Fett Noir #4: Nightmare Alley

Well it's about time Boba got to be the big floating head on a poster. Here is the fourth poster in my Fett Noir series. My favorite part on this piece is the little book graphic (silly, I know) but I liked making it into a "Boba Fett Adventure" and rejigging the poster to fit and to give it the look and feel of a pulp novel cover. I guess that is, essentially, what film noir is anyway…a pulp novel put on the big screen.

I hope to be creating more of these soon. They are way too much fun creating.

This poster, along with my other three Fett Noir creations, has been made into a limited edition print (limited to 250 numbered copies), now available on my newly created Etsy store (http://www.etsy.com/shop/GraphicLanguage), and I have a discount on shipping if you order all four (just give me a shout and I'll pass along the top secret code)

Fett Noir #3: The Big Sleep

I have always loved the look of this classic Bogart & Becall poster and I wanted to recreate it but I was worried it might appear too simple compared to the others, but then I figured "Hey, I want this on my wall damn it!", so I added a little Mandalorian symbology in the background and voilá. 

The pose from Empire Strikes Back was almost identical to the pose on the 1946 poster. It was eerie how close.

This poster, along with my other three Fett Noir creations, has been made into a limited edition print (limited to 250 numbered copies), now available on my newly created Etsy store (http://www.etsy.com/shop/GraphicLanguage), and I have a discount on shipping if you order all four (just give me a shout and I'll pass along the top secret code)

Say hello to the night…

The disappointment I felt after working on the Spirited Away poster was alleviated once I was told that the movie replacing it was Lost Boys. I loved this movie when it first came out. No cooler vampire on than planet than Keifer Sutherland (How are those maggots?). I had the soundtrack and everything.

In watching it recently I have to say that some of it doesn't hold up that well, but it remains a fun movie. I like Edgar and Allen Frog and Keifer Sutherland is still one of the coolest vampires.

Spoiler! I guess, now that I think of it, the poster itself is a spoiler. But I think screenings like this are for people who have seen the movie a gazillion times. Anyway, the two scenes in the movie I liked the most were the initial reveal of the vampires as they are about to feed and the scene near the end when David is about to attack Michael both of which have David oozing out of the inky shadows. That's why the poster looks like it does. Enjoy.

By the way, this post actually came out ahead of the screening (I'm all caught up now). So if you have to get your fix of the Lost Boys on the big screen go check out the Plaza on September 22nd.

Oh the pressure

This is one of my daughter's favorite Miyazaki flicks (I think the list order is Howl's Moving Castle, My neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service and then Spirited Away), it's certainly the first Miyazaki flick we ever showed her and at the time it was pretty darn magical.

I try to operate on a basic principle when I design any poster I do - would I hang this on my wall? So all the while that I was doing this poster I kept asking myself would my daughter hang this on her wall? That was the unnecessary pressure I applied to myself on this project.

After laboring over it for some time I decided to pick her brain and then get feedback from her as I developed it. In the end I had a couple of versions and of the two versions this won out. She said it was one she would happily hang up once it gets printed. Guess what - that ain't going to happen. As it turns out we couldn't get the rights to show the movie. Too bad, I liked how it turned out.

I may print one off for my daughter anyway and test out whether or not she really would hang it up or if she was just messing with her old man.

You're not Mr. Purple. Some guy on some other job is Mr. Purple. You're Mr. PINK!

This is a rough draft of Reservoir Dogs, it's one of my all time favorite movies and it was to be screened back in August. Unfortunately the pre-sale of tickets (which equaled zero tickets sold) meant that the screening was not going to take place so the poster was scrapped. I have a really rough sketch of this in a sketchbook from a few years ago and I was thrilled to be able to actually start it and I plan on finishing it one day (the dogs are going to be painted using watercolors, to give that full bleed-out look that I want to do).

Atreyu!

The NeverEnding Story was screened in August.

A young hero riding around on a Luck Dragon - what could go wrong.

Never say die!

It's been a while since I've posted…sorry about that. I've been a little busy working on things for the Calgary Expo screening series, the upcoming Edmonton Expo (the Calgary Expo is branching out) materials and my own Fett Noir stuff (going on sale pretty soon here, I'm just figuring a few things out), I'll be posting my newest posters this weekend. So in the meantime I'm playing a little catch-up on some of the work I've been doing.

First up - The Goonies. I did a couple of posters for this screening from back in July. I quite like how the bold red one turned out but we opted for the old time adventure type poster.

