Creatures Of The Night - Robocop x Total Recall

I recently received a brief from the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds about working on more posters for them as part of their Creatures of The Night screenings they're running throughout early 2013. I jumped at the opportunity and was pretty chuffed to have been asked.

What was asked from me was pretty vague and they gave me a lot of creative control, they kind of trusted me to produce something interesting and the only real outline was of what information must be included on the poster.

So I made a brief for myself.

Robocop x Total Recall

__Brief
Produce a visually engaging and interesting movie poster for the Robocop and Total Recall double bill taking place on Saturday 26th January for Hyde Park Picture house. Needs to stand out from the crowd and be enticing and add curiosity to the screenings. 

__ResearchGather reference imagery of 80's and early 90's science fiction posters, the general composition and vibe put across.
Look into circus attraction/horror/posters relevant to the Creatures Of The Night tagline

__ConsiderationsProduce work which merges sci-fi, with horror and your own visual style and sensibilities
Produce a final design which lends itself to being cost-effective to print, and also a maximum of two colours perfect for screen-printing in limited runs for sale at the event.
Appeal to the target market of university students - 18-24 along with film-buffs, who visit independent picture houses and familiar with 80's sci fi.

__Mandatory requirements
Poster must include info:
Creatures of the Night Presents a Paul Verhoeven Double Bill
ROBOCOP / TOTAL RECALL
Saturday 26th January 2013 - 11PM
At The Hyde Park Picture House
Tickets from £6.50 to £8.50
www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk BOX OFFICE: 0113 275 2045

High-res jpeg needed for promotion throug social media, printing and web.

__Deadline
14th January 2013

///////////////////////////////

Finished poster

Robocop's tagline is: Part man, Part Machine, All Cop.

Total Recall's tagline is: Get ready for the ride of your life. 

Total Recall is predominantly set on Mars, so I exchanged the two taglines on the posters, just for the jokes. If people pick up on it or not, I don't know but there we go.

Finished poster with hand rendered type, which I tried to reference a sort of circus feel to it with the tone of voice and a tagline almost enticing you.

///////////////////////////////////

Development and Research

The first thing I did was obviously watch the movies and gather some concepts I wanted to convey along with some reference imagery.

The fun bit here was merging the two! I was thinking about making two separate posters but I thought it's a double bill screening, a merged poster would be suitable and a lot of fun to do.

Reference imagery:

Such a great poster, really captures the movie

I looked at loads of reference imagery and kind of plucked bits of each and actually learned alot about the movie and what's already out there by looking at existing imagery.

////

I think I work best when I literally just 'react' and go with my instincts, I sometimes all into thinking too much about work which leads to a bit of apprehension when starting. As Paul Arden once said "Fix it as you go", I think I can really relate to that, the development on this definitely was just that.

<sketches here>

I scribbled some pretty rough sketches, which really help me understand and see how it will work compositionally. Which I set about making, I usually produce the design to how I roughly sketched, then decide if I think it's rubbish or not and then go from there fixing it and doing what feels right.

I was producing imagery and small elements which I would lay out on the poster such as planets, this is a nod to the Total Recall posters

I was working between Photoshop and Illustrator a lot on the poster.

This is the original scribbled concept brought to life, minus the text which I was going to add later. I quickly realised I didn't like this. I decided I needed Arnie next to Robocop, to have the double bill feel and to add some interest and focus to the poster.

Around this time I quickly got down an alternative concept, involving Robocop's visor thing on his helmet and creating a Total Recall image within that, this is really rough and vague but I didn't really like this so went back to my original stuff

This image is perfect. But needs some 'shopping.

You can see here I've got rid of the cable over his face, hand and right arm, it doesn't need to be perfect as it's simply a reference image still,

Laying over the composition and reducing transparency helps me get an idea of how it will all work together.

I REALLY need to start screen-printing my work as I feel this is where my work belongs and how my brain sort of works when I design something, I always think in layers and combining layers and colours, which is what screen-printing is. This poster would be two screens, the orange and the dark navy/black over the top.

I aim to produce a limited run of about 20-30 of these printed and signed in time for the screening and sell them at the event.