“In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood. José “Zé” Pequeno (Leandro Firmino da Hora) is an ambitious drug dealer who uses Rocket and his photos as a way to increase his fame as a turf war erupts with his rival, “Knockout Ned” (Seu Jorge).”-imdb.com

The idea was to use the similarity of design between a camera and a gun. Both of them work in a similar but different load and shoot fashion. After watching the film and seeing that most of the characters use revolvers, I came up with the concept of the cylinder being a film cartridge. Being a huge fan of plakatstill advertisements of the early 1900’s, I thought this would be an awesome opportunity to do something similar. I chose colors that I thought fit the era of the 1970’s and the colors found on the screen. I also chose to have it screen printed on off white paper to give it a more vintage vibe.

The concept of adding the characters came a bit later. I was coming up with concepts in previous sketches that were very character heavy. This movie has some great characters and amazing costume design, and I really wanted to capture them. I thought that adding their photos to the film negatives was a clever way to combine both concepts. Benny, Lil-Ze, Carrot and Knockout Ned were arranged based on their alliances in the film. Rocket was placed closest to the film cartridge, and I wanted Shaggy to be in the background since his story was the background story that kicked off the film itself.

Overall I think this poster did exactly what I wanted it to do. It gives the viewer the idea that these characters storylines are interwoven in a documented tale of violence.