Fett Noir #2: Night and the City

Lando's chance to shine my friend. What better place to set a noir film than the cloud city of Bespin.

I decided to start exploring other characters within the Star Wars universe, which is why Oola gets to have a substantial role in this flick, I mean Leia can't be in everything! And I wanted to keep Wedge on as the director for this project. He strikes me as an Alfred Hitchcock kind of guy, someone who directs the film, makes a brief cameo, then lets everyone else get back to work telling the story. I always liked Wedge. He never took center stage, but he was always there when you needed him.

Enjoy.

By the way: This poster, along with my other three Fett Noir creations, has been made into a limited edition print (limited to 250 numbered copies), now available on my newly created Etsy store (http://www.etsy.com/shop/GraphicLanguage), and I have a discount on shipping if you order all four (just give me a shout and I'll pass along the top secret code)

Fett Noir #1: This Gun For Hire

I had this idea in my head for a while now. I wanted to combine a few of the things I love into one awesome poster. And here it is, a combination of film noir, old movie posters (of the painted variety), and of course Star Wars. I call it Fett Noir.

I had scribbled out a drawing a few years ago that I titled "This Blaster for Hire" - I thought I could change the title of the movie to fit into the Star Wars universe (I also had "Night and Cloud City" instead of "Night and the City" among others) - so I had this little scribble on my desk staring back at me and I kept telling myself "someday". I finally got fed up with waiting for someday and I got off my ass and actually started working on it. As I worked on it I decided I wasn't going to change the titles of the original movies. I liked the fact that the noir title is the same but the players are different.

This is the first in a series of posters and I plan on setting up an e-commerce site where I'm going to sell them online. I hope you enjoy them.

By the way: This poster, along with my other three Fett Noir creations, has been made into a limited edition print (limited to 250 numbered copies), now available on my newly created Etsy store (http://www.etsy.com/shop/GraphicLanguage), and I have a discount on shipping if you order all four (just give me a shout and I'll pass along the top secret code)

The Passenger

This poster marks the last one I will be doing for the Calgary Cinematheque. I've been doing them for two seasons now and I think I need to let someone else have a turn. It's been fun and the movies have been interesting. A lot of them I had seen before and some I never would have thought to watch.


The Passenger is a fascinating film in which a man wants to escape the frustrations of his own life and he is given the opportunity to do so. A real "be careful what you wish for" kind of film.

The best part, it was an opportunity for me to illustrate a Jack Nicholson film.

L. O. L. A.

My latest poster for the upcoming Cinematheque presentation of Lola. I was immediately struck by the vivid color in the film and I tried to capture that feeling within the poster.

This is NOT a Film

I have not seen this (not a) film yet but the synopsis of it sounds fascinating. The director Jafar Panahi, at one time, made a film that his government deemed offensive propaganda against the Islamic Republic and he has been banned, for 20 years, from making films because of it. So This Is Not A Film is about his plans for another film.

I wanted to showcase the fact that his mind is free and although trapped in the confines of his own home politics won't stop him from creating.

I'm happy with the end result. I've been drawing on designers, illustrators and painters who have had an influence on me and this is my tip of the hat to René Magritte. I suppose the title helped to lead me in that direction ( his Treachery of Images painting has always made me smile) but I like to think I would have gotten there of my own accord.

Belle De Jour

The Calgary Cinematheque is presenting Belle De Jour on the 4th of February (and later on the 9th). I decided to try and channel the great Robert McGinnis on this one (with his slight elongation of the female form), since I was dealing with the stunning Catherine Denuve I thought this approach would be a good direction. I think I did alright. I only hope I did the film justice.

SERENITY NOW!

I have been very remiss in keeping up my blog as of late (six months goes by pretty fast) so I am going to try and update it over the course of the next week so that people don't assume I was lost in the Bermuda Triangle or something.

I've been busy with a lot of things lately but I had to blog about this poster I just finished for an upcoming Calgary Expo screening of one of my favorite movies: Serenity. This movie made me feel like my 11 year old self staring up at the silver screen as a Star Destroyer gave pursuit to a Rebel Blockade Runner.

Serenity is fun. It's smart. It's awesome. And if you haven't seen it all I can say is -shame on you.

If you're in Calgary on December 18th go to the Plaza Theatre and check it out on the big screen, tickets are available through the Expo website or at the doors prior to showtime. If you can't wait to see it, and I don't blame you, then go buy it now. And while you're at it if you don't have the series Firefly then you should buy that too because awesomeness begets awesomeness.

