Happy Chinese New Year!

Yesterday, H.E. and I went to see Breach, and as always, before and after the movie, we’d look at the movie posters on the walls of the movie theater house. While I look at them for inspiration in doing my book covers, he always looks at them for the credits, reading the names of actors, directors, screenwriters, and producers.

H.E. can tell a lot about the movie by looking at the credits. If there are a handful of screenwriters credited, his assumption is that it’s been developed and redeveloped to death, and the script is probably no longer any good. He looks at the size of the actors’ names, their positions relative to each other, to the title, and to the director’s name. For a movie poster like the one for Spiderman III, there are no credits. His explanation for that is that everyone signs the same deal—they all get a little extra for not having their name in there, and the studios will pay that because it’s all about the franchise of Spiderman in this case and not about the actors, director, and other people involved.

As I’ve mentioned, I look at the posters for inspiration. The imagery on a lot of them is amazing. I usually love the colors, the composition, the lighting—every aspect, really, about almost all of the movie posters.

One thing I have noticed, though, is that like a lot of book covers, the movie posters seldom illustrate a specific scene in the story. The movie poster for Breach, for instance, has the Eric O’Neill character following the Robert Hanssen character in the dark of the night. This scene doesn’t actually exist in the movie. O’Neill never blatantly follows Hanssen about like a spy in a spy movie. But the movie poster scene does set the proper tone because it’s almost a symbolic metaphor of what does go on in the movie. O’Neill must watch Hanssen closely to get clear evidence of Hanssen’s treason. His trailing him on the movie poster is the perfect illustration of that tone and theme of the movie.

Anyway, something for me to think about when doing covers, especially if I come across any requests for a specific scene in the book. Most authors already understand that a cover doesn’t have to be 100% accurate, but a lot of readers complain about how the cover never completely matches what’s in the book. Funny how I never hear that complaint about movie posters. Movie trailers, sometimes yes, but never movie posters. They are all essentially the same thing in different mediums, and they are all meant to impart some sense of the full story, enough to get you interested, but in the end, they are all just advertising.

And whoever heard of true advertising?

Share this post: