Key Art vs. Realistic Facial Expressions

So, here’s two posters I’ve seen lately held up as examples of the worst in key art. For the moment, let’s ignore how obviously pasted together they are, or how many fingers they may have.

First, let’s just look at the facial expressions:

Then consider those facial expressions within the context of the poster.

Both these posters have in common that they were trying to visually tell something about the dynamic of the movie. For that, I commend them.

Diane Keaton’s cobbled-together pose in the “Because I Said So” poster is supposed to be chastising Mandy Moore, but she’s staring into the distance and smiling, which makes he look more like she’s stoned than that she’s “overbearing.” Tim Allen on the “Crazy on the Outside” poster has a blank expressionless face, completely at odds with the premise of the image, that he is is being driven crazy by his family.

Both posters have in common a decent idea that falls flat in execution. In both cases, it seems they did not get a photoshoot for the express purpose of making a better poster, and thought they could scrounge something together from publicity stills and fix it in photoshop, and in both cases, they were very wrong.

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