hollywood has a floating head design problem
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- Hollywood movie posters look the same. There's many trends in movie poster design: one being the curse of the floating head syndrome. Here's why it works (sometimes) and why we see it so much.
Marvel films. Horror. Romance. Sci-fi. Period dramas. Sometimes all you need to sell a film is a big actor's head. The beauty of this trend is how versatile it is. Like ketchup you can spread that ish anywhere.
Look at Marvel, any Nicholas Sparks movie remake and even 2022's most anticipated film releases.
We talk about the use of colour, composition and some good and bad(?) examples.
It's all up to your own interpretation.
Of course, more goes into the poster making process than just the designer. Often, marketing for a movie can be make or break. So when the steaks are high and you have input from different people in the marketing department sometimes the floating head becomes the safer bet. Depending on the arrangement, floating heads can be used to communicate a particular message to audiences within a design.
Some resources:
Movie Poster Design 101: The Anatomy of a Movie Poster: design.tutsplus.com/articles/...
Floating Head Syndrome: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
Why Movie Posters All Look the Same: www.thewrap.com/why-movie-pos...
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - intro
00:21 - why movie poster design is hard
01:00 - a floating head for every genre
02:23 - menacing floating heads
03:00 - bigger heads mean more success
04:30 - women in film posters
04:55 - celebrities sell
05:30 - why the trend won't stop
06:10 - outro / ukraine
06:50 - bloopers
If you would like to help out and donate to those in need in Ukraine, here is a start for some charities. Please feel free to do your own research.
The Voices of Children Foundation: voices.org.ua/en/
UNICEF: www.unicef.org/ukraine/en
Ukraine Emergency Appeal: www.gofundme.com/f/helpukraine
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↪ cherryinferno: / cherryinferno - Розваги
personally i like the look of the orange dune poster but the floating head one makes me want to watch it because... you know... zendaya.
what do you think about this trend?
Saame it's just annoying there isn't any actual orange sand in the movie. Ironically it's also a tribute to the original book's cover unlike the poster we later got.
Sadly agree, the orange one was sooo much better but it’s the the teal one the one that would make me go to the movies
@@debzykvids oh is there not? Deception !
@@marionapina same I’m a sucker for celebs heads
@@itsdivyag Yeah that part bothered me a lot in disappointment. But still a good movie though compared to the book, can't wait for Part 2!
I think the orange dune poster is more creative, interesting and aesthetically pleasing, but let's be honest, I go into the movie mostly because of the actors, soo... Timmy/Zendaya it is
I have to agree 🤧
Lol I didn't even know the movie has desert in it until I saw an ad with ✨sand✨ I thought it's some generic quirky story movie 💀
@@lemon4087 it's ok if you didn't know about the books but... the name of the movie is dune, a dune is a mountain of sand, the sand is literally in the name
With the actors faces it feels the movie is much more "approachable", like it's not so high brow and niche as the other make it looks
@@wayland8 i agree, it looks more like a movie poster, and it's still good looking
That Spiderman: Homecoming poster looks too much like a bad edit from 2010's Tumblr 💀
I don't really see movies for the actors in it, so the floating heads don't do anything for me, and I prefer simpler posters. The floating heads thing can work well, but very quickly become visually cluttered imo. I prefer cool minimalist posters for the sleek looks. They often do this for teaser posters. I've also seen some reimaginings of posters, that still manage to convey the essence of the story, while being an intriguing image. Though, many of those minimalist posters only work if you already know about the movie, or one of its elements.
Ooo! Yess I love a good minimalist poster too! Something a bit more intentional
Tbh, the floating heads always lead to really strange proportions. The characters are often radically different sizes.
That shows you who to consider important. The fact that they are floating free of each other, allows them to be different sizes according to rank, sort of. It is a fad, but it has some meaning in regard to the story.
