school in one makes me visualise Slytherin from the Harry potter films,  a series of films famous for it's school of wizardry.

Hogwart's emblem makes use of 4 colours, red green yellow and blue, the red is the typically colour for Harry potter as Harry, the main character, is part of Griffindor which is represented by the reds, the green which is notoriously rather evil, is slytherin, a section which is denoted by the green shade and the snake. 

Progression

From researching these colours and school's colours connotations etc, I have realised that I'd like to use the colour green in my design  due to it's connection with schools and also the tone which it has such as snaky and evil, if the whole poster had this as the primary colour, it could set a tone which showed that the film was slippery, had twists and turns and wasn't an average school film. Also it is relatively a gender neutral colour which could mean it would be more applicable to a wider audience.