Movie poster designer Huang Hai’s work - the poster of "The First Incense" was well received. Why is he favored by great directors?

How important are posters to movies? He charges 1 million for a painting

There is a saying in the domestic film and television industry: A good movie poster is worth 20 million at the box office.

Movie posters form people’s first impression of a movie, which plays an important role in the promotion of the work. Some people will even pay for a movie just for a poster.

There is such a top movie poster designer in China: he needs to make an appointment one month in advance, and the construction period is long, the work he gives will not be reworked, and the price starts at 1 million.

However, many big directors are still willing to spend time waiting for his work, and the audience will even walk into the theater to watch a bad movie just because of his poster.

This designer is called

Huang Hai

, a native of Fujian, who graduated from the Design Department of Xiamen University.

Before the Yellow Sea, our country’s film industry did not attach much importance to movie posters. Film producers mainly stayed at the stage of using celebrities to attract audiences——

Big faces on posters There is nothing aesthetic about piling them up.

The poster of "The Secret of the Dragon" in 2015

is a typical example.

What, you said it looks familiar? I think so too.

After Huang Hai realized that he liked to pile up celebrity portraits, he decided to break this inertial thinking.

In his poster, the story of the movie itself is the focus, and the star's face is only a small part of the movie. So the pilot poster he designed for "The Secret of the Dragon" looks like this -

Since he started designing movie posters in 2007, Huang Hai has been doing subtraction - removing useless scraps and digging out the core of the movie. .

The person he is most grateful to is Jiang Wen, because his first work was directed by Jiang Wen

"The Sun Also Rises"

This also laid the foundation for His future design style.

At that time, Jiang Wen's requirements for the poster were simple and crude: it depends on the feeling, no photos are taken, and the material is found in movies. After rejecting hundreds of designs, Huang Hai's work was spotted by Jiang Wen.

This poster became an instant hit at the Cannes Film Festival: with a bright red background, a barefoot woman, and embroidered shoes hanging on a branch, the story came out at once.

This strong visual impact and unique artistic conception impressed everyone. He designed several other posters for this film, which instantly became famous internationally.

Afterwards, Huang Hai’s posters began to experiment with more Chinese styles.

He always carefully studies the script, selects characters and materials from the stills, and then goes to the shooting site to experience it, carefully captures the emotions of the characters, and uses traditional Chinese elements as a visual language into poster design.

In 2014, Huang Hai was invited to design a poster for

"The Golden Age"

directed by Ann Hui. He gave this work:

< p>A woman dressed as an educated youth stands in a corner among the messy dripping ink. The traces of ink dripping are irregular and spread out wantonly, which is a metaphor for the heroine's quiet and peaceful posture in troubled times.

The combination of movement and stillness reflects the contradictions and conflicts of the era background and characters. The heroine stands tenaciously on the page, just like a little person in the torrent of the great era.

The story of female writer Xiao Hong is vivid in my mind, and it also foreshadows the drift of life.

After that, Huang Hai also designed five international versions, which took more than half a year in total. Director Xu Anhua, who has always been strict with details, said "OK" after seeing the poster and made no further changes.

Huang Hai’s use of ink and calligraphy has a strong appeal, which is both the finishing touch and the finishing touch.

In the poster design of Zhang Yimou

"Shadow"

, he only used black and white to extract the black of ink and the white of rice paper. , forming the tone of the poster.

The entire film revolves around the avatar and the real body. The two are in opposition but have a unified relationship, just like the shape of Tai Chi and Bagua - merging with each other but always separate.

The word "shadow" is written in running script, with vigorous and elegant brushwork. Especially the intermittent strokes and discontinuities in the last stroke give people a difficult feeling, which just hints at the character of "shadow" Features.

In the American version of the poster designed for Wong Kar-Wai

"The Grandmaster"

, Huang Hai used traditional Chinese arch elements.

Two people inside the door stood opposite each other, showing the gait and boxing skills of martial arts - arches, martial arts, and robes. It is the perfect balance and interpretation of movement and stillness, a hazy and delicate expression of friendship, and also a A long sense of history.

