movies

The Avengers Poster in Photoshop

abduzeedo — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:20:09 +0000

Super Bowl is always a great time to see some nice movie trailers and previews. One that caught my attention was for the new The Avengers movie. I am looking forward to watching this movie but I also was looking forward to trying to recreate that poster in Photoshop.

So in this tutorial we will show you how to create the shine effect of The Avengers poster using only Photoshop. We will pretty much play only with Layer Styles and the Brush Tool (B).

Step 1

First thing to do is to find the Avengers logo. Just search on Google and you will find a vector version. Then in Illustrator you will have to create 2 new versions using the Object>Path>Offset Path. Use negative value for the offset. I used 2mm for both inner and outer versions.

Step 2

Copy one by one from Illustrator to Photoshop so you will have 3 layers, inner, middle and outer. Hide the inner and middle and let's start creating the effect with the outer shape.

Step 3

Go to Layer>Layert Style>Bevel and Emboss. Use Inner Bevel for the Style, Chisel Hard for the Technique, 140% for the Depth, 50 pixels for the Size, 3 for the Soften. For the Shading use 175º, 32º Altitude and for the Gloss Contour use the same I am using in the image below. Also change the Highlight Mode to Color Dodge with white for the color at 70% Opacity. For the Shadow Mode use Color Burn with black for the color at 100% Opacity.

After that select Color Overlay. Use #32333a for the color.

Step 4

Make the middle symbol visible again and duplicate it. Hide the duplicated version for now.

Step 5

With the middle version selected go to Layer>Layer Styles>Bevel and Emboss. Use Inner Bevel for the Style, Chisel Hard for the Technique, 200% for the Depth, 20 pixels for the Size, 3 pixels for the Soften. Then for the Shading use 175º for the Angle, 32º for the Altitude. Then for the Gloss Contour use the same as the image below. For the Highlight Mode use Color Dodge with white for the color at 80% and for the Shadow Mode use Color Burn with black for the color at 70%.

For the Color Overlay use the same as the previous step.

Step 6

Go to Layer>Layer Style>Inner Shadow and then use Color Dodge for the Blend Mode with white for the color. For the Opacity use 80%, for the Angle use 175%, for the Distance use 20 pixels and for the Size use 30 pixels.

Step 7

Make the duplicated layer visible again and apply the same inner shadow as the previous step. Also for the color overlay use #21262f.

Step 8

Make the inner symbol layer visible. Then go to Layer>Layer Style>Gradient Overlay. Use #031532 for the darker color and #a4c2d6 for the lighter.

Step 9

Select Stroke and then use a gradient from light blue to white with 4 pixels for the size and inside for the position.

Step 10

Now it's time to add the shine effects. That is quite simple it's pretty much basic shapes masked. In this step just create 3 black ellipses and maske them so they will be visible only on top of the inner symbol

Step 11

Now add a new layer on top of the others and start painting some shadows using the Brush Tool (B) with black for the color. Note that this shadows only apply for the middle and outer symbols. Also note that some areas it the shadow gets blurry. You can do that by either using a soft brush or using the Blur Tool.

Step 12

Add a new layer and group it into a folder. Change the Blend Mode of the folder to Color Dodge. Select the layer and then with the Brush Tool and white for the color paint some highlights (1-5)

Step 13

Add some new hightlights if necessary, in this case I highlighted the bottom part of the arrow (1-2).

Step 14

Add the text you want using the Text Tool (T) and then using layer styles apply a linear gradient like the image below.

Conclusion

Select all layers and duplicated them, them merge all the layers into one. Go to Fitler>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Use 10 for the radius. Change the Blend Mode to Overlay at 50%. Duplicate this layer and change the Blend Mode to Screen. The last thing here is to duplicate all the layers again and merge them into one so you can add some noise to the image.

The design is quite simple as you can see and this was just an exercise. There's still quite a few fine tunes to be made, especially the contours. But now it's up to you.

