The Movie Poster Project: Kali

Verbal Storyboarding Worksheet

How Posters Work – Cooper Hewitt

Link to Poster

Tags: graphic design, theater poster, performance, promotional poster, faces, amplify, mouth, screaming.

Why we chose the poster:

• color scheme very similar to the colors we want to work with for our poster, bloody red, black and white
• focal point of the poster is a face (similar to our poster), but face is abstracted, no eyes and no nose
• circles around her mouth and open mouth suggest she is screaming
• very little text, leaves the audience open to interpret what the poster is about
• tags suggest it is a poster for a theater performance

Link to Poster

Tags: communication, graphic design, advertising, typography, symbols, posters, promotional poster, commercial poster, bees, branding, advertisement, rebus, eyes, logos

Why we chose the poster:

• very minimalistic and simple design, all dark grey/black background and 3 symbols situated at the top of the poster
• use of eye and bee to represent the letters I and B create humor that appeals to audience
• simplicity of the poster makes it easier to remember, sticks in the audience’s mind
• color scheme is very harmonic, all the colors pastel like, nothing too bright that stands out too much
• no information about the brand or the services it provides, IBM such a big name that they can allow themselves to do that
• very different to what our poster is going to look like because of its child like appearance in contrast to our horror movie theme, however, the minimalistic approach is something we can see ourselves working with, try powerful and effective

Link to Poster

Tags: graphic design, activist poster, typography, political poster, president, AIDS, double the meaning, cowboys.

Why we chose the poster:

• main element of this poster is satire and humor, why it caught out attention, using humor to make audience aware of a very serious cause, political criticism
• color scheme and vintage look two elements we felt were interesting, something we would like to incorporate into our poster
• the tags suggest the purpose of the poster: to create a double meaning that can be used to bring across political criticism

Other Inspiring Posters:

• Emphasis on the eye (Kali’s eye turning red symbols her bloodthirst and anticipates to kill)
• Subtext – “The past never dies, it kills…”
• Hand reaching through and out of the eye
• This movie is about a murderer that kills in a motel in La Salle, Texas. Fast forward to 15 years after the initial murder, the murderer returns.
• When the victim looks into the mirror, she often sees the murderer through the reflection of her eyeballs, reaching out for her.
• Poster emphasizes the way the murderer reaches his victims.
• Sub-text emphasizes the return of the murderer.

• Poster features the silhouette of Carrie, the killer
• Simple color scheme – black, red, and white
• Text font is symbolic of dripping blood
• This poster does not reveal too much about the movie, allowing movie-goers to experience an unspoiled plot
• Poster carries a sense of mysteriousness through the implication of a silhouette

• Poster features the concept of the movie – a monster within a being
• Text and font choice relate to the horrific nature of the film
• Color scheme – black and white, nice and simple, and it emphasizes the scariness of the movie

 

Style Statement: Color

• black and white drawing with crimson red accents to represent the blood
• only one town of red, a dark red that has a purple hue to it -> color of blood, also fits better with black and grays, favorite ones are far left, 2nd and 3rd from the right

Media:

• black and white illustration with red highlights (eyes and tongue?), simple line drawing
• maybe incorporate a photo portrait, either to put underneath the illustration to trace or digitally manipulate the photo so it looks like its torn into two pieces -> two sides of Kali

Mood:

• horror movie mood: scary and frightening
• blood/crimson red to suggest blood -> violence

Type:

• gothic like type
• maybe blood dripping from the letters
• main title: large and bold (Red Eye), only first letters capitalized or all letters capitalized?
• subtitle: wrath of the lustful goddess, all lower case to emphasize idea of it being a subtitle

Communication Goal: 

• to scare audience, make them feel uncomfortable
• to characterize Kali, display her two sides: normal girl and evil killer
• convey an overview of what the movie will be about through both the visual and the title and subtitle

_______

(play while reading the scene)

Movie Scene

On this gloomy rainy day in December, Kali and her lover, Shiva, once again find themselves in a heated argument. Kali had, anew, given in to her uncontrollable bloodthirst, barbarically slaughtering yet another innocent passerby. ‘This is the seventh one this week Kali! Your lust has turned into an insatiable desire, look at what you have turned into!’ Her face red in absolute rage, Kali shouts at her husband, accusing him of not trying hard enough to control her vicious and savage tendencies.

