Visualizing Sound: Creating the Movie Poster for ‘Berberian Sound Studio’

A friend of mine regularly reminds me that much of what designers do is destined for the landfill. It’s a sobering thought, kind of like the realization that your future will most likely involve an intimate relationship with ground mulch. Everything is finite and a lot of what propels us forward is the meaning we carve out for ourselves. Visions of being remembered in the annals of design history give plenty of people a sense of purpose in their life, while others sustain themselves on the prospect of higher wages. The more altruistic will say that their cockles are warmed solely through following orders.

I’ve never been on a quest to please, nor have I had any delusions about securing a place in the history of design. Fame is fleeting, money only lasts for so long. There’s no end goal I hope to achieve, no mountain to get to the top of or a princess to save. I’m just interested in playing a long game against myself, trying to be better than what I was capable of the day before. That momentum propels the process forward and makes these projects into a journey of exploration rather than one of just idly checking boxes off on a bucket list. Everything is best served in moderation, though, and as motivating as pushing yourself can be, using that as on its own can lead to a host of messy results. That happened both with this project and, in a case of art imitating life, to Gilderoy, the sullied sound foley artist of Peter Strickland’s “Berberian Sound Studio.”

Blending together sight and sound to create a wholly unique experience, “Berberian Sound Studio” revolves around the increasing frustrations and unraveling mental state of a sound engineer working on an Italian horror film in the 1970’s. It was one of the first films that I’d worked on in awhile where I’d had some passing knowledge of its existence: it premiered months before in the UK, backed by a vibrant set of posters that either played off of the soft, beautiful imagery within the film or brought to the forefront it’s giallo roots. A pre-existing campaign often isn’t a burden when a project is separated by time, but the fresher something is in the public’s consciousness, the greater the risk there is at being influenced and stumbling onto similar lines. Pulling from the same visual well as the original would speak honestly to the look of the film, but would teeter on the edge of that well-trodden ground. Berberian offers a premise rich in interpretation, allowing for different roads to be taken without straying too far from any central themes or ideas. It’s a unique film that grants the opportunity to push oneself without worrying about getting too weird.

That doesn’t mean the process won’t go up in flames, though. This sort of did.

Many of the early sketches were an incomprehensible mess; there were sound ideas, but the driving force became less concerned with focusing on them, and more with a desire to repeatedly try stranger things. A demon made out of sound equipment, Gilderoy’s face peeled back to reveal another world within – bizarre for the sake of being bizarre, but in a way that tried to top what came before. It can be a miserable process, watching pieces not click together despite continuously attacking the problem at different angles. Things get better, eventually, but then the rigorous second-guessing begins: are these being pushed far enough? Can they go further? Do they feel too easy? Do these avenues make any sense?

Scribbling without a direction can offer a multitude of possibilities but deadlines are always looming, and too much time spent yanking your own chain is a recipe for a whole lot of form without much of the content. What’s being produced becomes too insular and alienating to an audience not steeped in design history; a case of the work having it’s head firmly up it’s own backside. A clear idea, some semblance of a path forward – those can give definition to creative chaos. Thematically, Gilderoy becoming consumed by his process, causing the subsequent unraveling of his mental state, offered a foot hole in which to reign everything in.

Sound reels became the focus, with magnetic tape spiraling outward and becoming a chaotic mess in several versions of the poster. The foley artist is devoured by the equipment he employs, becoming a part of him or covering the gaps that would be filled by traditional facial features. Fantasy and reality collide sometimes violently within the film, so many of the pieces use rough juxtapositions between different sound waves and other shards of imagery to evoke a fragmented sense of unity. Themes and similar patterns of exploration were strewn across different ideas rather than honed in on for a single piece as a way of playing within a sandbox, rather than getting lost within a jungle again.

