Art of the Movie Poster #3: The Messenger

You’d almost think with the smudged out, charcoaled choice in colors that the makers of this poster art didn’t want to credit the talents of Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster, when in fact, the artwork captures the tone of the film and what would look like a random two head shot composition is in fact the stance taken prior to a car wreck moment of impact. With an ash-like contrast that foreshadows the psychologically difficult zone that members of the military experience on the home-front, Oren Moverman’s directorial debut profiles the functions of one of the military’s least desirable jobs: Casualty Notification officer.

After learning the ins-and-outs of running a grassroots marketing campaigns in their inaugural year of operations, Oscilloscope Laboratories are certainly poised to support the troops that are the make up The Messenger, which opens this Friday. We had a chance to speak to Zoe Chan, the Art Director over at Oscilloscope who guided us through the make up of this unique poster one sheet.

Gino Pagliuca: With the number of anti-war films that have been coming out over the past few years, creating a new visual that captures a part of that subject seems like a daunting task. What was your approach?
A: A lot of thought was put into this and we explored a lot of different approaches. In the end we decided we wanted to come up with a poster image that would be iconic. We wanted it to have its own unique look and feel that would be striking and memorable, rather than try and describe all of the different emotional aspects of this film. The film itself is very powerful. It really strikes you emotionally and we needed to come up with a poster that could encapsulate the force of the story. We worked with a talented and well known designer, Neil Kellerhouse.

GP: It’s considered bad etiquette to have a US Flag in any other position. What statement is being made in relation to the film’s plot/themes?
– This is an interesting element of the soldiers uniform. The flag is worn with the “appearance” of being backwards on the right arm to symbolize early American armies which had a flag carrier holding the flag high. The flag looks backwards from one side while correct from the other. The “backwards” flag signifies this and gives the perception that every soldier is carrying a flag. This is something that is understood by military people as a symbol of patriotism. For people who do not have this history it may be read in a more ambiguous manner. The tension between these interpretations are an interesting way to begin to describe essential tensions within the current social/political climate and within the film.

GP: Normally film posters try to highlight the top-liners…could you discuss the gray scale color choice and the fading out Harrelson’s and Foster’s faces.
– This kind of posterizing effect is something that Oscilloscope Laboratories has done in the past as a way to create a very graphic image from a photograph. Primarily it serves to turn a photograph into an image that is more of an iconic graphic, rather than a specific representation of an actor. We originally started working with more naturalistic photographic treatments, and found that kind of approach didn’t convey as strong a feeling as what we wanted to achieve. We also did a special color print run of the poster, using metallic silver as a base. This gave the poster its own unique look and feel. The metallic color is somewhat reminiscent of the old silver printing technique that was used to document the civil war. However the modern typeface and overall look of the poster is thoroughly imprinted in the current times. History is now.

GP: There is an embroidery-like coating – were you making reference to notions of home?
– There is actually a pattern of X characters across the image. When you look at it closely you see it as an abstraction of XXXXX, and they form something that looks like it could be a stitching grid, like embroidery or detailed cloth work. This can be interpreted as many things including: the anonymity of uniform, censorship, loss, and more specifically as a metaphor for an individual within many.