Teaser Poster
- Making of the Poster
- “Promotional” vs. “Non-Promotional”
- Downloads
  - Extras
Wide Supplemental Teaser Poster
- Making of the Poster
- Downloads
  - Extras

The Poster Gallery

PAGE ONE

1. Teaser Poster (Released 02/03/14)

Making of the Poster

The website was opened on February 1st with a home page called Greetings. In it, contained the first poster for Trekkies Into Darkness that I had made. It was the original of what would become the Main Feature poster.

In the following days, it occurred to me that I shouldn’t have revealed what will be the final, definitive poster of the film, since I was wanting to launch a poster campaign alongside the buildup of the trailers.

On February 3rd, I withdrew the original poster of what would become the definitive, and replaced it with, appropriately, a teaser poster. As its title, Teaser Poster, would imply, the subject matter lacks the explicit detail of the later posters, in favor of a looser imagery that answers less questions. This placed more mystery onto the film. For instance, the teaser poster really highlights what I’ve called “TID’s Trekkie foursome” throughout my making Trekkies Into Darkness.

The “Trekkie foursome” are the four “top-billed” personalities that you see beaming in, out, or wherever, within their gleaming silhouettes of the Star Trek transporter. In The Making Of, I will tell of how I built the graphic, but nevertheless, it turned out to be a phenomenal stamp of imagery for the film, and the teaser poster gave it prominence to shine.

The centralization of that image beautifully sparks a vague sense of the film, with its silhouetted characters, rather than lashing out an immediate, all-revealing literal framework, such as came after the final teaser poster. So just wait ’till we get to the one after that. 😉

“Promotional” vs. “Non-Promotional”

One thing I did during the poster campaign was cancelled halfway through it. What I did survived only for the teaser posters.

What I did, was release two “equally definitive” versions of the same poster. The difference was between “promotional” and “non-promotional”—the one with the website URL, and the one without it.

My reasoning behind this, was that I could coexist the benefit of having the website URL, with the artistic advantage of excluding it. Artistically, I found that excluding the bulkiness of the URL was favorable. However, I found the URL was an obvious advantage in its adage.

I wasn’t satisfied by my shaky compromise of doing two posters that pandered to both wants, so I scrapped the “non-promotional”, “promotional” bit, when the first feature poster came out.

When making the first feature poster, a simple solution to my conflict dawned on me. I heightened the artistry, simply by making the URL smaller, lowering its opacity—yet preserving the commercial benefit of still having it.

Additionally, when doing the main feature poster, I made the URL even more small. The composition was vastly improved. Whowouldathunkit…

Here and now, and for time’s end, I’d like to proclaim from the celestial mountaintops of my future dwelling place, that the “promotional” posters are the definitive. I’m not rewriting history, I’m only showing favoritism. And if that last sentence ago wasn’t hype, I don’t know what is.

But, my dear brethren, I shall not deprive those of who mourn the loss of the ill-fated “non-promotional” variant, as it dwells, immortally, in the extras lying below this monarchal grin. 😀

TID Foursome cropped

The “Trekkie foursome” transporter silhouette

2. Wide Supplemental Teaser Poster (Released 02/03/14)

Making of the Poster

What happens when you take the teaser poster, flip it on its side, and recompose the elements for the newfound width? You get the Wide Supplemental Teaser poster, of course.

What went into the making of this poster is pretty self-evident, in that sense. But I thoroughly enjoyed taking the teaser poster, and remodeling it.

Here’s a fact that could be a “cherry on top” for the last section: Creating this poster was actually very pivotal in my slashing the “promotional”, “non-promotional” differentiation. The use of the URL on this poster, worked terrifically. The composition had great dimensionality, filling the new space the wider format called for, with gusto.

I have a quaint relationship with this one. This is the one to hang on the backside of your bedroom closet door, kids.