Gopi Prasannaa

Prasannaa's first film in a theater was Salangai Oli (1983) when he was 6 years old.^[1] He was also interested in painting during his childhood.^[2] Prasannaa admires movie poster artists like Tom Martin and some Japanese artists. He was inspired from the hand-drawn movie hoardings of Chennai's golden era and Maniyan Selvam's illustrations in Ananda Vikatan magazines during his youth.^[3]

Prasannaa initially worked as a programmer, tried his hand in gaming, advertising and branding, before starting a career as a publicity designer.^[4][3] His journey in publicity design began with the Tamil film Aaranya Kaandam, directed by Thiagarajan Kumararaja in 2010.^[4][5] The poster was styled as a graphic novel fully illustrated in yellow and black making it the first of its kind for the Tamil industry.^[6] In 2014, Prasannaa introduced the trend of first-look posters in Tamil cinema with the film Kaththi, a social drama directed by AR Murugadoss.^[6][7] During the COVID-19 lockdown in India, Prasannaa created a series of retro movie posters for films like Sadma, 16 Vayathinile, Mullum Malarum, Mouna Raagam, Antha 7 Naatkal which are part of the 10-part series.^[8][2] The series was named 'Ninaivugalai Thedi', which translates to 'chasing memories'.^[1][2] He drew inspiration from the poster of Salangai Oli for the series.^[1]

In 2021, the first-look poster of Master, directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, released on New Year's Eve. It quickly went viral on social media and set records.^[9]