@@lindajohnson4204 not in terms of story, but irl famous points
It's so funny that you've not see Star Wars and yet you got so much right just from the poster of Last Jedi. Despite all the issues and controversy, one of the best and most unique things about the film was that it had a VERY strong sense of visual storytelling. This is by far the most colorful Star War and BY FAR the one which most successfully leveraged it's visual spectacle into a selling point of the film. And, yet, even with just a floating head poster, you got that! I hate boring pictures of the character or their head posing or standing, duly as the poster, HOWEVER for once , the did a good job communicating that through their dumb cranium poster. Just goes to show that even bad or lazy techniques can still sometimes get the point across, if it's in the right hands. Good job!
Very true
I mean among the sequel movies, the last jedi is comparatively better so...
@@promariddhidas6895 personally I think it’s one of the worst films I have ever seen.
i actually really like the floating head dune poster, it is very aestheticaly pleasing, the colors and composition just feel nice, but can we all agree that putting it on the cover of a book is totally Not Ok?
i also think it's good, except for the fact that zendaya is plastered very big on it. my boyfriend didn't watch the movie and thought zendaya was one of the main characters, because she was so big on it. i know that they probably paid a lot for her and she is one of the most known actress taking part in this, but it's a bit misleading.
Of all of these, I'm most inclined to excuse the 1977 Star Wars poster in 2:39. It's supposed to be this epic space saga and it has more than the heads, right? It has the cast ready in these iconic poses, the background is space dark and there's Darth Vader's head looming over the horizon. Considering how much the movie is a dramatic story of family and conflict, set in space, I think the poster perfectly captures the emotion.
agreed
I have a soft spot for the floating head posters. I know a lot of times is the opposite of creativity, but it just brings me memories of my childhood, looking at movie posters and VHS* covers on the off-brand Blockbuster in my town, where the floating heads in the poster would tell me "this story is so big in scope, and so full of movie stars that half of them never get to share screentime with one another"
*the store went from renting VHS to renting DVD in the mid 2000's and closed arround 2010 or 2012. What killed it? Streaming? DirectTV? Online piracy? I don't know, I was in college at the time
I like movie posters where there are a lot of characters, but it's full body shots. Like, the 2010 Alice in Wonderland. Say what you want about the movie, but the posters were Tres Magnifique! Or the poster for Cinderella 2015. Simple and very gorgeous.
And the alternative posters (usually illustrations) are always so much more creative. They are something I would actually put up in my room
I really do like the floating head posters that are hand drawn like from the 80s, a few modern films/shows have captured this style of poster well like stranger things but without the drawn aspect it kind of loses its charm. A floating head poster is probably gonna be the one that’ll make you watch it for the actors but a stylised poster will be the one you wanna hang up in your room. Also yeah the last Jedi poster is awesome
Why doesn't the G stand for "gigantic heads everywhere, for some reason" or something like that??? Loved the vid btw!
Floating face posters aren't great at being aesthetically pleasing, but they serve their function. As long as they aren't as atrocious as homecoming. They are really annoying on books though.
I HATE it on books so much
your editing has literally been soooo good in these videos - it’s giving professional, it’s giving graphic design, it’s giving visual storytelling
The blue Dune poster is arguably the better movie poster, i.e. an image designed to get people to go to the cinema and see the film, but the orange Dune poster is far more evocative and artistic, so it's the image I'd prefer for more "permanent" uses like the Blu-ray sleeve-art or as a poster on my wall.
2:19 THANK YOU FOR showing me this poster i had NOT SEEN IT it has improved my day IMMENSELY I LOVE IT THANK YOOu especially because i love this movie
the editing in this vid !!!
Love u gorl
Yes, movie posters have gotten really boring.
But who is out there deciding to watch a movie based on a poster? My selection process is a little more complicated than that.
hah me 😶🌫️ i normally maybe read the description and that’s about it I don’t think I’ve actively tried to find a trailer for… a good while. Also like on Netflix the posters it’s kinda just tailored for you to get u to hover over it and watch the mini trailery things
@@itsdivyag I'm usually a year behind on new releases, so I just wait until I someone explains the plot/themes in a way that sounds interesting to me and then pick it up.
And the mini trailers can give a good idea of what to expect.
When one of my favorite UK UA-camrs drops a video on my birthday with my favorite 2021 film in the thumbnail, you know its gonna be a good one!!! Thank you Divya! 😍❤🎊
HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS 🍿🥳🎂
@@itsdivyag Awww thanks, just hit the 20 milestone so am feeling old lol.
Loving all the film sound effects in this vid!!
I love the new production values on the transitions. Seeing Divya thrive, grow, expand, claim, develop. 😔 It just empowers me and puts me in a better mood.
omg 😩😮💨 wheewwww I’m so glad you enjoyed this
i am so excited that you're popping off on youtube finally! I KNEW you were something special and I couldn't believe you didn't have more subs when I first followed
Omigod your hair looks so cooool! Very trendy 👏👏👏
no thoughts, head empty, just floating
🤧🤧🤧
Would absolutely love it if you could do "movie posters in the style of..." like with your book cover series, or even remake bad posters....
OOOOOO SO COOL IDEA
I once watched a video about why the names are never in the same order of the heads and from what I remember its about billing order? So whoever’s name is the furthest to the left (I think?) is there because they’re contractually obligated to be put in the highest billing order. Basically we read from left to right so their name will be read first. But then the designers for the poster will usually put the most important character’s head in the middle of the design because thats what we’re used to seeing in pictures.
Again, I watched this a while ago so I may be misremembering (apologies if thats the case) but I think it makes sense?
I really liked this video. Hadn't really noticed the floating heads trend before, for some reason. Thank you for this video!
Thank you sm!
To each their own, but I like the floating heads. I like seeing what characters look like.
the new hair looks amazing!
Yaaaaaaaaaaas, I've been waiting for this!!! But also PLEASE, if you do a follow-up talking about any additional movie posters, include "Heartbreakers" in there. It's a 2001 film starring Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Fair warning, the poster is BAD and your reaction may be better saved for when you're filming but I'll leave that up to you. 😭😂
Now I wanna make a movie JUST so I can call it "Floating Heads" and have the postor thing literally just be the title with a bunch of the characters' obviously photoshopped heads floating around it. XD
divya ur hair looks SO GOOD!!
Thank you 😩💕
i loooove this video and you hit the nail on the head with literally every reason
I KNOWW MY CAMERA IS A BIT FAR NOW BUT I WILL TRY
oooo we coming for movie posters noww and i'm SOOO HERE FOR ITTTTT
🤧💕
Fire new hair !! ❤️
LOVE your hair In this vid.
Hi Divya can you do more of “making non romance books into contemporary romance Book covers”? If u want to. They’re actually good and it’s a Really good concept 🧡
That intro Is art
Love the new hair Divya!
This is my comfort channel
The poster can only be a floating head situation if it's all head. No body. Just head. ALL HEAD
Ah yes the classic floating heads 😂 Great video Divya!
I don't know why but she's giving me uncle roger vibes by the mannerisms and the way she speaks even tho she sounds british
I think about movie posters a lot and I find that my favorite ones are the ones where the people are looking away. For example the posters for the 2021 movies Spencer, Jack Ass Forever, and Annette. I am also a fan when the poster is drawn instead of photoshopped like the old Indiana Jones /Star Wars movie posters.
I was expecting this video to be of Divya superimposed on a green screen, floating around, with sharp, oversaturated bright red light on one side and blue light on the other. 8/10
You got a point
the purpose of posters is mostly promotional and making the movie easy to recognize, whether its at the cinema booth, or a streaming service gallery. Using faces communicates easily the actors involved and makes it easier to recognize in a pool of different movies where a person has to decide what movie to watch.
when it comes to promotion creativity is not really what is needed when the main purpose is to sell tickets/subscriptions and gain views. it’s a very similar tactic used in UA-cam thumbnails. You design a thumbnail mostly along the lines of other creators without reinventing the wheel. You design it accordingly to what others are doing, and what usually works.
I wouldn't say you should make a IMAX poster of a recent floating head movie (since they're usually the best versions of the posters) but it seems as though you haven't watch a movie in 10+ years.
