Movie poster ‘floating heads’ designing through photoshop image editing

The magic behind the most widely used trend in movie posters is the ‘floating head’. It is the play of aesthetics than a science.

The world of movies is glitzy and the harbingers of movies are the flamboyant movie posters – now with the trend of making floating heads!

The active tendency in modern film posters recently is to create a black background with the faces of the lead actors/actresses above the name of the movie.

It requires generous amounts of creativity, imagination, dedication and patience to come out with a enchanting movie poster with floating heads, of course with complementing help of photoshop image editing and graphics services.

Though it sounds like child’s play, it is not a cake walk at all. It really needs all the converging attention and aesthetic faculty of a graphic designer or a photo editor from the selection of the faces to be added, the proportions to be given to each face, the colour combinations to choosing a appropriate backdrop.

I have noticed one of the posters of the movie, “Space Cowboys”. I could see faces of four actors in a stark black background – the expression in each of the face conveying their character in the movie with a play of light and shade giving its pecific effect.

Similarly, a movie poster of “Godsend” portrays three faces in a triangle form highlighting an unappealing expression on one of the faces and giving a fiery effect in the middle of the poster with a shadow cast in it. On the parallel track, one of the “Rules of Engagement” posters displays two of its lead actors’ faces showing a flaming inferno under their faces with an armed man’s silhouette in it. Almost convey what the movies are about, isn’t it!

Some prefers the much highlighted face of the hero alone in the poster expressing their ideas through bold strokes of assorted colours to it or some choose a mix and match of half the face of the lead actor in one corner and that of the actress in the opposite corner of the poster to get the desired effect (Malice). The antihero’s face is given particular highlights by some while that of the hero being chased will be given miniature form.

Photoshop image editing or graphics can do a lot of magic in the movie posters with floating heads. A very creative photo editor or graphics designer can express the whole movie’s theme through a single poster by the correct number and proportions of the faces selected, the background colours and the special graphic effects which would enhance the feel and appeal of the whole poster.
In a very interesting movie poster of “Crash”, we can see 17 faces tightly packed up to form a very effective poster. This shows that there are no written rules for creating the floating faces in movie posters. If you are into photo editing with a strong grip in graphics, you can be a successful movie poster maker with floating heads, just let your imagination run wild to discover new trends in this area.

Article by : Rarima N S
SBL – Technology People Trust
SBL Custom album designing

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