It not only shows the style of the great master Ip Man, but also has a great sense of lens and literature. These are quite consistent with Wong Kar-wai's personal style.

In terms of poster design for animated movies, Huang Hai also showed a very high level.

The poster of "Big Fish and Begonia"

uses highly saturated colors. Through changes in lines, layers, and colors, it depicts a picture of magnificent colors and fantasy. picture scroll.

A big red fish with smooth lines is in the center, and the girl touches the mouth of the fish, which depicts the wonderful encounter between the two.

The interweaving of red and cyan is the blend of ocean and flame, including the spreading wings of the phoenix, which has strong oriental aesthetic characteristics, and also opens up the audience's imagination of a mysterious dream.

In the Chinese version poster designed for the digitally restored version

"My Neighbor Totoro"

, Xiaomei and Satsuki run happily on the furry belly of Totoro Above, the whole style is warm and healing.

This poster aroused a strong response in Japan as soon as it came out, and it was even on the hot search. Everyone praised the design of the poster as no less than the original.

In the Japanese movie

"Shoplifters"

In the Chinese version of the poster, Huang Hai uses an ukiyo-e style and combines the classic scene of the film with an umbrella to form a The feeling of "home".

In addition to having a strong sense of beauty, it also vividly expresses the concept of family conveyed in the movie. After the director Hirokazu Kore-eda read it, he greatly appreciated this euphemistic and implicit oriental beauty.

In the 2018 world's best posters selected by a British film magazine, "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Shoplifters" were both selected into the top 20.

A series of posters including the 2016 documentary "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City"

were also designed by Huang Hai.

In one of the posters, he selected part of a "Ru kiln azure-glazed string-patterned three-legged bottle" as the background color of the poster, and added a silhouette of a character with a uniform tone among the broken porcelain pieces.

It not only integrates characters and objects into one, but also details the daily restoration work of craftsmen. It perfectly conveys the theme of "big history, small craftsmen, choose one thing, and last a lifetime".

Huang Hai also designed a very eye-catching trailer poster for Chen Kaige's

"The Taoist Comes Down the Mountain"

.

When this ink-style poster came out, it made people feel high-end, and everyone's expectations for the movie were much higher.

Unfortunately, for the final official poster, the director still chose a version with many celebrities, which can be regarded as living up to the reputation of a bad movie.

Also, who would go to see this movie without stars? Story? Chen Kaige has not been able to tell stories for a long time.

An excellent movie poster carries the most sincere emotions and artistic conception behind a movie, not a simple pile of heads.

While fully guiding the commercial nature of the film, it can also carry forward oriental aesthetics. No wonder so many people say:

Basically, the movies are not worthy of his posters.

Finally, let’s appreciate some of the master’s works. The poster of "The First Incense" was well received. Why is he favored by major directors?

The poster drawn by Huang Hai for "The First Incense"

On July 20, when director Ann Hui won the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 77th Venice Film Festival, she prepared The much-anticipated new work "The First Incense" has released a new poster. Words such as "stunning", "unique" and "original" flooded into the comment area. The creator of this poster is the famous Chinese designer Huang Hai. This is also the second time he has drawn tailor-made posters for Xu Anhua's works after the movie "The Golden Age".

In the picture, a pair of female hands occupy the visual center. One of them has red nails and gold jewelry, while the other is slightly plain and plain, which is in sharp contrast. This is exactly the same as Zhang Ailing's description of "aunt Mrs. Liang" and heroine "Ge Weilong" in the original work.

In the novel "Agarwood Chips: The First Incense", Situ Xie gave each of Mrs. Liang and Ge Weilong a "three-inch wide diamond bracelet". Huang Hai seized this point and used it as the finishing touch in the poster, turning a pair of seemingly exquisite bracelets into shackles that restrained the aunt and nephew.

Ma Sichun and Yu Feihong play the roles of "Ge Weilong" and "Mrs. Liang" in the film.

