Over the course of having my first feature Cam-Girl released worldwide and a few distributors involved to give input, I've learned a lot about what goes into making sales art that gets their mouse buttons clicking. First, it must be said that every case is different. What is the genre of your movie or book? Look at examples of other sales art similar to your product to get ideas.
If it is a movie, do you have a well known actor in it? If so, it is a smart play to put that actor's face as the prominent subject on your sales art, even if they were only in one scene. This is done all the time, in that case the actor is the sales incentive, the element that will bring attention to your movie. If you do not have that in your favor, you will need to have a striking image that best represents your story and what the viewer should expect. For example, the poster of a Psychological Thriller should look much different than that of a violent Horror film. If you have an action movie, the image should capture a moment in the middle of an action scene. If it is a teen sex comedy, you better believe that a teenager and an attractive woman would be on the sales art.
In our case of Cam-Girl, we had several story elements to consider. Here is the logline:
A single mother who works as a webcam stripper, is pushed to her limit when held hostage by an unknown gunman.
So we have the single mother character motivation, the sex appeal of her job as a cam girl and the home invasion suspense plot. How do you hit all these points home with one image? I went to work and here is the poster I designed:
We have the title big and at the top, the four images that highlight those story beats of sex, violence and motherly love. Also the tag line, "One phone call will turn this stripper into one bad mother" those words separate each image relating to the one below it.
Here is the full art for the North American DVD release:
Not bad right? Well, when I signed with a distributor for foreign territories, they said they would want new cover art made. Not a problem I said, this distributor Leomark Studios has been distributing content worldwide since Video On Demand sales started. I would have been a fool to think I know more than they do about streaming sales and what image would be likely to bring in a return.
When they sent me the artwork they want to use, I instantly knew they were right. Here is the foreign release sales art for Cam-Girl:
Again, the title is big and at the top. The image is high contrast and sells these two main story elements, an attractive cam girl who has a stalker. But most importantly...... it is told all in one big image. This is a must these days because your cover art not only needs to spark interests as a full sized poster, but also when it is a mere thumbnail image among a catalog of competing images in a video queue. Take this for example:
Take a look at my original poster on the far right. Those four images do not read at all at that size. Now, see the new art which is the center image, that still stands out even at this diminutive scale. As filmmakers we do not have control over how these Video On Demand platforms display our poster. Instead we need to make that sales art work even in the worst case scenario such as the one illustrated above.
For a Novel, you can take more liberties with the image because that format plays into the imagination of the reader. A book cover could be an illustration instead of a photograph, just as long as it best represents the story and the tone of the prose. The same rules apply, but you are not pinned down by the images the same way you are for a movie. It still needs to be a high contrast, evocative image that will make them want to know more, discover what lies behind the image.
Cam-Girl is about to be released in the foreign territories with the new art, so I do not yet know how big of a difference this will make. What I do know, much like the sales art itself, the future looks bright. I hope this helps, happy filmmaking.
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