Graphic Manipulation

Ever seen Zathura? Some people called it Jumanji 2. For me? Not even close. The film tragically lack the magic Jumanji had.

But surprisingly, Zathura had a really wonderful trailer. It really worked on the wonderful graphic of the game board. Displayed as an old game, the drawings on the game board's surface is badly scratched in some places, the color is a bit off, with all the hallmarks of an old skul comic.

And there is where the beauty lies. The trailer makes use of this beautiful drawing, animate them and combines them with actual clip of the movie. Interestingly, although the color of the graphic is a bit off, it blends nicely with the movie snapshot. It successfully portray the imaginary outer-space world in the mind of, let's say, 10 years old boy.

One interesting technique they used here that I think would be really helpful for any moving-graphic designer is the way they chopped up the outer space graphic elements, and animate it separately, to create the illusion of depth in a 2D world. There are rockets, planets, clouds, smokes and of course texts, moving around in a beautiful choreography. 

This trailer really exceeds my expectation (I watched the movie first and then the trailer). For you who haven't watched the movie, you might be better off just watching the trailer. It is the kind of work who would have led innocent audience to expect a really cool movie. But, again, don't bother, it's just a way of us, designers, manipulating the public to run to cinemas.  A really fine work at that :-)

 

Source: Trailer from prologuefilms.com