What exactly is the charm of "Yellow Sea"? Why are so many major directors willing to line up and wait to work with him? In fact, , the answers are hidden in his works.

Use your works to express your emotions

Before he officially got acquainted with movies, Huang Hai worked in the news and worked in advertising. These jobs that seemed to have little to do with poster design subtly influenced him. Opens the door to creativity. In 2007, Huang Hai created the first movie poster in his career, and has been inseparable from movies ever since.

This film is the famous

"The Sun Also Rises"

,

Jiang Wen

's masterpiece.

Poster of "The Sun Also Rises"

Jiang Wen's requirements for the poster were "simple and crude": just look at the feeling, not take pictures, and find the material from the film. After being rejected by this "picky customer" for hundreds of ideas, Huang Hai finally found a breakthrough point. In the end, he used a pair of embroidered shoes and a woman to tell the whole story.

This visually striking Dongfanghong made "The Sun Also Rises" arouse a strong response as soon as it debuted in the Cannes market, and also made Huang Hai stand out in the industry.

After this battle, Jiang Wen safely handed over his next few works to Huang Hai for "disposal", including the double-exposure visual effects of "Let the Bullets Fly" and the sword of "The Righteous One". Qi is as powerful as the wind, all coming from his hands.

In addition to Jiang Wen, Wong Kar-wai also counts as an alternative "Party A". Before drawing the American version poster of "The Grandmaster", Wong Kar-Wai didn't mention it at all and only sent him a picture of the shadow of a dancing tree for his reference.

The US version poster of "The Grandmaster"

Huang Hai used this image of virtuality and reality to freeze the encounter between Ip Man and Gong Er in an unforgettable way. Within the arch, the shadows of people and trees are intertwined, kung fu and affection are intertwined, light and dark, movement and stillness, all emotions are in silence. In this master battle with Wong Kar-Wai, Huang Hai was not inferior by any means.

However, it was Xu Anhua who really brought Huang Hai into the public eye. In 2014, as soon as the poster for Xu Anhua's work "The Golden Age" came out, it immediately "monopolized" the audience's attention.

The pen is sharp and every word is like a knife. In that turbulent era, the writers cherished each other and relied on the pen as a support. In another "splashed ink" version of the poster, Xiao Hongjing, played by Tang Wei, stands on paper, alone, with mottled ink all over her body, and a picture of "a life full of ups and downs, rain and rain" emerges before your eyes.

When the poster was born, the word "good" in director Xu Anhua's mouth not only recognized Huang Hai's strength, but also paved the way for the two's subsequent cooperation, and also made this charming " "The First Incense".

After becoming famous with "Golden Age", Huang Hai, who was constantly invited, successively acted in Wu Ershan's "The Secret of the Dragon", Wen Muye's "I'm Not the God of Medicine", and Jia Zhangke's "The Children of the Rivers and Lakes" Designed posters for famous films such as "Shadow" by Zhang Yimou.

"The Secret of the Dragon" (left) and "Shadow" (right)

In 2018, after Hirokazu Kore-eda won the Palme d'Or at Cannes for "Shoplifters", he asked Huang Hai to Its design is a Chinese version of the poster. Although Huang Hai makes good use of national style, he is not willing to break the tranquility of Japanese aesthetics. He chose the classic scene in the movie of a family playing and catching waves on the beach as the main content, and based it on the wave patterns in Japanese ukiyo-e prints.

This scene is from the subjective perspective of the "grandma" in the film. Although she did not appear in the poster, Huang Hai thoughtfully used one of her hands to hold up a big umbrella for the family of five. While the family built a small shelter, it also foreshadowed the reality that "although an umbrella can protect against wind and rain, it cannot protect against the waves of life."

At the beginning of this year, two posters were released for the new film "Swim Until the Water Turns Blue" directed by Jia Zhangke. One picture looks like a sea from the front and a mountain from the other side. In the other picture, the pen turns into a lighthouse lighting up the night. The whimsical idea of ​​the Yellow Sea once again attracted repeated admiration.