Also I'm LOVING the hair, color curls *chef's kiss*.
The orange dune poster looks so good. But if I didn't know the movie premise already, I wouldn't choose to watch it because all it communicates is a atmosphere
I really hope that it doesn’t lose its value cause Ive got a beautiful idea.. I mean sure Disney is just ruining it, but like The Bear used it and it looked really good and that was recent
That Spiderman poster is indeed a crime. If you're gonna do floating heads, just put all the characters you want on it once. But they put THREE characters on that thing TWICE. Whyyyyy
one of the reasons I went to see Spencer was because of the poster, it's so simple, it's just meant to be Diana kneeling, it's so simple but so eye-catching
I love that poster !
there's a whole lot of mediums for art. i want clarity in movie posters, show me the actors and maybe location or mood. save the art for limited edition prints etc that don't get hung in the cinema
Your question about the dune posters is interesting - which makes me want to spend money? On a ticket? The one with the actors, cause I wanna see them. On the poster itself, to own and hang in my own house? Ol' Orange all the way
I agree that the floating head posters can be super lazy and often feels like a contractual obligation to have actors on the poster. But there is a way for them to be done correctly where you can see a persons character rather than just the actor themselves. This can be down to a character emoting or including their hands in an expressive way. A poster should hint at a narrative.
I create artwork for Blu-ray releases and often need to include the main cast. I always want to make sure a viewer can tell their personality and involvement in the story. If you can’t tell me what they add to the story other than the actors name then they add nothing to the poster.
Also from my experience with some Indy films, the more people that appear on the poster the more uncomfortable the filming process was. adding people to the poster regardless of their role is a way of silently hoping that the actor forgets their experiences and still promotes the movie … because ‘look you made it on the poster’.
my favourite floating heads poster is thor ragnarok, it is symmetrical and has an interesting colour pallette which makes it more appealing to look at for me!
Ooo yes that one is super nice to look at
It's the opposite of romance book covers where there are floating bodies.
Thank you for the message about Ukraine, Divya! I hope everyone stays strong
i can't remember who but i remember a youtuber said something along the lines of watching movies for the actors is antithesis to art bcos instead of being interested in the film itself, we watch it for the people playing the parts and we instead see the actors not the characters and their story
but even that aside, without knowing anything about dune, i can honestly say that the second poster would have made me watch it or at least be curious enough to look it up. the way it makes the character look small surrounded by the sand and also this black hole, it all really invokes a feeling of being alien and insignificance that piques my interest. also it just looks cooler, so
(i guess that's also why books with their live action adaptations as their covers are inferior to their original covers)
the DUNE title design...I mean...super cool super tomorrow !
Literally when Dune was released one of my friends told me the SAME THING you've talked about here
The Last Jedi literally being one of my favorite movie posters made me realize my basic love of the big head
There are some other posters of same movies which don't have floating heads, they show other things like mood, plot etc of movie.
They got inspired by twice's fancy album cover
This little animated intro😍
Yesss I love it too
6:31 same for the people in yemen,Afghanistan too.
I quite like both types of poster design. BUT I would put the creative one as a poster on my bedroom wall.
its so ubiquitous that even the homeward bound movie poster is floating heads of the dogs and cat (EDIT: correction, I just googled the poster and apparently the original poster was the three animals sitting on a rock and what I was remembering was the cover of the VHS I had growing up, which was their heads looming over mountains)
I know it's all about movie politics and whose agent could negotiate their head being bigger and more prominent or get them better placement in a crowd of heads, but...can't we just like say have two posters? The boring head one and then the artsy one that people can buy to hang on their walls?
Wow, I never thought about these movie posters like that... Well, one thing that this method works is that you see these people on the poster without reading the name of the movie and you just know what it is about, especially if it's part of a franchise like almost all of the Marvel movies or DC movies, Star Wars and Star Trek, etc. etc. You don't even need to bother reading the title and the actors' names, you already know what the movie is going to be about. But sometimes I do wish that they did something else, leave something as a surprise to the viewers, don't spoil it with showing the main antagonist/anti-hero on the poster as this looming face or silhouette or the whole cast jumbled together around some object of importance. But movie posters are like the book covers - either you show everything that the work is about or nothing at all and you just have to take a gamble. And it's interesting to see movie posters of the same movie from other countries, sometimes the styling is so different.
