Contrast
Contrast is what creates the story to the psychological and in terms of position, color, and orientation, the poster excels in those aspects. I'll start with the positioning of the characters, the degree of vertical lines are present because my eyes are drawn to the top of the frame where Will Smith's head is at. When I get there though, I am immediately drawn down to Jaden Smith because that is who Will has his attention on and Jaden is standing in a slanted position which draw my eyes further south to his feet.
Color is present especially with the beam of light coming from the sun where their hands meet, obviously that is the brightest spot so my eyes are automatically attracted there. The color of the lettering of the title is interesting as well because the words, "The Pursuit" on Will Smith's suit jacket stand out because it is white on black but the word "Happy" specifically is in red. It made me think for a minute about why would the Illustrator choose red but I believe it's because the color red along with pink are usually warm colors and represent the color of a heart when it is illustrated. There isn't a lot of color but there doesn't need to be for this work.
The orientation is set up well too because you can tell these two have a pretty close and healthy relationship. It isn't your traditional Father-son relationship, not saying that fathers and their sons aren't close but if there is a single parent with a child, it typically is associated with the mother. It is perfect that the rest of the background is white because their is nothing to distract your eyes, your focus is right in the middle with them as you see their relationship grow.
Gestalt Principles
Gestalt means a "unified feeling" which is what this poster does for me, it warms my heart to see a great Father-son relationship and reminds me to cherish everything that I have.
Law of Proximity: I mentioned this before but you can definitely see the closeness and the strong bond between Will and Jaden without any additional words having to explain it further. The key for me is the beam of the sun unraveling from beneath their hands and how Jaden is leaning on Will's arm also shows the degree of how close they are because it shows that he has developed trust and comfort around this individual. The simple fact that he is smiling while holding a toy in his hand and Will is also smiling looking down at him.
Law of Simplicity: This poster is simple which makes it more powerful to me because there aren't a lot of words on it but it says a lot just from the actions that are being portrayed. The fact that Will Smith is holding a brief shows that he cares about his business but also providing for his son. It is just him and his son without the mother which speaks on a psychological level that maybe the father and the mother haven't gotten along that well.
Contrast
When it comes to contrast with this poster, a lot of different aspects about it stand out in a negative way. If we start out with the positioning of the mess that is happening here, I seriously don't know where to start because there is too much going on in the first place. I'm assuming that the character in the middle of the screen is the main character "Milk" (Sean Penn) which is what the title is based off of. I immediately lose interest in anything more than that because of all the people in their own boxes around him, I find it to be confusing and just a little too much. It's not helping me understand who these other characters are or what kind of relationship they have with the protagonist. It seems like you have to actually watch the movie to uncover the mystery.
The color is nice because it catches your eye with the blue but that is all it does because then it has all different contrasting colors around it. The fact that the title is in white but then the quote by Peter Tarvers of Rolling Stone that reads, "An American Classic" followed by 4 stars is in gold is just a weird and awkward mixture with the blue. All of that combined with the different colors by the outfits by the other characters just makes it extremely messy and unorganized to me.
The orientation is probably what sets me off the most because looking at it, the title is fine but why should you add somebody's opinion about what they think of the movie? You shouldn't have to tell the audience that it's a 4-star kind of movie, they should be able to tell from the cover. It is important to tell the audience that it is based on a true story but I feel like the placement of it being right smack dab in the middle is awkward and doesn't look good. In my opinion it should be moved to the upper corner so it blends in with the blue. I know they wanted to show all the important people that somehow probably affect "Milk's" life in the frame but it is too messy especially with him in the middle blocking everything.
Gestalt Principles
Law of Similarity: This movie poster definitely interferes any similarities because by staring at it, I have no idea what all those characters outside of the main character have to do with him. It doesn't explain how they are similar, I mean do they know each other? Have they interacted with Milk and affect his life possibly? Has Milk affected their lives? Obviously I'm sure in the movie it explains everything but just from looking at the poster, my eyes are lost and confused.
Law of Closure: Objects are supposed to been seen as a whole but with this poster, I don't see that. I see a lot of individual frames wrapped into one that don't do a good job of telling a story and the context of what is happening exactly. I don't like that they had to grab somebody's opinion (although him coming from Rolling Stone gives him credibility) and make that in huge lettering and have all these secondary characters on one screen but not tying all their stories together for a similar theme.
No comments:
Post a Comment