Berberian revels in ambiguity, employing certain techniques and staging certain scenes in a way that makes their meaning open to interpretation. That, in of itself, offers a license to make associations and indulge in bizarre imagery. The large, looming eye that found its way into several iterations is strange, and its addition is more emulative of the film’s aims by being suggestive rather than communicating a literal idea. Grounding everything falls to the title treatment (emulative of vintage vinyl packaging) and, in the case of the final one-sheet, the familiar, vertical structure used in most modern film posters. For a film that works against convention, a case could be made that laying everything out in a way that’s overly-familiar contradicts the story’s ethos, but I see it more as a coincidental nod to a classic Argento poster.

Now, with all of that said, this managed to be both the easiest and difficult assignment I’ve tackled lately. Both IFC and Peter Strickland were wonderful; their reception to the work out of the gate isn’t typical in this business, and at the end of the day it’s existence is owed to them.

The rough patches only asserted themselves in my own time, created by myself, while I privately waged a war against myself to move in directions I wasn’t altogether comfortable with. The results were satisfying in the end in the face of a tumultuous process.

Here is the final one-sheet:

There are an infinite number of ways to solve a problem, although some reveal themselves more easily than others. That alone is enough to make anyone roll into a fetal position and call it a day. Obstructions help reel things in, though, keeping the project moving forward without going too far off the rails and spiraling out of control. The temptation is there to try so many avenues, regardless of whether you’re prepared or not, and building walls for a sandbox can be the only thing standing in the way of stooping over your equipment and thinking…

“Berberian Sound Studio” is now playing in theaters and is available to rent on iTunes, YouTube, and other VOD outlets.

Check out the previous installment of The Art House: The Beautiful Movie Posters of Post-War Germany.

Categories: Columns

Tags: Berberian sound studio, Brandon schaefer, Dario argento, Giallo, IFC, Movie posters, Peter Strickland, Process Post, The Art House, Toby jones

The Art House: Making the Movie Poster for ‘Simon Killer’

We’re all looking for answers. For some people it’s spiritual, for others, it’s as simple as finding meaning in their lives. Graphic designers can be a little less subtle: we’re the ones trying to figure out how the person next to us designed something so jaw-droppingly fantastic that our entire career up until that point feels like one long, drawn out con. How can you blame us? In this business, when something comes along that knocks you on your rear, you’ve got two options: sulk in a corner, or brush yourself off and get educated. If this were 1600’s Massachusetts, I suppose you could just start accusing people of witchcraft before having them burnt at the stake for their display of divine (if inhuman) acts. You wouldn’t learn anything, but it’d be one less clever person on the planet. Thankfully, this is the 21st century, so we just send polite emails asking for pointers, instead.

Still, there are more pieces of work out there catalogued in books or by websites than there are explanations of how they came to be. It’s unsurprising, when you think about it: sitting down to construct a singular narrative out of a process that tends to have the hallmarks of a Lynchian nightmare is, well, a challenge. The details are often illogical on the surface and without much discerning order. I’d say that, at the risk or heresy, it’d be easier to just chalk everything up to “magic” and be done with it. But having been and still being one of those people that revels in learning how work is put together, it’d be silly of me to at least not try to delve into what goes into putting a poster together. No one’s demanding I be set up in flames or anything. Talking about how babies are born does feel like the next logical step for this column, though. So here we go.

Late last year I worked with IFCFilms on Antonio Campos’ “Simon Killer.” For the unacquainted, the film follows a recently graduated American traveling abroad whose relationships slowly bring to light his true, troubled nature. It’s an engaging, atmospheric picture that stays with you long after the credits have rolled. And when you’re putting together a poster, being able to get in that headspace, to live in that world, allows for a better synthesis of tone. These days, people seem to favor simple, witty solutions, but often it’s not about showing off how clever you are; the film itself comes first. Being able to drag a feeling out from the screen and onto a page can allow for that while bringing forward something more immersive, possibly even a bit more complex.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Every job is different. Although, there’s a skeleton to the process that tends to be the same. You discuss themes, images, feelings, and ideas – the nuts and bolts of what you’re trying to communicate – with your partners in crime (in this case, Antonio and IFC). Some then head straight to the computer; I wind up scrawling notes and sketches into notebooks and onto scraps of paper, the kind that would look like they make sense to serial killers and forensic experts. Believe me, I can barely make sense of them long after a project’s done. See for yourself:

