“The Key Art Awards will continue to acknowledge excellence in the creative art of movie marketing and serve as the environment for nurturing and serving the extraordinary creative community that creates it.” So says Tony L. Uphoff, publisher of The Ultra-Fabulous Hollywood Reporter.
We were so hoping that Tony (yes, we call him Tony, in that chummy, clubby sort of way we call our gardener and our housekeeper by their first names, too.) would tell us more about this year’s two new categories: Most Condensed Billing Block and Biggest Snit Thrown By A High-Strung Creative Type.
Adding new and exciting categories each year is a Hollywood Reporter tradition. It not only insures that the Ultra-Fabulous Key Art Awards Ball will be a long, butt-numbing event, but, at $225 per entry, it enriches our “extraordinary creative community” as well… just like this “nurturing environment” would surely enrich our souls, if we had any.
Edwina, in recognition of my hearty portfolio (measured by the pound, not the weightiness of the concepts) of relatively tantrum-free creative excellence (dumpster-dive behind any WalMart for a gallery tour of a life well-exploited in service to the entertainment marketing industrial complex) I hearby forward a new annual Key Art category:
"Movie Poster that Got Closest to Hanging in the MultiPlex Before Being Yanked By the Movie Studio"
Yes, just because a campaign has been lovingly conceived, created, paid for, signed off-on and physically printed, doesn't necessarily mean it will go from the delivery truck to premiering in the edge-lit frames at your local AMC.
A myriad of wondrous reasons can torpedo key art at the final nanosecond. Decisions by the chain of command must be honored! This category should be recognized for the furry unicorn it trots around to be!
Two possible ways to judge:
1) Award by the shortest tape measure in distance from the delivery truck to the frame for a poster that almost hung.
2) Measure by the length of unbroken days keeping people awake to create a fresh, last-minute campaign that has some connection to the trailers already running for 6 months.
Mr. Tony, (not yet chummy enough to go full force with his first name only) please feel free to take credit for this worthy idea and champion the excellence of movie campaigns that almost were.
Posted by: justified billing block head | Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 11:09 AM