I love living in a world where people have enough food, clean water, shelter, security and freedom to be able to occupy their mind with stupid shit. To wit: Robert Fure of filmschoolrejects.com’s Boiling Point blog is pissed about the lack of shell casings in the movie poster for The Losers [above]. How great is that? The man is on a roll. “I’ll just briefly mention in passing that guns don’t really shoot fireballs out of them. The muzzle flashes are crazy over the top. Anyway. In trying not to nitpick, I’ll just move on to the biggest reason why you shouldn’t over rely on photoshop. Pooch. Here he is throwing tons of shell casings around. They’re back. Let’s examine his stance. Clearly he’s right handed and holding the gun as a right handed shooter would. We can clearly see his right trigger finger safely along the frame of the gun. Strange, normally people pull the trigger with that finger. Maybe he’s using his left hand. But no. His left index finger is wrapped around the grip of the gun. All fingers are accounted for, yet he’s still firing the gun. There is the problem.” As my father used to say, “May that be the worst problem you ever have in your life.” But once we’re at it . . .
Using photoshop after the fact creates a ton of problems. You forget things. You overlook things. You end up with unrealistic amounts of flash and insane numbers of shell casings. You get a guy that either has 11 fingers or that has a magic gun that shoots on intent, not trigger pulls.
Luckily (for the fate of humanity) Fure has an answer!
What’s the solution? Take the damn photo. For real. Don’t fix it in post. Don’t try to photoshop it later. You want your characters shooting guns? Then put guns in their hands. It’s a lot easier than trying to insert a gun later. The Losers isn’t the only guilty film, not by a long shot. The pictured poster here, of The Brave One, still sticks out in my mind. Photoshop can’t force a perspective like a real photo can. Instead you get this strange fist out of nowhere, gigantic, the size of her face, clutching a gun and aiming it off at some awkward angle. It hasn’t even been all that cleanly defined. But somehow, someone is okay with this. Instead of getting Jodie Foster to take 10 seconds out of her day to point a gun at a still camera and get a good photo, we get this.
You know what really fouls my weapon? Websites with white text against a black background. Just sayin’. And TTAG is still looking for a gun-oriented movie reviewer. Email [email protected].