"Swim Until the Water Turns Blue" Poster

In fact, more than just movie posters, Huang Hai's well-known design works in recent years also include those for the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival in 2019 The main visual and the series of themed posters he created for the movie channel during this year’s Qingming Festival.

The main visual poster of the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival

In the past, domestic film festival posters gave the public a mostly satisfactory impression. However, at last year’s Shanghai Film Festival, Huang Hai ingeniously presented " "Havoc in Heaven", a classic with its own "Shanghai" and "movie" attributes, was used in the poster. He invited the Monkey King to the "C position". Two little monkeys held up the red tassel spear and slowly opened the water curtain. The number "22" also turned into Sun Wukong's tightening curse, cleverly integrated into the picture, and every ingenious idea was tightly linked. It follows the Shanghai International Film Festival’s theme of “Creating Everything, Behind the Scenes is King”.

Huang Hai created a series of Qingming themed posters for the movie channel

This year’s Qingming Festival, Huang Hai was invited to create a series of themed posters for the movie channel to express his condolences. Under the candlelight that symbolizes mourning, a seedling is growing quietly in the afterglow, with the sun and the moon shining together, endlessly growing; in the powerful words of condolence "Thousands of miles of sky and dancing for all the souls", a dove brings a spring jasmine in its mouth, It is not only the harbinger of spring, but also heralds that we will soon emerge from the haze shrouded by the epidemic and welcome the time when everything will be renewed.

While playing steadily and at the same time, Huang Hai can win unexpectedly. Every time Huang Hai tries, his wings become more and more full, and the public can no longer ignore this behind-the-scenes craftsman who hides his deep merit and fame.

Win with ingenuity

Nowadays, "Produced by Huanghai must be high-quality" has become a resounding slogan in the domestic and foreign film markets, and the outside world has also labeled him "China's best film". Gold-labeled labels such as "Exquisite Poster Designer" and "Zhang Yimou, Jiang Wen and Jia Zhangke".

Nowadays, when this name is regarded as "excellent" by the public, few people seem to delve into the reasons behind it. So, how does "Produced by Huang Hai" add icing on the cake to the movie?

Huang Hai produced a poster for the Oscar-winning film "Green Book"

The poster is not only the first thing the film presents to the audience A business card is an important tool to help film marketing. When the completed official poster is displayed in movie theaters, bus stations, and social platforms, its significance is no longer limited to the aesthetic level, but attracts and drives more viewers to enter the theater and consume the film.

Some people say that a poster of Huang Hai is priced at 1 million, but this poster alone can bring 20 million in box office revenue to the movie.

Many directors also took a fancy to his "great value for money". Chen Kexin approached Huang Hai to make a poster for "Win the Championship" (original name: "Chinese Women's Volleyball Team"). Compared with ordinary posters, the difficulty of "Win the Championship" lies in how to reasonably place nearly ten women's volleyball players in the screen and avoid stacking feel.

The official poster of "Win the Championship"

So, there is this official poster of the film. The video freezes the wonderful moments of the women's volleyball team members' diving, blocking, smashing and other hard work on the field. Huang Hai placed the protagonist on the left. The women's volleyball girls in red team uniforms and the eye-catching golden "winner" on the right "coexist harmoniously" in the picture. It is hard for the audience not to look forward to the excitement that overflows the screen.

Similar ingenuity is also reflected in the poster of "Killed a Sheep". Although there are many characters in the picture, Huang Hai uses natural light to cleverly distinguish them. The contrast between light and shadow creates a three-dimensional sense, alluding to the coldness and warmth of human nature in the film. With the visual texture of oil painting and the authentic Tibetan title, a film that embodies the mysterious Tibetan aesthetic style immediately comes to mind.

The official poster of "Kill a Sheep"

As soon as the poster was released, it attracted many movie fans who couldn't wait to go to the theater to find out. Although the final box office results of the movie are difficult to compete with big-budget commercial films, Huang Hai's poster really did a lot of good.

