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This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Movie Poster Type
This is probably the most popular effect in Hollywood movie titles, and it's used in a dozen other places as well (I saw it in a Levi's print ad just this evening). It uses the technique of grunging a photo (which is used in another tutorial here in the book), but it uses it in a different way. Also, after you've created the effect, you'll drop it into a movie poster layout (you'll have to do a little work there, mostly formatting type, but it's easy).
- Step ONE. Open a new document in RGB mode. Click on the Foreground Color Swatch and set your Foreground color to red. Press the letter “t” to get the Type tool and create your type (the type shown here is in Compacta Bold, from Bitstream, with the Horizontal Scaling set to 85% in the Character palette).
- Step TWO. Open the photo that you'll use to create your grunge. Photos with lots of vertical lines seem to work best; photos that have lots of rounded objects (like palm trees) don't work nearly as well (I know from experience). I had to test the effect on about eight photos before I found this one.
- Step THREE. Go under the Image menu, under Adjustments, and choose Threshold. Drag the slider nearly all the way to the left, to remove the color and detail, leaving just broken lines, spots, and smudges (as shown here). This is the step you'll probably have to try on a number of photos until you find one that looks good. Click OK to apply Threshold.
- Step FOUR. Switch to the Magic Wand tool, then click directly inside one black area of your photo (it will probably only select a tiny section of your photo). Then go under the Select menu, and choose Similar (as shown here) to select all the similar black colored areas in your photo
- Step FIVE. Get the Move tool and drag these selected black areas over into your red Type document as one unit. When it comes over, press Command-T (PC: Control-T) to bring up Free Transform. Hold the Shift key, grab a corner point, and drag inward to shrink the photo until it's just slightly larger than your text (as shown here). Then press Return (PC: Enter) to lock in your transformation.
- Step SIX. Press “d” then “x” to set your Foreground color to white. Then press Shift-Option-Delete (PC: Shift-Alt-Backspace) to fill
your grunge junk with white (as shown here). Press Command-G (PC: Control-G) to group the white grunge inside your Type. You
can now use the Move tool to reposition the grunge that's inside the type. At this point the type portion of this effect is
now complete.
EXAMPLE:
Here's an example of how this effect was used for the logo of the hit comedy American Wedding just so you can see how it would look. However, turn the page, and we'll continue with our “Blackmail” logo and turn it into
a complete movie poster.
- Step SEVEN. Press “d” to set your Foreground color to black. Go to the Layers palette, and click on the grouped layer that has your grunge on it. Then press Shift-Option-Delete (PC: Shift-Alt-Backspace) to fill your grunge with black (instead of the white grunge that was there).
- Step EIGHT. Open the photo you want to use in your movie poster. Here's a typical “stressed guy working late at the office” photo. You'll use this as the main photo for your poster, but it'll need a little editing later on (as you'll see).
- Step NINE. Open another new document, and make it have a vertical orientation (like a 5"x7"). Fill the Background layer with black. Get the Move tool and drag the stressed office guy onto this black background. Position it so just the man is visible, and not the computer. Get the Brush tool, choose a large soft-edge brush, and cover up the desk by painting over it with black paint strokes (as shown).
- Step TEN. Go back to your grunge type document. You need to merge the grunge layer and Type layer together but you can't merge Type layers with other layers. The trick is to link the layers first, so click in the second column of the Type layer to link it to the grunge layer, then press Command-E (PC: Control-E) to permanently merge them. Switch to the Move tool and drag this red type over onto your poster document. Scale the type down to size using Free Transform.
- Step ELEVEN. The final step is to add the rest of the movie poster type. The type at the top (in all caps) is set in Trajan (from Adobe). The subhead under the red type is set in Futura Extra Bold (from Adobe) with 220% Horizontal Scaling. The small type at the bottom is in Helvetica Bold Condensed, and the “Coming Soon” at the very bottom (in red) is in the font Impact.
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Page 11 of 11