SMARTech Community: Library East Commons Gallery and Exhibitions

Deep Impact

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:58:59 GMT

Title: Deep Impact

Authors: Lynch, Courtney

Description: Exhibited in the Library East Commons Exhibition Gallery spring semester 2009. Resulted from Professor Allison Whitney's poster assignment for ENGL1102 - English Composition II - Science Fiction – Image, Sound, Text, an undergraduate course offered in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture (LCC).

The Right Stuff

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:58:59 GMT

Title: The Right Stuff

Authors: Sandler, Josh

Abstract: My poster for "The Right Stuff" highlights some of the films elements which are not present in the original movie poster. I used graphics software to edit and combine various images to create my poster. The background of the poster is a sky gradient. The primary visual element on the poster is a photo of a Mercury-Atlas rocket from an upward looking angle. Apart from the title and tagline, the poster contains two other visual elements, which are a drawing of the seven astronauts faces and a photo of Chuck Yeager in front of Glamorous Glennis, the X-1 he used to break the sound barrier. My intention with the poster was to draw some attention to the rockets and the theme of transitioning to the future. The image of the Atlas rocket is placed at the lower left corner of the poster and extends diagonally up and to the right. I applied a motion blur to the image to give it an effect of speed and motion. These physical experiences are present in the film in many scenes and the motion blur conveys this experience to the viewer. Though the "right stuff" refers to the skills of the astronauts it is important to recognize the "right stuff" possessed by the thousands of engineers and scientists who contributed to the developments of the space program. The inclusion of the photo of the rocket is also intended to show the importance of the hardware used by the astronauts. The images of Chuck Yeager and the astronauts are meant to complement the films tagline, "How the future began." The photograph of Chuck Yeager is positioned at the bottom right of the poster, and the lines of the rocket lead the viewers attention from Chuck Yeager up to the astronauts. This is meant to be symbolic of the transition from the veteran pilot to the hot shot astronauts. Additionally, the astronauts appear to be looking off into space, which can be interpreted as looking into the unknown future for whatever developments may occur. The title is printed in red and has a blue stroke to encompass the patriotic elements of the movie. The font I selected is futuristic looking and meant to represent the futuristic nature of the space program to the viewer. The font also gives a sense of speed and motion which contributes to showing the theme of the future and its developments. Below the title is the tagline, which is also written in a futuristic looking font. Through my poster I wanted to draw attention to the theme of transitioning to the future. This is the tagline of the movie, but the original poster did nothing to support the tagline. Through the composition and selection of visual elements on my poster I represented this experience to the viewer.

Description: Exhibited in the Library East Commons Exhibition Gallery spring semester 2009. Resulted from Professor Allison Whitney's poster assignment for ENGL1102 - English Composition II - Science Fiction – Image, Sound, Text, an undergraduate course offered in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture (LCC).

Transformers

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:58:59 GMT

Title: Transformers

Authors: Sweat, Kyle

Abstract: The poster was designed based on a combination of related movie posters. The god versus evil was the main reasoning behind the layout of the poster. On the top of the poster is Megatron, the evil transformer. On the bottom of the poster, facing the opposite direction is Optimus Prime, the hero of the transformers. In between the two, stand two humans as if they are in the middle of the war between the transformers. The red background gives a feeling of violence or rage. The shadowing was done more on the top to give a darker feeling. In contrast, the bottom was made brighter to go along with the hero. The actor names were placed in the middle above the title to draw emphasis. They were not made to standout nor distract from the poster. The title was put in the middle and set as a dark, lonely color to project such feelings. The middle box was made to be distinctively different from the top and bottom to portray the difference between man and machine. The quote also implies that there will be some kind of death or lose within the film. While this is true, the viewer’s first impression may be to think a main character will die. The overall theme of the poster is similar to another which is more horizontally focused rather than vertically. The basic good versus evil theme is predominant in both. Man stuck in the middle of a war also appears in both posters. The main difference between the two is the orientation between the two transformers. While both are facing the same directions, one is above the other. This may give the viewer as sense that the villain is more powerful than the hero.

Description: Exhibited in the Library East Commons Exhibition Gallery spring semester 2009. Resulted from Dr. Allison Whitney's poster assignment for ENGL1102 - English Composition II - Science Fiction – Image, Sound, Text, an undergraduate course offered in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture (LCC).

The Matrix

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:58:59 GMT

Title: The Matrix

Authors: Blasko, Kevin

Abstract: In creating my poster for The Matrix, I employed one of my favorite pieces of software, Adobe Photoshop. I’ve been playing around with Photoshop for the past few years on and off, and its capabilities are truly astounding. Despite my career path in engineering, I’ve always had a bit of skill in the arts, and the opportunity to create a movie poster was highly intriguing. The main source for my poster’s contents was Google image search, whereby I found suitable pictures of Niobe, Morpheus, and the ship of which Morpheus is the captain, the Nebuchadnezzar. I also exhaustively searched the internet to find the perfect font to use for the main title, as well as to find a fitting font for the tagline and actors’ names. The poster I authored was aimed at emphasizing a select few of the themes I found most appealing in the movie. For one, I chose to include the Nebuchadnezzar in flight being pursued by sentinels in an attempt to stress the science fiction and action themes present in the movie. I created a lightning effect around the ship to show that the ship was in flight and fully powered, and I added closely trailing sentinels to imply an exciting chase sequence. All of the posters I found for the movie were completely devoid of mention of both the film’s antagonists and the flight technology aspects of the film, a theme I found to be one of the most interesting in the film, so I chose to rectify this situation by including those very themes in my own work. In choosing characters to place on my poster, it seemed only obvious to include the two most recognized ship captains in the film series, Morpheus and Niobe. I placed them both at equal distance from the viewer, to imply that they are equally important to the plot of the movie, as well as equally skilled. Many scenes in the Matrix trilogy stress Niobe’s skill in flight, as well as her dominant mental stature. Additionally, the gun in Morpheus’s hand implies that he is more of a to-the-point, brute force character, while Niobe’s downward gaze and relaxed stance paint her as less of an aggressor, just as they are portrayed in the film. For the coloring of my poster, I chose to employ mostly dark tones, with the brightest parts of the poster being the two captains, and the ship. I darkened the rear of the ship in an attempt to further emphasize the ship’s status as quickly fleeing from the oncoming sentinels, and darkened the Matrix code in the center of the poster to draw the viewer’s eyes to the ship. Around the text, I placed a green glow to match the eerie green of the Matrix code, mainly to make the poster more visually appealing. These choices of color act to exhibit, as in the poster I analyzed, the dark and mysterious themes present in the movie. The green glow of both the text and the Matrix code make them look markedly artificial, and create stark contrast between the protagonists of the film up front and the products of their robotic enemy. I chose these specific elements and techniques in an attempt to bring light to what I felt were the most interesting themes in the movie. By careful use of specific lighting effects, colors, and certain characters and objects from the film, I believe this goal was masterfully achieved.

Description: Exhibited in the Library East Commons Exhibition Gallery spring semester 2009. Resulted from Dr. Allison Whitney's poster assignment for ENGL1102 - English Composition II - Science Fiction – Image, Sound, Text, an undergraduate course offered in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture (LCC).