Kevin Smith has posted via his own silentbobspeaks.com a teaser poster for Red State, his now finished (more or less) horror movie about a group who encounter extreme fundamentalism in middle America. Start thinking along the lines of God Hates Fags and these lunatics. The poster was created by the assistant to Red State producer Jon Gordon. Smith posted the following up on his website…
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Moody, weird, and pitch-perfect for the tone of the film. If I went out to an ad agency here in town, I’d be billed close to 20 grand for a campaign that’d maybe… maybe… include this poster. But this piece of artwork (I call it “The Holy Ghost”) didn’t come from a top-tier ad agency: Jon Gordon is my RED STATE producer, and this poster was created by his assistant, Melissa Bloom. So we’ve got a marketing image that was put together by someone who was on set every day, integral to the process that produced the film which inspired this image. This isn’t the work of some gun for hire who’s doing six other campaigns; we’re not just one of many. The marketer is actually family, RED from pre-production all the way through wrap, so she’s got an insight into the flick that no ad agency could ever boast (not even one-time Glo-Coat golden boy Don Draper over at SCDP). I’ll take passion over pedigree any day.
When we first looked at Melissa’s poster, someone said “You should give this to the ad agency as a guideline.” Guideline? Was an ad agency gonna make us any happier than Melissa’s image made us? The Holy Ghost is kinda perfect, and more importantly? It gives us a starting point from which to launch our home-grown marketing campaign. There’s an immediacy to it, but also: anybody could’ve taken the initiative and did this themselves. If folks were wondering why Melissa was skating up near the blue line, far from the corner where the puck was, it’s because she saw where the puck was gonna be, and just waited to make her rush on goal. She shoots, she scores.
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And here be that poster! Whilst this movie was certainly a labour of love for all involved it certainly, from a financial view point, sounds like it was a return to Kevin Smith’s earlier lo-budget days. And I hate bringing it up, but his Clerks guy thing will never die, we all remember how shit hot Clerks was! Red State is shaping up nicely!!
