NOTES ON: THE MAKING OF A FILM POSTER

It’s safe to say that modern life brings a fair bit of visual display with it.  In May 2023, The Drum did a pretty non-scientific experiment to assess how many adverts we see daily. On that particular day, with a fair bit of homeworking, the number was 93. Google will tell you it's somewhere around 10,000. The point we’re getting to is that as we sit in Modern HQ, we always wonder how to make artwork for a film poster. And with the release of Hamaguchi’s new film, EVIL DOES NOT EXIST, we think the design created by Sam Ashby is hauntingly enigmatic, as well as visually appealing. 

The film is about the tension between a rural community that lives according to the cycles of nature and the arrival of a glamping project and the city people behind it. 

There are only a handful of stills, but one of them, the girl in the forest, was used when the film premiered in Venice last year. 

Sam commented “I loved the image of the girl in the forest, which really made me think of both our connection to and disconnection from nature; there’s something so intimidating about it. 

From that starting point, Sam developed the title treatment, “The title is hiding amongst the trees, drawing you into the image and hinting at the darker themes of the film.”

Here is one of the first concepts that was developed:-

This is the almost finished poster. We really loved the composition and the way the title treatment became an integral part of the film, making you question the theme. 

And finally. “My last addition was the colourful pattern of oil on water, which refers to the pollution seeping into nature—the iridescent colours are a beautiful warning”.

We weren’t expecting this, but the final design decision on the poster with the colour took the artwork to a new level where there was so much meaning in depth layered into the original picture

Sam also designed a series of concertina postcards featuring images from the film based on earth, air, water, and fire. You can pick the postcards up in your local cinema.

Artwork is not always the same across every country, so here are the posters for the US, Japanese and Australian releases of EVIL DOES NOT EXIST.