Different from official posters, trailer posters focus more on how to arouse the audience's interest in the movie. Long before "Win the Championship", the trailer poster drawing of Chen Kexin's other new film "Li Na" was also drawn. It was handed into the hands of Huang Hai.

"Li Na" Concept Poster

The tennis court in the close-up shot occupies the line of sight first, and the diagonal composition enhances the sense of extension of the picture. Although Li Na's body is small, she is present when she is swinging the racket. Leaving a huge reflection on it.

There are many themes, characters, and scenes, without complicated elaboration, and the prototype of this biographical film is outlined in just a few strokes.

But if you often walk by the river, it will inevitably become bumpy. When the final poster of "Detective Dee: The Dragon King" directed by Huang Hai was released, it caused a lot of controversy. "Why do the characters have to be arranged in a V shape?" "The expressions are not good, and the color matching is not advanced enough."

Similarly, among the many versions of posters created by Huang Hai for Jiang Wen's film, the official poster of "The Evil Cannot Suppress the Right" is slightly inferior, and is considered to be "too serious about the halo of the protagonist" and "like a replica of "The Spirit". "Martial Hero"", so the response was mediocre.

As for the success and failure of the work, Huang Hai said that every encounter with a movie can constantly challenge himself. If the posters do not evolve, it will be difficult to better serve the creators.

In Huang Hai’s mind, the poster is the wedding dress of the movie.

He said: "In the final analysis, movie posters are the wedding dress for the movie, 'marrying' the creator's efforts to the audience. All specialities come from the specialness of the movie. Every movie is different. "The same thing." In Huang Hai's works, we can always read the word "understanding". He can always properly understand the spirit conveyed by the film, and extract the elements that are most characteristic of the film, and use and display them. Designer Huang Hai made a poster for Henan. What do you think of the finished poster?

Who is Huang Hai? Many people may think so when seeing this question. If you are unfamiliar with this name, I believe you must be impressed by the movie posters he designed.

Born in Huang Hai, Fujian in 1976, Huang Hai has loved painting since he was a child. After graduating from the Fine Arts Department of Xiamen University, he ran social news on a TV station for three years. In 2002, Huang Hai entered Ogilvy Advertising Company. Five years later, he joined Yuanshan Advertising and served as chief designer, art director and creative director. In 2012, Huang Hai founded Zhuye Culture.

Huang Hai can now be said to be firmly occupying the top spot in Chinese movie poster design. In addition to animated movies, Huang Hai is more involved in the design of live-action movie posters, such as Zhang Yimou's "Shadow", Kore-eda Hirokazu's " "A Family of Thieves", Jiang Wen's "The Evil Cannot Suppress the Righteous", Jia Zhangke's "Children of the Rivers and Lakes", Xu Zheng's "I'm Not the God of Medicine", etc. His poster designs have also helped Chinese films shine at overseas film festivals. , so he has the title of "the first person in Chinese movie poster design". Raise Chinese movie posters to the world's top level. The posters he designed are not only favored by famous directors such as Wong Kar-wai and Jiang Wen, but are also listed as collection targets by more people.

The latest work he recently released is to design three posters for Henan that contain the city's profound cultural heritage - "Roading Around the World", "The Growth of Heaven and Earth", and "Songs of China". The poster shows the profound and long-lasting historical atmosphere of Henan. The wheat ears represented by farming civilization are implemented as a unified element, depicting the "endless life" of Henan in different periods in history. Huanghai extracted representative traditional elements such as bronze, oracle bones, and lacquerware to bring us a visual feast of culture.

With red as the main color, the characters singing and dancing are based on food, telling the story about "land, food, inheritance". The broken texture of lacquerware also reflects the long history.

This poster uses bronze as the main color, and uses reliefs to reflect scenes of ancestors' lives, which is very vivid.

This one also shows people living on crops, and the background is oracle bones, which can be said to be very beautiful.