During the promotion of Sunny Deol's film Gadar 2, his team made a big painting of him on a building in Andheri, Mumbai. Even today, this poster, which attracts everyone's attention while passing through the Western Express Highway, reminds us of the old times. However, after digital printing, now the film industry has become habituated to stand in front of the chroma and pose in front of the camera and today this photo clicked in Mumbai can be transformed into a wonderful poster of the film in a few seconds with the help of graphics. And with the help of fax-printing machines, film posters can be put up all over the world within a few hours. After the Internet and digital revolution, the painters who used to make 'larger than life' pictures of actors by climbing long bamboo stairs also disappeared.
From Rajesh Khanna to Hema Malini and from Sholay to the walls, these artists who gave life to posters by painting with their own hands were of two types, one who studied from prestigious art colleges like JJ School of Art, and the other one who Seeing people, they started painting to earn money. Most of the painters who made film posters belonged to the second category, because the painters belonging to the first category used to turn to art direction within a few months.
Know how the work of making posters was done
Making posters for films was an important part of marketing till the 80-90s. These posters were put up in theaters 3-4 days before the release of the film, while in the city, films were also promoted through painting on walls and electric poles. The responsibility of making such paintings was given to the contractor or in simple words, the contractor, who used to give this contract to the team of painters. Artists like Diwakar Karkare used to charge up to Rs 50,000 for a poster, but generally painters were paid according to the size. Many of these painters were people who started this work at the age of 9 or 10, and were given daily wages.
Meet some of the famous 'poster boys' of films
Many painters who brought alive the artists through their art are no more in this world. Diwakar Karkare, who created the poster of Satyam Shivam Sundaram, passed away 2 years ago. Because he did not like the world of copy paste and print, he himself had decided to stay away from it.
Sheikh Abdul Rehman, who left his schooling to make film posters, helped in making many famous films from Waqt to Mughal-e-Azam accessible to the people. Abdul, who worked in this field for 50 years, does not get work now but he has no regrets about this and if given a chance, he would like to become a poster painter in his next life also. Apart from these, there were many painters like Akhtar Sheikh (Deewar), Baburao Painter (Kalyan Khajina) and Ravi Verma (Sant Sakhu), who passed away.
Side effects of digital revolution
Due to less money and people not getting good quality results, these poster painting artists stopped getting work and after the advent of social media, they completely disappeared. Today many of these artists are seen painting idols of Ganapati and Goddess in cities like Mumbai and Kolkata. Some people changed their profession, while some people started working backstage in the film industry.
Although none of the painters have any complaints about their career, despite being associated with filmmaker Yash Chopra for a long time, when Diwakar Karkare was not invited to the 25th anniversary celebration of Yash Raj Films, he was upset. Didn't hurt at all. He was aware that there was no longer any relation left between them and there was no contact of any kind between them.
Where can you see this kind of painting
Even today you can see such paintings on the walls of Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari i.e. Film City of Mumbai. Mumbai's SJ Studio has also paid tribute to the legendary actors of Bollywood and has specially painted posters of old films and placed them on the walls of its studio.
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