Download the Photoshop file

Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. You can get in follow us via Twitter at @abduzeedo

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Sound Design: The Sound of Drive and Transformer: Dark of The Moon

soultronick — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 16:33:40 +0000

This week, supervising Sound Editor Lon Bender shares his thoughts on the creative process behind the acclaimed sound design for the movie DRIVE.

The project was also mixed at Sound One by Re-recording Mixers Roberto Fernandez and Dave Paterson.

Sound Studio: Sound One

In the next video, the director Michael Bay and Producer Steven Speilberg return for the third film in the Transformers franchise, Tranformers: Dark of the Moon. The amazing visual effects in this film are complimented by the talented efforts of the sound team including Re-recording Mixers Greg Russell and Jeff Haboush, and Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designers Ethan Van der Ryn, and Erik Aadahl.

This is the first 3D film of the series and will also be presented in regular 2D, Real D 3D and IMAX, featuring Dolby Surround 7.1 sound.

Sound Studio: Sony Studios

About the author

My name is Gustavo Guiotto, I'm from Porto Alegre, Brazil. I am an audio/sound aficionado and producer in my own studio, soultronick.com. If you have any suggestions or requests just let me know. You can contact me via email at soultronick@gmail or follow me on Twitter at @soultronick

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Drive Poster by James White: 3 Posters Giveaway - Winners

abduzeedo — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:45:29 +0000

As you have probably seen, James White designed another great movie poster. This time the poster is inspired by the movie Drive. If you haven't seen the movie yet, you should because it's one of the best movies of 2011, especially in terms of style. James was also generous enough and he is giving away 3 of these beauties to us.

In James' words

I finally got a chance last week to sit down and watch Nicolas Winding Refn's film DRIVE, after big recommendations from Jason 'Hobo With a Shotgun' Eisener. Every so often a film comes out where midway through I think "Man, I'd love to design a poster for this thing" ... obviously, I muttered those words during DRIVE. I immediately got to it.

Shown above is the Signalnoise movie poster for DRIVE. Since this is an unofficial poster I created without approval from any of the production companies behind the film (yet?), the first print run will be incredibly small. I'm talking, like 20. Each poster will be hand-signed and numbered, to make it official. The poster stands at 24" x 36", official movie poster size.

I will be giving away 3 of these first run posters via this giveaway, right here. To enter is easy, just leave a comment in the comment box below with a valid email address. Simple as that. Just 1 comment per person please, no blanket coverage or I'll show up at your desk with a hammer. Contest will be open until Sunday evening, October 30. Winners will be chosen at random and announced Monday at 12pm EST, October 31. Halloween!

Thanks so much, everyone. The response to this unofficial DRIVE poster has been incredible and I'm looking forward to getting them into peoples' hands. If you want to see some behind the scenes shots and get more info, check out the blog post on Signalnoise (http://blog.signalnoise.com/2011/10/24/drive-movie-poster/).

So drop those comments and best of luck to all of you.

-- James

Update

Big congrats to Noel_didier, Uncleoflies and DJSoundwav who will receive a super limited edition DRIVE poster. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everybody for participating!

Signalnoise Studio - http://www.signalnoise.com
James White on Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/Signalnoise
James White on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/signalnoise
James White on Google+ - http://www.gplus.to/signalnoise

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Retro Horror Movie Posters

AoiroStudio — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:54:02 +0000

It's Halloween! We all have our ways of celebrating this holiday, some of us will do some trick-or-treating, attending costume parties, playing pranks, telling scary stories or like me watch some old horror movies. This is a showcase of retro horror posters of famous and not-so famous movies from the mid 30s until the late 80s. They are mostly illustrated but in my opinion are the most successful of expressing the emotions and triggering your imagination of fear.

For more information on the movie posters, simply click on the image and you'll be redirected to IMDB Site (Internet Movie Database).

