Design Challenge
Create Animated Key Art for The Watchers that will be shown on the digital displays in Times Square.
The Watchers
Universal Pictures - release 2024 Thriller / Suspense
Plot Synopsis: Follows Mina, a 28-year old artist who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers that are watched and
stalked by mysterious creatures each night.
The film is based on the book written by A.M. Shine. The creatures in the book are inspired by Irish folklore which was important when considering design approaches. Good reads reviews also used key words like Fairy Tale, Ghost Tales, fairy, and Grimm Fairy Tales to describe the story.
You Can't See Them
Taking the idea of the hidden creatures, the environment will be used to make the negative shape into a figural shape to imply the ever looming presence of the creatures.
Celtic Folklore
Taking inspiration from the Celtic folklore in the story, the design would reference and connect to Celtic art. Infuse hidden graphics that let the viewer discover more of the dark tone of this film.
Behind Glass
Taking the idea of the glass wall that the creatures watch the trapped victims through and using it to show the creatures lurking presence through distorted handprints appearing and disappearing.
Chosen Direction
Celtic Folklore
This concept was chosen for it's potential to create eerie imagery in a unique way that relates to the story.
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NOTES: At this stage, it was clear this direction would require a lot more detail for it to connect to the Celtic art that was referenced. It also needed to integrate more hidden imagery to properly convey the ominous and eerie tone of the plot.
Summary
This pass first involved fixing and enhancing the approved direction based on the notes given. A lot of time went into making the design fit the tone of the film accurately. Next was finding an interesting and fitting way for the type to animate on and off of the poster.
Notes
The main note for this pass was that there needed to be more movement overall. The design matched the tone of the film but the animation wasn't quite there yet. The main idea presented was to make the branches and other details feel alive and spindly to have the unsettling feeling be more apparent overall.
Summary
The second pass was more successful in animation but the elements movement was too puppet like. At this point it was also apparent that the text wasn't going to be legible on the Time Square screens.
Notes
The biggest problem is the text legibility and the composition needed to be reconsidered for the revision passes.
Summary
In this pass, the animation was working well and the title was now big enough to be seen in Times Square.
Notes
Although the title was legible at this point, the blink to reveal it didn't feel like the appropriate solution. Instead it was proposed that the camera should pull into the eye on the tree to push the being watched motif.