Offended by his wife’s unappreciation towards his intentions to help her, Shiva grabs his briefcase and stomps towards the door. He turns on the doorstep, shouting ‘The person you’ve turned into scares the fuck out of me. I can’t help you anymore!’ With a loud bang, the door slams shut. ‘Things have got to change,’ Shiva thinks to himself – but deep down inside

Rageful at Shiva’s lack of understanding, Kali feels the blood in her veins pounding, her fingertips tickling. ‘He’s going to regret this, I’ll make sure of that! What a foolish man he is! Wait until he sees what he has caused!’ She runs outside, onto the busy afternoon streets of New York, immediately spotting the ideal victim. He is standing at the street corner, waiting for the light to turn green. Gracefully, she walks over to him, quietly clears her throat and waits for their eyes to meet. With a charming smile on her lips, she watches him turn towards her. Kali feels the blood rush towards her eyes, she tears both her eyes and mouth wide open. In a split second, she thrusts out her tongue, tightly wrapping it around her victim’s throat, feeling the the spine cracking into a million pieces underneath her tight grip. With her left hand she takes out her pocket knife to cut off tongue and head separately, attaching the bloody edge of the tongue to her own. She feels the warmth of satisfaction spread through her body, a victorious smirk on her lips.

Movie Plot

Deep within the streets of New York City lives Kali, a young and seductive woman who finds herself struggling with the irresistible temptations of a lifestyle she has longed to forget. You see, Kali is no typical being you come across in your daily life…she is a bloodthirsty killer, erratically vile and unpredictable. 

Caught between two identities, Kali has spent her entire life dealing with an internal conflict. Despite her charisma and charm, Kali was born with an uncontrollable attraction towards violence and death. 

On this gloomy rainy day in December, Kali and her lover, Shiva, begin their day with a heated argument. Kali has made yet another mistake, killing another homeless person while walking home late at night from the gym. This marks the seventh person she has killed this past week. Shiva, who has successfully helped Kali tremendously in attempting to control her vicious and savage tendencies, is beginning to feel hopeless. Although in the past he has always acted as an anchor to Kali’s sanity by helping her deviate away from the evil energy within her, her bloodthirst is almost out of control now – and he has little ability to calm her down like he used to. Shiva mentions to her that she no longer seems like the same person; even he feels threatened by her gaze and demeanor now.

They continue to bicker back and forth, but the argument is never settled. Shiva, who was offended by Kali’s lack of appreciation towards his intentions to help her, couldn’t stand it anymore. He got up and left their apartment, slamming the door behind him.

“He’s going to regret this. What a foolish man he is! He will regret this. I will make sure of this. Wait until he sees what he has caused!”

Raging at Shiva’s lack of understanding, she felt the blood in her veins pounding, her fingertips tickling. As she became increasingly upset, her evil side became overpowering; her eyes shined a radiant blood red as she tried to fight the urges and temptations to go hunt her next victim…but she is unable to control herself, and enters into a state of destruction, hungry for blood and death.

She runs outside onto the busy afternoon streets of New York City, and is immediately drawn towards a young gentleman standing at the street corner, waiting for the light to turn green. Gracefully, she walks over to him, quietly clears her throat and waits for their eyes to meet. Her seductive presence immediately draws his attention; with a charming smile on her lips, she watches him turn towards her, smiling. Kali feels the blood rush towards her eyes, and tears her mouth wide open – thrusting out her tongue and tightly wrapping it around the victim’s throat and feels the spine cracking into a million pieces underneath her tight grip. As she feels the young gentleman’s heart stop, a warm sense of satisfaction spreads throughout her body. Before anyone is able to catch her, Kali runs away, with a victorious smirk on her lips.