Michael Jackson's Thriller Video Clip

About the author

My name's François Hoang and my alias's Aoiro Studio. I am a self-taught freelance graphic designer from Montreal, Canada. I've been designing for the last 4 years and really have a huge passion for creative work that makes a difference in our world. If you wanna requests some posts; I can be found on Twitter or feel free to contact me.

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Sound Design: The Sound of Real Steel and Black Swan

soultronick — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 19:07:28 +0000

Craig Henighan is a well known and established sound designer. He has worked on several big budget movies such as Night at the Museum, X-Men: The Last Stand, Sin City, Jumper and others.

In the video below, Craig Henighan (sound designer, sound re-recording mixer, supervising sound editor), Skip Longfellow (first assistant sound editor), Warren Hendriks (sound designer), Rob Nokes (sound effects field recordist), and Dan O'Connell (foley artista), talk about the sound of Real Steel, one of his most recent productions.

SoundWorks Collection - The Sound of Real Steel from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

In a totally different context, Craig Henighan talks about the challenge of working on the sound design for the movie Black Swan.

SoundWorks Collection - The Sound of "Black Swan" from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Enjoy and if you are a sound designer, send us the link of your site, portfolio or work.

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Sound Design: The Wizard Ben Burtt

soultronick — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 00:42:40 +0000

Today I will post about the work of Ben Burtt, one of the wizards of Sound Design for the movie industry. Burtt has worked for a staggering number of awarded movies including such as Star Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Indian Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) among other classics.

I am, particularly a huge fan of sound design for animation movies, in which the director has to use all his/her creativity in order to create sounds out of nothing and give life to the characters or objects.

Below you can see some videos in which Burtt reveals some of his sound design secrets used on the Disney - Pixar animation movie: Wall - E(2008)

Ben Burtt Creates the Sounds for Wall-E (Part 2)

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The Final Image

amanda — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:28:02 +0000

Here's a fun little distraction for all you movie buffs today. I came across the Final Image blog last week and spent a good ten minutes going through all the last shots and testing my movie knowledge and memory, which, by the way, is actually pretty good ;) So, give yourself a little break during your day and see how well you can do!

If there's one that you can't remember, don't let it bug you for the rest of the day. Tweet at me and I'll help you out :)

About the author

Amanda Macedo is a designer and blogger by passion and profession. Living and working out of her backpack, she can now be found in San Francisco, CA, biking, writing, dancing, and tweeting .

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Exceptional Work of GMUNK for Disney's Tron Legacy

AoiroStudio — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 16:04:26 +0000

Here at Abduzeedo, we never get tired of light effects, neons, glow and stuff from the 80's! This is a great example all those things put together by GMUNK for the Disney's movie Tron Legacy. GMUNK and his team, did a fantastic work recreating the past atmosphere of Tron and by also adding some new elements from our modern times.

For more information about GMUNK, you can visit Work.Gmunk.com or simply follow him on Twitter @gmunk .

click on the image for direct link to the video

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Western Movies Opening Titles

marcos333 — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:52:54 +0000

Navigating thru some movie sites I've found this huge collection of opening titles from western movies . What attracts me most on these titles is how the typography is used here, western movie fonts are known for using a lot of serifs and details, so here's some great samples, enjoy it guys.

You can see more titles here, have fun

About the author

My name is Marcos Torres, I'm Graphic Artist from Porto Alegre, Brasil. You can get to know more about me by acessing my Personal Website or by following me on Twitter: @marcos333. You can also see some of my last projects at my Flickr.

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Badass Illustrations by Dan Hipp

marcos333 — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:44:03 +0000

Dan Hipp is a truly incredible illustrator, he have done works for comic labels as DC Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Tokyopop, and Del Rey Books. He even made a graphic novel for the character Ben 10, but what really got my attention in his work are his recent illustrations and doodles that I found on his blog.

