The Making of the Inception Poster
Tomasz Opasinski has been on the creative side of entertainment advertising and tech for the past 20 years. He has contributed to hundreds of entertainment brand campaigns for theatrical, streaming, and television as well as campaigns for video games and interactive industries.
When a studio needs a poster done for a movie what is the first step?
It differs on every film. Reading the script or synopsis helps, then we have a discussion and brainstorm ideas. When it’s early in production, we start with sketches and do a photoshoot to match it. Most often we use assets delivered by the studio and Photoshop the heck out of it - swap characters, places, limbs, etc. We play with color, angle, rhythm, body language, and typography to achieve something that adheres to the message we would like to send to the world through this piece of art. We want people to want to see the feature, not just to like the poster - these are two different concepts that are often confused.
How many concepts are provided for a movie? How many did you provide for Inception?
On average about 500 different concepts. Sometimes it takes a year to design a good poster. Why this many you ask? It’s obvious when you see the final poster, but it’s not when you have five images to start with. My agency’s personal record was 1,250 posters (previews) for one film’s “Summer Blockbuster” campaigns. Years before I became the Creative Director at Ignition in Los Angeles, I did maybe ten concepts for Inception as a freelancer for them. It’s important to also understand what happened with one of the seminal concepts that became a major part of the final poster. Due to a lack of assets, especially 3D renderings, we had to improvise. While all improvisations were 2D, twisting an image in Photoshop, my idea was different. I did a proof-of-concept, with a quick 3D render by Matt Faulkner, to signal to the studio that we’re capable replicating the “bending street” in 3D, like in the movie. Once this idea was approved, one of our vendors designed and rendered the scene for us and led to the final poster you see now.
Are there others you liked that weren’t picked?
There were quite a few to be honest, but this “bending street” is so iconic and different that it grew on me quickly and became my favourite.
Is the creative different depending on the filmmaker? For example, is Nolan involved with the process for his posters?
Yes and no. Some are very involved and dead-on with their approach, many are very involved and completely off, and some just depend on the studio’s marketing team to do the best job they can. I bet that Nolan was involved, but it never trickled down to where I was sitting.
Were you given any specific guidelines for the poster’s final composition?
There is a legal side of commercial poster making that many are unfamiliar with. There are strict requirements for sizing, positioning, naming, along with other “do’s” and “don’ts”. Overall, a poster is the outcome of assets in your possession, compositing skills, ideas, stories, impact, and legal requirements put together. It is a way different environment than fanmade posters, where it’s just you as an artist from start to finish.
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