After returning back to her apartment, her sense of fulfilment quickly fades away. She feels her heart aching for more, craving for the satisfaction to be bigger and for it to be eternal. Kali quickly snaps back into her mood to murder – but this time, things are different. Kali’s eyes are no longer fluctuating between blood shot red and brown. Her appearance seems to have changed, with her traits no longer seeming temporary; they now seem to be permanent. As Kali is about to set out on a rampage to kill once again, she suddenly remembers her argument with Shiva from earlier in the morning. The thought of him enrages her even more, quickly escalating her temper, making her lustful to kill at an even greater scale.

“Fuck Shiva. I don’t need him anymore. I don’t need to suppress my powers! I can do as I wish. I don’t need to hold back. I’ll kill him! I’ll kill everyone I see today! Or even better – I’ll kill him along with the rest of New York!”
With Shiva no where to be found, Kali exits from her apartment, in search of people to kill. After crushing the bones of several innocent people on her street, she realizes that the miniscule scale in which she is killing is too slow, and is no longer satisfying her desires of death. She is craving to kill in quantity. After having glanced at herself through a mirror placed in the window of an antique furniture store, she notices that her eyes are intensely more red than usual. With her seductiveness and ability to lure in her victims growing parallel with the intensity of her eye color, Kali quickly opens up her phone, taking pictures of her eyes and posting it across all social media sites. Opening up Snapchat, she turns on the selfie camera, filming her face, amiably smiling into the camera. She realizes that the local New York City snapchat story is her chance – her opportunity to hypnotize all of Manhattan at once! With her bloody red eyes, she sees one New Yorker after the other, all hypnotized and mesmerized by their phone screens. Feeling her heart beat faster with every single individual she possesses, Kali becomes completely overtaken by the evil within her. Her tongue is tickling second after second, insatiable in all measures, no matter how much Kali relentlessly kills the people around her. Like a serpent, her tongue continues to swiftly crawls through the streets and up the Avenues, tangling the massive skyscrapers in between.

Shiva, who is at his studio in Brooklyn, has regained his composure, and is attempting to contact Kali to apologize to her. Despite his well-understanding of the severity of Kali’s issues, he still loves her immensely. After checking his phone and seeing her bloody eyes all across social media, he looked outside his window and was shocked to find the horrible sight of Kali’s tongue wrapped around all of Manhattan.

“N-no…it can’t be!” Shiva mutters as he runs out of his studio, hurrying to find his wife.

Shiva runs out of their apartment towards the closest subway station. As he is running down the stairs of the station, he notices the carnage Kali has caused, with her tongue now reaching far and beyond Manhattan, over the Hudson River and towards Jersey City. Shiva continues sprinting through the station, leaping onto a train the last second before the doors closed completely. After arriving in Manhattan, Shiva notices the amount of destruction that Kali has caused; people are running for their lives, screaming and crying in horror. Shiva is surprisingly able to find Kali standing near the edge of the Hudson, seeing her watch as her tongue expands across the river. Unable to hold back his tears, Shiva runs as fast as he can towards her, attempting to prevent Kali from creating more chaos.

After confronting Kali, Shiva pleads for her to contain her bloodthirst, but it falls upon her deaf ears. As Shiva screams for her to stop, he suddenly feels her tongue wrap around him. Shiva continues to scream at Kali but she does not realize what she is doing because she is in a state of pure destruction, blinding her from realizing that she is slowly killing her love. As Shiva’s voice depletes, Kali’s tongue wraps tighter and tighter, eventually fracturing bones in his body. Shiva lets out one last scream which startles Kali enough for her to break free of her blood lust. Kali immediately lets Shiva out of her grip and quickly runs to his side, caressing his body within her arms. Shiva’s tears continue to trickle down his face, falling onto Kali’s arms.

Kali roars out a cry.

“What have I done?”