I decided against going with the idea of a poker-themed poster. My basis for this is that chances are, if the poster looks too poker-orientated, then people going to see the film would be expecting a kind of “21” style film, with poker being the main theme behind the film, when in reality, the idea is of gangsters, guns, violence and crime. Poker takes up a relatively small part of the storyline and is only actually played once, instead of something like, say, Casino Royale, where poker is played at several points in the film, despite it being primarily a spy film, and thus the poker theme is warranted (the film is named after the casino the poker games take place at, for instance).
Instead, I decided to hark back to the original basis for the film, and attempted to imitate an old-style, Pulp Fiction-like poster, heavily influenced by the bright colours on a dark background style of the original Pulp Fiction poster, with similar fonts and words adorning the poster. The poster also looks very aged, as if it is from a magazine or something similar, perhaps the front of a magazine actually entitled “Pulp Fiction”, with details such as a small circle advertising the fact that the “magazine” is actually 10 cents. Another effect is that the poster seems to be ripped slightly, which is an idea I tried incorporating into my own poster.
The photos used are vastly different, using photos of the two main characters for my poster rather than in the Pulp Fiction poster, where most of the advertising is of Uma Thurman, despite the fact that she isn’t present for the entire movie and in fact spends most of it either being waited on by one of the more interesting characters or almost dying after overdosing on heroin.
Instead, I took inspiration from a Reservoir Dogs film poster, with the image of the main characters, the gangsters, standing at angles above the title of the film. This was as far as the references went, as I thought I’d found “inspiration” enough from the Pulp Fiction poster, and if I ripped off the Reservoir Dogs poster as well I might as well just copy and paste one of the posters over.
That’s not to say I don’t like the films. I do, quite a lot, hence why I pressed so hard in the planning stages for it to be similar to Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, as well as the British equivalents such as Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Layer Cake.
But yeah, the poster, when finished, will more than resemble the Pulp Fiction poster, as it will not only appeal to fans of the film, but will also hopefully attract a wider audience than those who simply like films about poker, instead attracting fans of the crime and action genres as well.
My decision to use a picture of a cityscape in the background that is quite obviously from London was also in mind of attracting an audience, driving the point home that this is a film that takes place in the UK rather than somewhere in the US, which would hopefully attract fans of films such as Lock Stock and other UK gangster films mentioned previously.
Altogether, hopefully the finished poster will be eyecatching and will attract fans of films such as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, as well as fans of British gangster films as well.
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