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MOVIE POSTER & TITLE SEQUENCE (2019)
One of my largest passions is making designs revolving around the entertainment industry. This advanced typography final assignment was to create a movie poster for a prospective film adaptation of a book of your choice and also make the animated title sequence for it. I chose the autobiography Becoming by first lady, Michelle Obama, to be made into a documentary biopic. Being in charge of the campaign, I chose to cast singer Beyoncé to play Michelle to avoid doing the obvious approach to the design.
Movie Posters
For the promotional posters, I incorporated the lead actress, Beyoncé, portrayed as iconic images of Michelle Obama. The main version is an interpretation of the well known book cover for Becoming reimagined using Photoshop to entice the viewer with something familiar but different. The alternate poster is another manipulation of a famous depiction of Michelle Obama, this time with Michelle’s famous painting in Washington D.C. by Amy Sherald with Beyonce’s likeness imposed on it. Since I had complete art direction, I didn’t want to do the obvious and just include a normal portrait of Michelle. I believed that it would spark interest and have many marketing opportunities to feature the lead actress to play her instead, since that would be a hotly debated subject if this film were to happen.
Going through many iterations, the typography and imagery of the final result derived from research and studying successful movie posters and target audience context.
Draft one
Draft Two
Draft Three
Movie Poster
Alternate Movie Poster
TITLE SEQUENCE ANIMATION
As an applied exercise of type in motion, the title sequence of movies have always been a typographic feat for any designer. I wanted to use type in an immersive and clever way to portray the beginning of this prospective biopic of first lady Michelle Obama. Using Adobe AfterEffects, I animated objects in relation to type and paired the elements to the movie poster to create a cohesive visual language. I sketched storyboards for each frame of the video to generate clean transitions and concepts. Stock footage of Chicago, where Michelle is from, and old photos are featured as visual elements. I used Beyoncé’s performance of ‘At Last’ from the Obama’s inaugural ball as a signifier of her close relation to the Obamas. A custom modified A24 movie productions logo is also featured below.
The theme of the title sequence revolves around a reveal at the end. Something both Michelle Obama and Beyoncé share is their pride in their African American backgrounds and as females. I incorporated powerful black and mostly female creatives to have credits in the film. The little black girl viewing the Michelle Obama painting was a real occurrence and a display of the impact that Michelle Obama had, and I thought it would be a great summation/introduction to the film.
