Creating key art worthy of a horror icon
Client
SC Films
Country
United States
Disciplines
Movie Marketing
Sector
Entertainment
Film Industry
SC Films International is a London-based film sales, distribution, finance and production company working across live action, animation and family entertainment for the international market. Its role spans the commercial life of a film, helping producers finance, position and sell projects to distributors around the world.
The brief
SC Films International commissioned BakerWilcox to create the international sales key art for the documentary. The challenge was to develop an image that would immediately connect with audiences familiar with The Exorcist, while clearly signalling that this was a thoughtful, behind-the-scenes examination of the film rather than a conventional horror release. The original film came with an extraordinary visual legacy, including one of the most recognisable posters in cinema history. Our brief was therefore not simply to reference a classic, but to create something that could sit confidently alongside it, preserving its atmosphere and authority while establishing a distinct identity for the documentary.
BakerWilcox always deliver, and always on time. Having worked with them for more than 20 years, I cannot speak highly enough of their professionalism, talent and deep understanding of both the film industry and our requirements as a sales agent. I would recommend them without hesitation.
Managing DirectorSC Films International
Original 1974 artwork
New Key Art
The execution
With only a limited selection of production imagery available from 1973, we turned to an original behind-the-scenes photograph showing Regan on the bed with a clapperboard positioned prominently in the foreground. The image offered the ideal balance: instantly recognisable to devotees of The Exorcist, yet sufficiently revealing of the filmmaking process to communicate the documentary’s analytical perspective.
The composition was developed as a deliberate visual conversation with the original 1973 theatrical poster. Its restrained layout, tonal atmosphere and typographic hierarchy echo the visual language audiences already associate with the film, but the emphasis shifts from supernatural terror to the craft behind it. This allowed the artwork to inherit some of the original campaign’s authority without becoming an imitation.
The clapperboard becomes the crucial narrative device. It interrupts the familiar image of Regan and reframes it as a moment of filmmaking, immediately placing the audience behind the camera. That single detail transforms an iconic horror image into an invitation to examine how the film was conceived, constructed and directed.
Created initially for the SC Films worldwide sales campaign, the key art travelled with a film that premiered at Venice, screened at Sundance and other major international festivals, and was subsequently acquired by distributors across the globe.
RICHARD BAKER
Typography and credit treatments were carefully adjusted to retain the severity and elegance of the original campaign while accommodating the documentary’s longer title, festival recognition and international sales requirements. The finished artwork felt both familiar and newly revealing, carrying the weight of a horror landmark while presenting Leap of Faith as a serious cinematic study in its own right.