This guy got an awesome trace, really easy to recognize and a impressive knowledge of how to use color, using a lot of soft gradients and light colors. Also, you wil probably notice that he got an amazing sense of humor and seems to like to add it to his illustrations.

Dan Hipp is a cartoonist whose graphic novels include the epic revenge series GYAKUSHU!, as well as the super-natural, rock, adventure series THE AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS, both of which have been translated and published in other countries. His work can be seen in the BEN 10: ALIEN FORCE "DOOM DIMENSION" graphic novels, which he illustrated. His artwork has appeared in DC Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Tokyopop, and Del Rey Books. He maintains his zombie survival training by watching monster movies and coaching Water Polo. When he's not talking to himself in the third person he's making nerdy pop-culture art just for you. (Dan's Blog)

With you want to know more about Dan Hipp and his recent works just access his personal Blog.

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Horror Movie Posters: Originals versus Remakes

marcos333 — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 10:12:33 +0000

Since I was a kid I really love horror movies, there's something about this kind of movie that really catches my attention, maybe the fear component. Lately, I noticed that some of the most classic horror movies have received a remake version and I found that a comparison between the two versions was a good idea for a post.

Most of this original posters were made on a time before photoshop and other image editing softwares, some were illustrations and manual photomontages. In the other hand, the remakes were done recently, they have a lot of image editing and manipulation. In order to compare both, I posted first the original poster and after the remake poster, you should try to choose your favorite poster for each movie and, of course, don't forget to watch them too.

Dawn of The Dead

Day of The Dead

Friday The 13th

Funny Games

Halloween

The Hills have Eyes

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Piranha

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

My Bloody Valentine

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The Breathtaking Work of Prologue

PauloGabriel — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 02:01:26 +0000

This year we have seen some amazing movies and tv shows. One of the greatest things about some of these movies/shows is opening and end credits. The best part is that we can get to see these work right here, right now.

One of the agencies behind open credits of big budget productions is Prologue. These guys have made from Iron Man to The Walking Dead credits, and their latest work is Tron: Legacy (if the light castle at the opening credits gave you goosebumps, you know what I'm talking about).

Prologue functions as a collective of designers, filmmakers and artists. It is a body with many parts, each performing a unique function, and each supporting the whole. We encourage, challenge and sharpen one another in an effort to create work that is both communicative and inspirational. It is an approach toward design that has been tested and proven over the years, but we remain open to new ideas, methodologies and perspectives. We are proud of our accomplishments, but not content. We especially value our collaborative relationships with our client partners. We strive to support them creatively and help them tell their stories. We believe that when talented individuals work in concert with patience and passion great work is the result.

Here's a brief selection of their work. If you wanna see the videos for each work, you gotta click the image you want and go to their website to watch it, or just go to their website to see more awesome pieces. Believe, it's worth the trip. I really hope you enjoy these. Cheers! ;)

Across the Universe

The Incredible Hulk

Iron Man

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Rockenrolla

Sherlock Holmes

Superman Returns

The Walking Dead

Tron: Legacy

About the author

Hello, everyone! I'm Paulo Gabriel, designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil, born in 1984. I have worked as a webdesigner since 2006, but websites and blogs have been a hobby for me since 1999. Here in Abduzeedo, I try to bring only the hot stuff for you... and hope that all of you enjoy my posts! For more cool stuff, you may also follow me on Twitter.

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Astonishing Movie Art Concepts by Peter Popken

PauloGabriel — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:05:16 +0000

We often get to watch great movies. It might not always have a good story telling there are some cool photography and much of those visuals come from great art concepts made by amazing artists like Peter Popken.

He's done some amazing pieces of art concept for movies like Prince of Persia, Robin Hood and the awesome V for Vendetta. Here's a selection of his work. Also, you should visit his portfolio for more great pieces, from movies such as Aeon Flux, The Bourne Supremacy and King Arthur. Don't forget to check it out. I hope you enjoy these.

