Keeping me postered.

Today, I'm taking you on a little detour... a detour into movie poster art territory. Territory that's so brilliantly ruled over by the great Drew Struzan and the late, great Richard Amsel. We've all seen their work - whether we know it or not, we've grown up with the images they created. Images that seem to burst out of the posters for the movies that shaped our childhoods. I love those posters.

When the time came to think about the marketing of Raiders of the Temple of Doom's Last Crusade, I wanted a poster that showed my love for the character of Indiana Jones, teased the idea of what the show was, and made a bold, eye-catching, tempting, easy-to-understand proposition. 

It hit me straight away; the classic Last Crusade teaser poster achieved all of this, brilliantly, way back in 1989...

​How good's that? ​
We know who this guy is, and it's good to see him again.
The text hints at the story we'll be seeing,
and the smirk on Indy's face and the twinkle in his eye tell us "This is gonna be fun"...

Given that the show is a loving tribute to - and re-enactment of - these movies, I figured the poster should reflect that, 
I thought having a poster for the show that's an imitation of the poster for the movies would give the audience a clue as to the show's flavour. And hopefully help to convince them to buy a ticket to this unknown, untested project...    

The first step was to contact my old friend and BRILLIANT professional photographer James Penlidis and arrange a photo session that would give us the image that would be the basis for this. My plan was to get a shot of me in costume, imitating Indy's pose from the original, and then get it graphically treated to look as much like a Drew Struzan-style painting as possible. I booked the session, and after James taking around 60 shots, (while I ensured that the Raiders soundtrack CD blasted loudly in the background), the one that finally made the cut was this one:

I know, I know; I'm no Harrison Ford, but this is about as close as I can get.

The next stop was to find a graphic designer to edit and massage the image to make it look as much like Drew Struzan's original classic painting as possible. Being on a budget, I turned - as I often do - to Fiverr.com.

I love Fiverr - you can farm out work to a number of different practitioners from all over the world simultaneously, and pick and choose from the results that come back to you. It's affordable, too, but that affordability can be a double edged sword. It means that you can cast your net wide, but it also means that sometimes you get what you pay for, and there can be varying degrees of quality with the results. And this 'casting the net wide' did indeed return a few early results which didn't exactly fill me with hope...

Not bad, but they've clearly cut and pasted my head onto the original poster. I don't remember my hand being larger than my head....

Again, not bad, but the edges are messy, and they seem to have been a bit over-enthusiastic with an eraser on this... even rubbing out the brim of my hat!

Hmmm... has this designer treated the image by actually vomiting on it?

Oh dear.

Oh dear II.

But I had farmed the job out to 7 or 8 designers, and there were two or three who were really, really on the right track.
​In the end, this is the treated image I chose. I was really happy with this - I figured it was as close as I was ever going to get.

And, to compare it to the original, here's a jpeg I like to call 'Comparrison Ford'....

The draft of the poster there on the right is an initial draft. By the time I'd tweaked it and tweaked it and tweaked it again (Microsoft Paint is a wonderful thing), this was the version that ended up publicising the show's first season in 2013: 

Then, when I came to do the second season in 2014, I was able to revisit the poster, rejig it, and add in a couple of quotes from reviews (which is always VERY valuable). I also had a website and a Facebook presence then, so I made sure to include that information... AND I was also very pleased to find and include the "Village" font, which is the font that's used in the opening titles of Raiders. 

I know, I know - I'm a nerd. 
Well, der!

So there you have it; The Blog Post of The Story of The Poster of The Stage Show of Raiders of the Temple of Doom's Last Crusade.

Oh, and I apologise for the terrible pun in the headline. 

And for "Comparrison Ford", too.

​See you next time!