Anthony J. Merced

There is an old saying: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Unfortunately the same saying does not apply to movies. Audiences can be drawn or diverted by the artwork splashed over a 27×41 inch canvas. Bright colors, sexy people, and exotic places have all been used to entice viewers into theater seats since the inception of Hollywood. While these items seem essential to selling a movie, they’ve lacked the bang that once helped to create the buzz in movie theaters.

Movie posters serve a very similar purpose to book covers. They tell you the title of the movie, who made it, and provide an image to best describe what lies ahead. Of course, movie posters take it one step further and give you information as to who is in the piece and may even reveal a bit of the plot. The main difference between the two is the lack of imagination on the movie end. What I mean is that a book is completely dependent on your imagination. A writer may be extremely descriptive. However it is up to the reader to create that image in his or her mind. As for a movie, the image is not dependent on the viewer whatsoever. The image is dependent on a person you may never see, the director. This difference automatically makes judgment essential. A book cover is almost never an indication of what lies beneath the cover. Whereas a movie poster is almost an exact replica of what you’ll see on screen. The colors are similar, the scene is similar, even the composition is similar.

Imagine walking into a movie theater to see Gone With the Wind. The bright reds and yellows fill the famous poster. A sense of romanticism jumps off of the paper just as it does off of the screen. Now imagine that you sat in the movie theater and Gone With the Wind had turned out to be a dark drama with heavy blues and pale grays. The audience would be confused and disappointed. They sat down to see Gone With the Wind but instead saw Donnie Darko.

This is what is happening the modern day movie posters. We are no longer receiving an idea of what we will see. Instead we are occasionally being duped into viewing something entirely different from what we expect. Imagine picking up a Harry Potter book only to find out it’s really The Da Vinci Code. Part of this is due to the reliance on character posters. These are posters that focus more on characters within the movie than the movies themselves. The only problem with this is that they create an attachment that may not be rewarded later on in the movie.

My favorite example of this is the character poster for Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds. Her character sees far less screen time than any of the others yet her poster makes it appear as if she is a main player.

The confusion doesn’t end there. The other deception that has become commonplace is the misuse of names. Many times a famous director, actor, or writer will be thrown onto the poster even though they have little to do with the production itself. Most of the time they simply gave money. However, their name is used to entice fans to see something that is far from what they would expect from that name. A recent culprit of this deception has been Peter Jackson. While he lent some assistance to the film District 9 you would believe that he made the movie himself from the size of his name on the poster. Unfortunately this is far from the truth.

Movie posters have become more about deception and less about presentation. I understand the need for an occasional lie. However this has become common place in theaters across the country. New names have been unable to catch on since they are continually suffocated underneath the successes of past artists. While I do understand the enormous selling potential of the established artist, it is equally important to groom the budding artist that will eventually replace the incumbents.

Let me begin this blog by speaking about why I’m excited about being able to see a Yankees game. I work in theater, not the movie theater, live Broadway theater. Therefore, my hours of operation differ greatly from that of your typical weekday warrior. It’s not easy. Most days it’s downright annoying. I’ve missed out on tons of social opportunities, music performances, birthdays, and yes… baseball games. Your average baseball game starts at either 7pm or 8pm. Unfortunately, yours truly, doesn’t leave the office until 9pm every night. By the time I get home I’ve missed more than half the game. This could easily be remedied by spending every single night at a bar. However doing so would adversely affect my wallet and my liver. So this week the Yankees are on the west coast. That means that each game doesn’t start until 10pm, just in time for me to take a deep breath and sit down with my reheated dinner (Thanks Jen ). So I will thoroughly be enjoying the Yankees six games in Arizona and Los Angeles. I can’t promise not to cry when I see Joe Torrie and Don Mattingly in Dodger Blue but that’s something we can get to at a later time.

This past Saturday was my first step into a larger world (get the Star Wars reference?). We began principle photography for my first feature film Small Jobs. There was a lot to do in the ten hours of shooting we managed to pull off. One of our main actors, Cynthia Zitter, was only available this past weekend. While it was hard for us, we were all happy for the circumstances behind the crunch shooting. She got an amazing acting opportunity down south. Thus, we had to fit in her major role into one day of shooting. Luckily for the crew, she was a rock solid worker and plowed through the material. If not, we would still be sitting in that cramped apartment getting the 1,000,000th take of scene 38. She wasn’t the only actor to give a great performance this weekend. Mario, our male lead, showed up and got dirty… literally. I don’t want to give away any plot points but he definitely needed a change of clothes by the end of the night. (Check for a set photo at the bottom of the blog)

The rest of the credit must go to the awesome, unpaid, crew that did everything they could to have a good time. While it was hot, sweaty, and sometimes tedious we all got our laughs in and had fun. Jen Gallardo saved my life taking up the role of cinematographer. She spent nearly the entire week mapping out how we’ll shoot the 71 page feature. While I may get a lot of credit for the film, she must take a large part considering my head would have exploded had I been forced to do this job along with all of the others accompanied with making a movie. Her input was also insightful and eye opening. Having a still photographer add her ideas helped to make the film more interesting. Many times my own cinematographer tends to be flat. You can see it on my Youtube page.

The rest of the crew: Jen McFann, Jason, and Hilary all took up different roles throughout the day. Some of them will have their chance at acting in the coming weeks. They also passed around slate duties, boom mic operating, and continuity. All of which are important jobs. None of them are ever rewarded. Many times you notice when those people don’t do their jobs but never notice when they do them well. No one will notice some of the work they did on Saturday. However, without them, it wouldn’t have been possible to do what we did.

We’re still a long way from being done. I’ve said that the movie will be screened on December 2nd. While that’s half a year away it never seems like it’s far enough. I look at my calendar now and while summer has just begun, I’m already thinking about winter and what needs to be done before then. There’s still a lot to do. But with a fun group of people around to do it with, the work doesn’t seem quite so hard.

First Set Photo

Every time a movie dies, a devil gets its wings. If that’s true then there are a lot of flying devils circling the southern half of California. A comparable amount also circle the island of Manhattan. Unfortunately for yours truly, there is one circling his small uptown apartment. That devil managed to take flight thanks to the death of my horror film The Horror At Piney Point. It breathed its last breath in late April when scheduling conflicts proved that it was being held up by pillars made of paper instead of stone.

Movies in general are at their weakest during pre-production. Making sure everyone is on the same page can sometimes be harder than figuring out how you’ll actually shoot the damn thing. Taking on the role of an entire film crew also means you’re constantly being pulled from one end of the earth to the other. Unfortunately, trying to direct a project that is visually ambitious while also being producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter is just too much for one person to handle.

I’ve never been very good at delegating either. This is something that has been my Achilles heel. I tend to work with a crew of one. And when people are involved, I seem to hold most of the complicated tasks close to my chest. This has hurt several aspects of my previous shorts tremendously. I’ll sacrifice cinematography for performances or wardrobe and props for sound. While none of this was the reason for The Horror At Piney Point to die, it definitely would have made the experience a lot more painful. It may have even killed it at a later date.

Now that the project is dead, Small Jobs is on the agenda. I promised myself last year that I would make a feature length film in 2010. I haven’t abandoned that ambition. It’s still very possible, especially now that I’ve reined the film back from several obscure locations and brought it home to New York City. Small Jobs is not a horror film. Describing it as a drama also doesn’t do it much justice. I’ll post all about it in the future but know that we’re a week away from principle photography. As the date draws closer, I look forward to correcting mistakes I’ve made in the past and making new ones to learn from.