One of the hardest parts of making our last film, Journeyman, was figuring out how to describe it to people, and "sell" it, before we were even finished making it. We didn't choose our final title until very late in the game, a few months before the screening, if I remember correctly, and our poster image/branding was equally challenging... the two photos we ended up using featured none of the characters who were in the actual film; that's just how it worked out.
Even coming up with a one-sentence, 40-words-or-less synopsis is way harder than it seems, breaking down everything that goes on over the course of an hour-long story into a single subject-verb-object construction.
I'm expecting it to be just as difficult this time, but I've committed to getting an early start, trying out lots of possibilities and sharing them with people to see what seems to be working, and what doesn't.
The men in my men's group graciously agreed to let me shoot photos of them at one of our meetings, and to post this one here. It was challenging but also exciting to engage with them in such a different way, to bring a camera into the room.
Thanks, guys.
I would love to have some feedback about this image, if you're willing to respond in the comments.
I like the photograph. I think the expression on Randall's face is really soft and strong, which is the very definition of Randall himself. I like the black and white...Dain looks reflective in the corner. It's really great.
ReplyDeleteMy two other observations, for whatever its worth, is that two men are wearing heavy woolen hats and Randall's got a heavy sweater, maybe Steve too. So one of my first reactions was, "Wow, that must have been cold." The lack of color also highlighted that for me. Chilly. Are they keeping him warm? It was a fleeting thought and I wanted to share it. In some ways, it's awesome - chilly, Minnesota men with warm hearts. I totally could read that into this...on the other hand, if they don't know it's Minnesota men will the photograph be too 'chilly' to create emotional connection?
Second observation was about the big block title and italic smaller font. It kinda made this entire thing look like a successories poster to me in some ways. Or their evil cousin, Despair.com. Go check out those posters. Big beautiful image...inspirational/or soul-crushing tagline.
Again, these are just impressions. I do like the photograph, notwithstanding.