The Birth of a Nation
Sundance Release Posters
CTT was tasked through Karen Hofmeister of Hofmeister Creative, to deliver some concepts for the Sundance release event for what is already being called one of 2016’s biggest breakout films. There was buzz already surrounding a potential Oscar or two. The film broke an all time record for its sale at Sundance to Fox Searchlight.
We had little more than some low resolution JPEGs to work with. We were also under strict orders by the director Nate Parker to use his silhouette as the foundational image for the posters. We did do a few riffs outside of that however as you can see below. One thing CTT was able to introduce was the incorporation of the American Flag motif which found its way into the imagery being used by the studio to promote the film’s nationwide release. We also tried to sway Nate from using the typeface he wanted for the title of the film and tried an all 1 typeface look but could not dissuade him from that either. We concede he was correct though as the title typeface has become iconic in the film’s final marketing effort.
CTT was not hired later by the studio to continue our efforts but we were proud that our concepts influenced the final marketing of the film. Although Nate only asked for an ‘announcement’ poster to help market the film at the Sundance screening, we did create posters with credits but he decided only to show the announcement poster. Out of respect for the director, we withheld sharing this work until the film’s studio marketing went public. But key art is something we hope to do much more of in the future for actual big box studios. We couldn’t be prouder however to have contributed in some small way to the introduction of this powerful, important and groundbreaking film.