Design Context

David Locke (Jack Nicholson) is a television journalist making a documentary film on post-colonial Africa. To finish the film, he is in theSahara desert seeking to meet with and interview rebel fighters involved in Chad's civil war. Struggling to find rebels to interview, he is frustrated when his Land Rover gets hopelessly stuck on a sand dune. After a long walk through the desert back to his hotel, a thoroughly glum Locke learns that an Englishman, Robertson (Charles Mulvehill), who has also been staying there and with whom he had struck up a friendship, has died overnight at the hotel.

Locke decides to switch identities with Robertson; he is tired of his work, his marriage and his life, and sees an opportunity for a fresh start. Posing as Robertson, Locke reports his own death (Locke) at the front desk, where the hotel manager mistakes Locke for Robertson, and the plan goes off without a hitch.

In London, Locke's wife Rachel (Jenny Runacre) has been having an affair. She feels guilt-ridden and torn when she is informed of her husband's death. She approaches Locke's friend, Martin (Ian Hendry), a producer at the BBC, in an attempt to get in touch with Robertson so that she may learn more about her husband's last days. Meanwhile "Robertson" (Locke) has flown off to Europe with the dead man's belongings, including his appointment book.

Locke soon learns that Robertson was gunrunning for the rebels whom, as a reporter, Locke been trying to contact in the desert. When he goes to check out an airport locker listed in Robertson's diary, Locke is tracked down by the rebels' point man in Europe. He is there to complete the weapons sale. Since neither man has ever seen the other before, Locke escapes the meeting without being discovered He takes the cash left in the locker as the first down-payment for the arms deal Robertson had set up before his death.

Later Locke accidentally spots Martin on a street in Barcelona, as the latter tries to track Robertson down on behalf of Rachel. Locke backtracks and at this point bumps into an architecture student (Maria Schneider) while trying to hide nearby. He asks The Girl to fetch his belongings so he won't be seen at his hotel, where Martin has apparently camped out in order to catch up with "Robertson". She sneaks past Martin, and leaves with Locke as he drives off from Barcelona. They become lovers. While trying to explain his recent behavior, Locke confesses that he has stolen a dead man's identity.

Locke is flush with cash from the down payment on the arms he cannot deliver, but is drawn to keep the meetings listed in Robertson's book. In the meantime, Rachel has received Locke's belongings, which were returned from Africa. Having heard from Martin of his unsuccessful chase of the elusive "Robertson", Rachel receives a shock when she opens Locke's passport, only to discover the photo of Robertson pasted inside. She now realizes why "Robertson" was so elusive, and heads off to Spain to track down Locke.

Locke begins fleeing from the Spanish police, whom Rachel has brought in on the search for Robertson. The Girl is loyal and helps him evade them, providing rational advice. Locke sends the Girl away on a bus, with a grim story of a blind man who regains his sight only to commit suicide, saying he'll meet her later in Tangiers later.

The thugs catch up with him at the Hotel de la Gloria ^[2] in the Spanish town of Osuna, province of Seville. The assassination takes place off screen in a seven-minute long take-tracking shot which begins in a hotel room, travels out into a dusty parking area and tracks back into the hotel room.^[3] The police and both women find Locke motionless in bed. His wife Rachel says she "never knew" the dead man, while the Girl identifies him as Robertson.

Jack Nicholson as David Locke

Thinking about the fact that we're designing a film poster, I thought about looking into existing posters for The Passenger...

I couldn't really find that many posters for the film - there were only a few alternative posters, as they seemed to have a strong image used for their advertisement at the time, and it seems to remain barely touched or changed.

The original poster for the movie was featured in landscape format, however they also created portrait versions for flexibility and a slight change in layout.

More recently, the poster was remade to advertise the film being screened again as a 'return'. The poster used for the return of the film was pretty much the same as the original, however it featured slight changes, for example the quotes by critics and the main image used looks slightly modified.

I found a few other posters for The Passenger, designed in different styles to the original..

I thought that this poster was quite weird, as it made it look like a bit of a horror movie, through the choice of typography, composition and colours.

The poster was quite different when designed for other languages. Even the title of the movie changed to "The Reporter" or "Profession: Reporter"..

I really like the simplicity of a lot of the posters - I especially like the posters that feature huge imagery from the films (the sony classics posters) and a small amount of text at the top of the page. I think that when I come to designing my poster for the film, imagery is going to have to play a huge part in it to make it visual.. I don't think you could portray insanity through typography alone..

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http://www.alternativemovieposters.com

Seeing as we're going to submit our posters to this website, I decided to have a look at existing posters on there for classic films..

The Avengers

I noticed that a lot of the posters featured on alternativemovieposters.com are highly illustrated and vector image based. 

The only poster I found that was more typographic was the following:

The Birds

Trailer For The Film: