Concept and creative process
‘The Entertainer’ was a one-off play starring Michael Gambon who played a drunken, lecherous, egotistical vaudevillian whose act was on the downward slope. It was a television version of the 1960 feature film which starred Sir Laurence Olivier in the leading role. A simple idea was required by the production, who supplied the background shot for the opening title of people taking their seats in an old theatre before the start of the play, and the endtitle background shot of Michael Gambon leaving the stage empty apart from a chair with his character’s signature bowler hat hanging on the backrest. Rather than purely superimposing type over the background, designer Liz Friedman decided to create a period poster as a vehicle to display the credits. A simple idea often needs as much attention as a 'big' idea. She researched typography and posters from the period, then had the artwork printed in two colours on a white roller, which was shot against black. The roller was placed over the action with a matte and was made slightly transparent to give the impression of the two elements being part of the same scene. Both the maintitles and endcredits were treated the same, in the style of a vaudeville poster.
Concept and Art Direction - Liz Friedman.