Prince of Persia

Robin Hood

Ninja Assassin

Speed Racer

Children of Men

V for Vendetta

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Motion Graphics Inspiration by Kyle Cooper

guest — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:08:58 +0000

When the great Kyle Cooper spoke at FITC San Fran this past August, he did not disappoint. Kyle Cooper is an American film title designer who is known for his memorable, evocative work. Most notably, he elevated the opening titles to an art form with the film, Se7en in 1995. His work has inspired a younger generation of designers, and to this day, he has produced many more film titles. His story in a nutshell is this: Kyle Cooper studied under Paul Rand at Yale, and decided that he would focus on creating film titles. In 1996, he co-founded the creative agency, Imaginary Forces, which is focused on motion design. Once the agency grew substantially, he left and founded the agency, Prologue, which is where Kyle remains today.

At FITC, Kyle Cooper gave a very inspiring presentation entitled "Others: Content and Creative Community". His presentation offered us a rare glance into his genius; Kyle described his creative philosophy and process. As well, he showcased a few of the title sequences that he has designed.

While Kyle strives to provoke an emotional reaction from the audience, he does not want to reveal too much of the story. His focus remains on creating strong concepts, and tweaking them until they are solid. With Iron Man, he created visual riddles with the typography that allude to the story; this served as a means to connect with the audience. Kyle understands the need to engage an audience; he carefully develops visuals that have relevant, contextual meaning to the rest of the respective film.

These days, we have a plethora of digital tools available that make it easier to create digital pieces. That being said, having more tools does not necessarily equate to better quality work. Analogue forms of content have their own merits. Kyle admitted he had a preference for analogue content—that is, physical objects and handmade effects. Se7en has plenty of these including a hand-drawn alphabet, mishandled negatives, scratches, etc.

His reasoning behind his preference is that analogue content offers much more room for creative exploration. Analogue content can be arranged, rearranged and juxtaposed quickly to establish meaning and tone. It is raw, and there is an authenticity that digital tools may not be able to produce. As a result, analogue content gives way for some interesting experiments, some of which may be happy accidents.

3D animation and effects, on the other hand, don't offer that same luxury, and due to the amount of time that rendering takes, there is much less time (if any) to concentrate on tweaking the concept. Ultimately, it's hard not to argue that using tactile objects in the design offers an extra avenue with which the audience can connect. Kyle's creative process has paid off: With Wimbledon, he mentioned that his sequence was chosen over the work that other studios had created, which was more 3D and effects-heavy. See the opening sequence below:

Kyle Cooper's talk reassured one thing: the best design is concept driven. While technology may offer countless possibilities, it doesn't replace having a solid concept in creating a stunning title sequence that resonates with us. Content is king, and building that community with the "others" is paramount... and Kyle Cooper knows this.

Kyle Cooper/Imaginary Forces documentary (1 of 2)

Kyle Cooper/Imaginary Forces documentary (2 of 2)

Demo Reel 2006

For more information about Kyle Cooper visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Cooper
http://www.prologue.com/
The Dark Genius of Kyle Cooper http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.06/cooper.html

About the Author

My name is Janet Cordahi and I’m a Toronto-based visual designer who loves to explore new ways of approaching different design challenges in this digital playground. I specialize in creating original solutions via motion graphics, print and web. For more information about Janet visit http://eccentricity.net/ or follow her tweets at http://twitter.com/janetyelplanety

Movies Infographics Collection

PauloGabriel — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:00:09 +0000

Illustrators have been doing a great job with infographics, and these are getting cooler these days. There are tons of awesome pieces all over the internet, but the ones I like the best are the movies ones.

There are more than one category of movie infographic. There are trilogy meters, random facts, size charts and timelines (if I'm messing any, please, tell us). Here's my section on each of those categories... these are some amazing examples! If you know any more cool infographics, drop us a link. I hope you all enjoy these. Cheers!