Friday One Sheet: THE SECOND

This beautiful watercolour poster for Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos's The Second is hiding a subtle secret in plain sight. The short film centres around a pistols-at-dawn kind of duel, and the underlying complexity of motivations across two generations.

The lead character, featured in portrait in the key art, is played by actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee with a quiet restraint and stoicism. He not the duelist, rather he is the armourer, advocate, and negotiator, for the gunfighter - also known as the Second. The title of the short is a further play on words, considering the duelist is his son, i.e. the second generation, living in the shadow of his father’s success. 



 

Co-writer and co-director, Taylor Ramos (also animator and illustrator) is the designer of the key art. She tapped illustrator Zoe Selena to create the watercolour portrait at the centre. Take a moment to observe the literal back of the man. As the ink bleeds off forming the tableaux of the duel itself. It is reminiscent, and complementary, to the kissing silhouettes of Akiko Stehrenberger design for A Portrait of A Lady On Fire.



In Zoe Selena’s words, “I take a lot of inspiration from Sunga Park and Sergio Toppi, both incredible artists.  I don't have much of a studio space, I just work on the floor of my home office with all the paints spread out. Watercolor can be rebellious so it needs to be flat to control it. I just tilt it a bit to create that drip effect and sometimes use acetone dropped on it to create breaks in the paint.  You can see that along the bottom. The credit for the design itself goes to Taylor, but I was so happy to be asked to bring it to life as it's exactly the sort of thing I love doing. I love the old style of movie posters and take a lot of inspiration from them as well. They were mostly illustrated and blended the characters and plot elements in interesting ways.”



Indeed, there is a reluctance on the part of the man to let his son take such as risk, shown here in the head down posture. And the bleeding ink forming the duel is also poetically shown as streaks left by tears (or blood). A few in splatters, from Selena’s acetone, underscore this further. 



The creamy paper-look forms a background that is understated in its texture, but provides an ample matting to the main subject. The title design here echoes the letterpress typesetting of an invitation. I am particularly fond of the of the period at the end of the title -the finality, a visual bang, of a shot fired.