Here is the second and main artwork I did for Would You Rather, the first being the teaser art which you can see here.
Working with the Director David Guy Levy we decided to go down a more classical design style for this poster art, to convey the atmosphere of The Lambrick Foundation’s dinner party which these unfortunate guest are invited to attend…
I wanted to have it feel like the poster belonged in the grand old oak dining room of the films setting and present a conservative business vibe. So the colour pallet was created to reflect this classic tone as well, with the green having an almost almost aged leather quality complimented with a slightly faded red. This ‘classical’ tone is then further drawn out in the typography of title design and the frame design.
In an early cut of the film some of ‘Wendy Carlos’s’ wonderful music was used as a placement holder in some scenes and i loved that quality in her work that is classical yet with a modern electrical twist to give it a darker and sinister edge (particularly in films like clockwork orange). So that feel was very much what i wanted to come across within the poster design, and it felt very fitting for the setting of this formal dinner party.
As there are quite a few guests at the dinner we felt it was probably best to just focus on the main ones to give the image a more simple concise visual. Britany Snow is the main character so all the focus is on her, the difficulty came in how to present characters at a dinner party (where one is sitting at the head of the table another a few seats down etc) in a simple portrait format without over complicating the visual, so i came up with the idea of having Jeffery Combs (Mr Lambrick) literally looming over Britany at the table.
The devil was in the subtle details in this one, so i encompassed visual references to communicate the darker side of the film. Having Britany sitting there tense with her streaming mascara and an expression of fear, the twist on the visual of the knife and ice pick tensely gripped in her hands. Combs merging out of the darkness with his hands on her shoulders and the shadows on his face forming subtle evil expression with devils horns on his forehead all convey this sense of evil terror and suspense.
I then was able to play about with the frame design to place the sub characters of Enver Gjokaj and Sasha Grey within it to knock them back and separate them out further from the main focal point of Britney and Coombs so they would clash. however space for these characters was then limited so i could fit in much more that a portrait image but i needed to have them in some form of peril so i utilised the unusual electrical head bands which although an average viewer wont instantly know what they are, they do suggest a form of torture and dark edge.
Finally i really wanted to incorporate the little card icons from the film. which again wont be very clear to the viewer exactly what they mean, in the context of the design you just know the its not going to be good (especially with the eye and tooth!!)
For the other actors i wanted to incorporate them all in the design as some have VERY recognisable faces if not names so i decided to include them in that classic 60s/70s line up along the bottom of the poster which gave it a nice touch i thought and also blended in well with the images of Enver and Sasha at the top.