Star Wars gets a pass because they were the first to do it, back in the 70s
Not the X man poster💀
Not just Hollywood. See Netflix's Arcane for instance. And that's not even actors' faces, they're animated...
cool content) I got into tears at the end, and thanks for the support 🇺🇦
Bored of it yes. Everyone likes pointing out the wandavision posters and how they brought up the excitement for the show and i agree because just, doing something different and good works better than having a floating heads poster that i just, like, there's nothing rememberable about it, nothing that matters in it, its just ,there it exists, it won't make me want or not want to watch the film
So many floating heads… so little time
😩💕😭😭
So what's the conclusion??other than trashing all the posters? Do you have better idea or you could have showed what's good poster according to you...
what else would you have them do? just because they show peoples faces doesn't mean it's lazy or they're not trying to show people what the film is about.
It’s just easier to sell when you have celebs faces but it is a safer option than something more artistic but can still get the excitement / message accross. It’s just a risk what they want to spend their budget on.
your!!! hair!!!
That X men poster at 2:20 might just be the worst movie poster of all time 🤔
If they were floating full bodies, it would seem dumber, because you couldn't see their faces very well, and their bodies would seem clunky and irrelevant. They are portraits, more or less, and the sizes give you a clue about the importance of the characters, and the expressions on the more important faces suggest something about the character's experience you might want to see the story/movie to find out about. They are intended to pull you into the story, just enough that you'll feel like you have to pay to find out more.
❤️
You're so spot on with the Spiderman Homecoming poster. Don't get me wrong I enjoy MCU Spiderman but their posters come off as lazy and uninspired imo
Some MCU posters bang esp with interesting composition and colour palettes but some are… to be inspired
@@itsdivyag which mcu movie poster is your most favourite or memorable for you?
IM ONE DAY LATE school keeps me so busy ;-:
School is important dw about being late at all so honoured you even watched it
i just realize girl has been on dis 4 over 8yrs😱😳 lollllllll🥰💕
Did u watch Dune
why not bring up dc films too?
Damn near all of Hollywood gave up on originality. As an art fart is does hurt.
that spiderman one is AWFUL oh my god
Well they want to cram in as many of the actors as possible and they can't always fit in all of their bodies. As long as they fit some scenery in there too I don't see a problem. Some are awful, like The Fifth Element which just has three heads and a taxi.
I despise it when movies are like “oh guys look it’s an known actor isn’t that cool.” And typically it ruins it like that 12 years a slave poster like why is that guys head there it’s a man running for his life and hey guys it’s me Brad Pit like come on. Luckily that poster was taken down later but still just no
Yeah that poster was a big yikes! Sometimes it works but other times feel inappropriate almost
Not ALL but you got your click.
Fallout New Vegas and its DLCs have better poster than Hollywood.
Mujhe laga hindi bolegi channel naam padh ke
Did you need permission to use the poster art in your video ?
Watch Star Wars girl. It’s good.
you should watch star wars. just sayin
I seriously prefer the creative posters instead of the ones with a bunch of celebrities in it, mostly because I know little celebrities so having them makes no difference as I lowkey do not know who they are 🤠
But.
But!
If the celebs are hot non-white people, then it catches my eye ngl. I feel like if they're a bunch of hot white people it doesn't mean anything because I've been seeing this shit my entire life, racism is real and everywhere folks, but if they're non-white actors then I'm instantly 👀
Honestly diversity in Hollywood still mostly sucks and deffo it’s exciting to see new talent rise!
Yesss these posters are so boring, they all look like the same film. Will we ever see anything iconic like the original Jurassic Park or Jaws posters again?
Also, I was expecting to see women with their back towards the camera looking over their shoulder so you can see their arse in the women section - a part two maybe? 🤔🧐
something wrong with your upper lips?