The movie poster goes hand-in-hand with the trailer as a key form of advertising. Yet it seems some studios find it acceptable to release movie advertising with truly awful imagery that looks like it was spliced together by some photoshop hack, or possibly a photoshop sweatshop in Indonesia.
The number one offense? Putting the actors head on someone else’s body. What is the sick compulsion these marketers have with putting the wrong head on the wrong body? I see it ALL THE TIME - usually with some lame photoshop cover-up desperately trying to make it look natural. Sometimes I don’t think they even care that it looks ridiculous:
So many things wrong in this poster. Is ANY part of it real? Eva Longoria’s head is CLEARLY from some completely different photo where she is definitely not lying down. The whole body is contorted like some kind of melted barbie doll. And she’s got the “photoshop neck.” Yes, the dreaded photoshop neck. That’s where they blur out the neck and remove all remnants of a natural shadow. It is everywhere on these kinds of movie posters. How hard is it to get someone to just pose for a picture for real? Why fake it so poorly and send it off into the world. Is it some secret message the designer is trying to hip us to like “Don’t go see this. You will regret it to the point of wanting to rip out your eyes rather than watch one more frame. I created this poster to serve as an omen. Heed it’s warning.” Considering this movie made about $2 at the box office, my guess is the warning worked.
Bad head placement often comes along with a really bad collaging of mismatched images:
I found the above image at Obsessed With Film. First of all, I HATED this movie. And this poster is one of the all-time worst. How does something like that make it out to the public? The bad fake-looking background, the fake-looking elevator, Jessica Alba and Dane Cook completely out of proportion to eachother, Dane Cook’s head is too small and sitting on someone else’s body - I really just don’t get how the standards got so low. Further evidence this sucks:
EXACT SAME ugly Dane Cook smirk on an entirely new body. Throw in a boring, cliché, forgettable Jessica Alba that’s way too big and you’ve got another winner from this awful movie.
This ad for The Whole Ten Yards is another classic example of everything wrong with movie posters:
You’ve got Matthew Perry’s head from another planet, Bruce Willis looking like he had a stroke, some mushy thing in between them, and Amanda Peet somehow has a huge manly chin. Yuck. But yet again, terrible movie, terrible poster - I think someone is trying warn us, I really do.
Whoever did this poster truly must be evil:
Good ol’ photoshop twists and contorts these poor exploited kids so that they can look “badass” posing with fake photoshopped sunglasses. Why!? Are they TRYING to give us nightmares filled with freakish-looking babies acting like obnoxious adults?
Sometimes those pesky actors are just too darn tall. Here comes photoshop!
Martin Lawrence had his body shrunk so much under his huge head that he looks like an overdeveloped 9 year old. Tim Robbins has been scrunched too even tho he looks about 9 feet tall compared to Martin. Movie poster hacks are always trying to make the actors shorter so they can fit more ugly type above and below. ‘Cuz we need “Nothing to Lose” REAL BIG to let people know about our forgettable, nondescript, boring title.
Besides posters that are just plain bad, there are some photoshop tricks being used rather routinely that just suck. Like when our good friend photoshop helps out a “woman in need”:
The above image has been floating around the internet for awhile now. Making a woman more “shapely” for the sake of advertising is tacky. But the fact that this is a young teenage girl just makes it sick.
This one has also been circling the internet for awhile:
If they wanted Jennifer Love Hewitt they should has cast her instead. I’m assuming they hired Keira because she’s athletic, beautiful, and a fine actress. All of which means jack-squat when you’re trying to fill seats.
Here’s one Old school style. I’m sure Julia Roberts loved having her head on a different body:
Is it an insult or did she say “Oh thank goodness! my real body sucks!”? At least it looks somewhat natural because they cleverly covered up most of the neck in shadow. But you can still tell. Some marketing committee said Julia was not naturally pretty enough, send in the sexy babe in stripper boots - we’ll fix it with airbrushing!
Just like the Dane Cook universal head posted above, there is definite trend of using the same head over and over in several different ways, looking more unnatural and phony the more times they do it. And it’s so obvious, it’s like they are almost DARING us not to notice:
The head is like a sticker you just stick on to whatever you need it for. Driving a car? Scrunched up on a pool chair? Whatever! Magic Wonder Head can do it all! No need for expensive photo shoots. Thank you, photoshop!
Bad movie posters have made their way over to bad DVD art now too. Next time your at the local video store, take a stroll down the aisle and notice how many “photoshop necks,” mismatched heads, shrunken bodies, and hastily thrown together collages there are. Some photoshop sweatshop in Indonesia must be keeping really busy.
