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Thousands of fans have begun to prepare for Oscars parties to find out which actors, actresses, and movies of the 88th Academy Awards will win a gold statue. As part of the celebration, Shutterstock’s company designers have worked again this year to create fascinating pop art-inspired posters for popular films nominated by the Academy.
Afterscholl
Like the many of the different types of movies nominated for the Best Picture award, Shutterstock says its posters share a theme of endurance and testing how far you can stretch the lengths of human nature.
When you think of many of this year’s Best Picture nominees, movies like The Revenant, The Martian, and Mad Max share a common theme of strength, resilience, determination, and power. These themes are stunningly carried over into Shutterstock’s pop-art posters this year. Posters featured include Jordan Roland’s Warhol-inspired Mad Max: Fury Road, which offer a take on Warhol’s “subversive dictator portraits to shape this poster of Immortan Joe,” says the artist. In Cristin Burton’s Flirst-inspired Oscar Pop 2016 The Revenant, the poster includes assembled pieces the artist used to “create a vast, sinister, and lonely landscape.”
Thousands of fans have begun to prepare for Oscars parties to find out which actors, actresses, and movies of the 88th Academy Awards will win a gold statue. As part of the celebration, Shutterstock’s company designers have worked again this year to create fascinating pop art-inspired posters for popular films nominated by the Academy.
Fifty Fifty 50-50
Flirst is a collage artist who assembles disparate pieces to explore how he can change the harmony of the whole. For my poster, a homage to The Revenant, I assembled pieces to create a vast, sinister, and lonely landscape. The poster features a figure with very few people on his side; this represents the film’s main character, Hugh Glass, who was brutally attacked by a bear and left for dead in the winter wilderness.
“I WANTED TO PORTRAY THE SAME WITTY CHAOTIC VIBE IN MY POSTER”
In his “Barcelona” series, Mario Corea Aiello forms a grungy collage of newspaper and magazine cutouts and heavy paint strokes. I felt this style would parallel the vicious storm that left Mark Watney for dead on Mars in The Martian. For the color scheme, I deferred to Eric White’s cover art from the original novel by Andy Weir to capture the characteristics of an otherworldly storm.
To illustrate this, I pixelated an image of a priest, then tore off his head and replaced it with an image of a wolf. I looked to Warhol’s subversive dictator portraits to shape this poster of Immortan Joe.Warhol had a remarkable ability to distract from the meaning of his art. On the surface his work simply looks “cool”.
Boys Will Be Boys
Mad Max: Fury Road has the same effect: The stylized nature of the film gets more attention than the meaning behind it.
I chose to feature Immortan Joe because he is a terrible person, but his iconic look makes him instantly recognizable. When I first read the plot summary for Room, I envisioned lonely, sterile characters, who had been institutionalized by their secluded environment.
Of course, when I saw the movie that perception quickly changed; the characters are full of life, love, and joy, and the audience instantly empathizes with them on a raw, human level. KAWS’ statues play on a similar deceit. Initially they have a sterile, robotic feel, but when you view them in their human-scale sizes and see their playful aesthetic, you experience an unexpected sense of connection.
Noizetortion
Of course, when I saw the movie that perception quickly changed; the characters are full of life, love, and joy, and the audience instantly empathizes with them on a raw, human level. KAWS’ statues play on a similar deceit. Initially they have a sterile, robotic feel, but when you view them in their human-scale sizes and see their playful aesthetic, you experience an unexpected sense of connection.
“WELCOME TO THE OSCARS, OR AS SOME PEOPLE LIKE TO CALL IT, THE WHITE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS”
The Big Short takes a comedic approach to a dark subject, and I wanted to portray the same witty, chaotic vibe in my poster. Keith Haring was my inspiration because his high-contrast, brightly colored political work, which touches on grim subjects like rape, death, and war, hinges on the same contrast as the film. The poster is based on the film’s alligator-in-an-abandoned-pool scene; the alligator represents the main characters in the movie, who took advantage of the 2008 housing bubble and left the world in desperation when it burst.
Waker
Jennifer Jason Leigh, nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The Hateful Eight, seemed slightly out of it during her interview with Ryan Seacrest on E!’s special. But arguably the biggest surprise was Best Actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role nominee Kate Winslet (Steve Jobs) playing to their nostalgic fans by walking the red carpet together. Can you believe it’s been nearly two decades since they starred together in the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic (which took home Best Picture)?
Movie Buzz
“IF HOSTS WERE NOMINATED, I WOULDN’T BE HERE; INSTEAD, YOU’D HAVE NEIL PATRICK HARRIS.”
Rock, who addressed the issues with ease and expected humor, added that he did seriously consider quitting after so many people spoke out and pressured him to do so. “But the last thing I need is to lose another job to Kevin Hart,” he said, as the crowd erupted in laughter (including Hart himself, who was in the audience).
Arguably, the best part of Rock’s monologue was his blatant dig at Jada Pinkett-Smith and her vocal “boycott” of the Oscars. “Isn’t she on a TV show? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties,” he said.