Basically, you know that drawer that everyone has in their house filled with things that don’t have a home but just ache for a place to be tossed and forgotten about? My notebook is like that. Granted, I come back to it. And sure, it might smell a little less awful, but any idea, now matter how foolish, gets pulled out of the old noggin and stuffed in there. This might be infuriatingly cheesy and cliched, but it frees up space for other ideas to crop up while holding me back from harboring one thing for too long. Chip Kidd said it best: never fall in love with an idea. They’re whores.

There’s an honest truth in that, especially when you realize that sketching alone usually gets you a quarter of the way to the finish line, often through momentum alone. Staring at a blank page is terrifying; having several filled with barely discernable nonsense to guide you makes it less so.

Most of the key elements that made their way into the rough comps on the computer were born during that, with the main drive early on focusing on Simon himself. He’s a lonely, isolated character, and you get the sense that his attempts at connecting with other human beings are ultimately hollow. I tried blending that together with the lights and color along the Parisian night sky, playing towards his fragile emotional state and hoping to evoke something dreamy but altogether unsettling. Some of the roughs were good, others complete failures. Type and image work together, and when you’ve got large, menacing shots of the star bathed in red glowing light with the words “Simon Killer” underneath, you start to marginalize the film rather than honor it’s breadth and scope.

These are the things learned along the way. You try, you fail, you fail harder, you move on. Rarely do solutions fall from the sky fully hatched (although, it has been known to happen – in the bathroom, inconveniently enough). Sometimes you’re methodically working towards a solution; other times, it’s like play, except you’re feeling around in the dark for what you think is a light switch…that’s supposed to be at the furthest corner of the room that you can’t see. On the wall. And to the right.

This was more of the latter.

We shed a fair amount of work, somewhere in the double digits (as you usually do) and landed on two directions: the first was a very dark, yet vibrant red poster of a naked woman bathed in the blur of the city lights. A last ditch attempt at trying to bring together the relationship between sex and violence that slightly underscores the picture while being audacious enough to grab people’s attention. I’d show you, but honestly, aren’t some things better left to the imagination?

Unused color + light blending studies. Pieces cannibalized for the final poster.

And then the final which, oddly enough, I can’t say much about. This is a process post about a design that came together at the end very quickly, Frankensteined out of bits and pieces that weren’t working as well on their own. It heavily trades in on poster cues from the 70s (entirely appropriate given the mood of the film), while pulling together ideas touched upon earlier without being burdened by living up to an image of the main character. And that’s ok. That’s what process is about: falling on your rear and learning from your mistakes along the way so that you, hopefully, wind up being able to walk in a straight line without looking like a dope.

The final poster.

To wrap this up, a few things. First, you’re only as good as the people you are surrounded with. Both IFC and Antonio have a sharp eye, and if it weren’t for their presence throughout all of this there’d be no poster. Obviously. But it’s never said enough how much of a difference smart, brave people can make in allowing work through the door that doesn’t make you squirm at night. Second, and lastly, for the one person out there that actually reads this, gets to the end, and asks, “Yeah, but how did you make it?” Easy: I took a picture of my eye one morning after breakfast and now it’s looking out back at you whenever you stare at that poster.

Sweet dreams.

“Simon Killer” is currently playing in select theaters, and opens on VOD this Friday.

See more of Brandon’s work on his website.

Read the previous installment of “The Art House” here.

Categories: Columns

Tags: Antonio Campos, Ifc films, Process Post, Simon killer, The Art House

Poster: Hunger Games Teaser Released

Here’s the teaser poster for The Hunger Games (in theaters March 23, 2012). You can access the large version by clicking on the image below. Enjoy!