Around Town - One-Sheet Art At The Academy

Way, way back in the day, long before CAD, CG and Photoshop, movie posters or one-sheets were created from hand illustrations. The one-sheet, so integral to the marketing of a movie, had to be eye catching and enticing. It had to convey the promise of the excitement, sex, suspense, romance or comedy that would be delivered in the film.

So yesterday, since I have an interest in art, movies and marketing, I went to see the
Art Of The Movie Poster
Illustrated One-Sheets And Design Concepts From The Paul Crifo Archive
at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences


From the Academy's write up
This new Academy exhibition explores the creative choices that go into the visual elements of a movie marketing campaign. Why was that design chosen? How might the success of a particular film have been affected if an alternate ad campaign had been selected?

“Art of the Movie Poster” explores the decades between the 1950s and ’80s, and showcases the creative process by which a finished movie poster was achieved. Each stage of the process is included, displaying reference stills, concept sketches, and hand-rendered and photographic ‘comps’ (a design incorporating graphics and text). Also featured are many of the approved original illustrations of ‘key art.’ Multiple poster styles will be displayed alongside the final, ‘winning’ posters, which are from the collections of poster designer Paul Crifo and the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library.

During the decades covered in this exhibition, posters were generally conceived and executed by art school-trained craftsmen working within studio advertising departments or at ad agencies. Crifo studied illustration at Pratt University; from 1942 through 1986, he worked on more than 400 motion picture advertising campaigns and personally designed 120 film posters for Hollywood studios, foreign distributors and independent film companies, largely while working out of New York City.

Posters and the preliminary design artwork that will be showcased include “Paths of Glory,” “Separate Tables,” “The Great Escape,” “Tom Jones,” “Zorba the Greek,” “The Group,” “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying,” “The Producers,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “Play It Again, Sam,” “A Separate Peace” and “Mahogany.”

Of course the days of this kind of hand illustration are long gone. Today's one-sheets typically showcase the stars, in their larger than life, photo-shopped to perfection images.

After the exhibit, it was lunch outside on the terrace

next to to the fountain at my new favorite Beverly Hills restaurant,

Via Alloro