The Birds/Double Take: An Alfred Hitchcock Themed Double Feature

So this is the last poster for the 2010/2011 season for the Calgary Cinematheque, and it is a double feature for "The Birds" and a film called "Double Take". Double Take is an interesting film based on an incident that happened to Mr. Hitchcock while he was filming the movie "The Birds", in which he apparently saw his doppleganger and states that if you see your double you should kill them - there's a lot more to it than that, you'll just have to read the reviews. I decided to treat each film with their own poster and then bridge them with an image of the master - plus the middle section was a good place to put all that text.  The movies play on May 19th at the Plaza in Calgary.

So with the whole "kill your double" in mind, I could think of no better image for "Double Take" than to have Hitch as the target. I played around with several different ideas, one of which was a Rorschach test that would include every murder weapon found in a Hitchcock film - but this image was one that worked the best, and it was the one I could visualize completely. For the title I wanted to pay homage to James Bond (don't ask me why, in my head it made sense) by having the title treated in a similar fashion to the movie "You Only Live Twice" (that poster has an illustration by the great Robert McGinnis). For the record I think this would also be pretty cool to print up about a hundred leaflets and spread them everywhere. I could even see a whole construction site plastered with these.

The image for "The Birds" is pretty straightforward, I wanted to play off of the classic Hitchcock silhouette for the raven image, and the black area was a perfect spot to have the frightened Tippi. I did add something that one might not notice on a web sized image -I put the scene of the bird covered playground in the raven's eye.

It's been a fun run and I have had the opportunity to watch, or in some cases re-watch, some great films. I have also had a lot of fun experimenting with some design and illustration styles that I never seem to get the opportunity to try out very often.

Solaris

My latest poster design for the Calgary Cinematheque is for the movie Solaris, by Andrei Tarkovsky. A fascinating film that starts off a little slow but it does hook you. I've linked to the IMDB page so I won't bore you with the plot details, but I will say it uses science fiction to full effect, much like  2001: A Space Odyssey did before it, making it worth seeing and talking about.

I had been tempted to watch it for a number of years (the local library has several copies of the Criterion Collection version) but until I worked on the poster I didn't see it – I think it was the Russian subtitles that may have given me pause, but that's probably just an excuse. I had watched the George Clooney version, directed by Steven Soderbergh (I've been a fan of his since Kafka), and found it to be an outstanding movie. It doesn't have the trappings of a lot of contemporary science fiction, but I liked it anyway. It's a thought provoking film that will have you talking about it long after you've finished watching it.

I wanted the poster to have a sense of zero gravity, and a feeling of "things aren't as they seem".

Super Punch: X-Men First Class Art Contest

Super Punch has a design a better poster Art Contest for the upcoming X-Men movie and I decided to participate and…Ta-da! This is my entry.

You would not believe how much fun I had doing this. I always have fun participating in John's contests – and no, it's not because there are 4, count em 4, Last Exit to Nowhere shirts on the line (my fave shirt is Nostromo, with my Nexus 6 a very close second). I do it for the challenge and for the fun of it all.

Okay, this may sound like a tangent but hear me out, let me start by telling you how awesome I think my daughter is. She will sit at her computer and open up a program and play. She doesn't ask how do you do this, or that. She. Just. Plays. And she makes some amazing and creative stuff.Where as I tend to be the type who ponders about stuff and I try to find a book that will help me/guide me/show me/inspire me…whatever. So I decided to just see what happens when I open up photoshop, trust my instincts and play – now I am hooked.

Now on to the poster. Most of the current available imagery for this movie is pretty bland, you might find a nice shot of the helmet, you might find a nice shot of the actor but usually not the same shot. So I sketched out several ideas based on the available imagery, then I found an okay shot of Michael Fassbender (an awesome and versatile actor by the way) and I found a nice shot of the Magneto helmet, merged them together and then, as I said before, I just played. So this poster ties into my love of painted posters and my desire to keep things simple, and yeah it's a big head but I like to think I did it with style. I could have probably done more with the title treatment but for me this was about painting and playing.

The one thing I added was a  cooler tag line. I understand where the powers that be are going with the whole "before they were this, they were that" approach, but right in the trailer is this cool line where Erik/Magneto says "Peace was never an option". I think that adds a little menace to the big head shot.

So there you go.

Cruel Story of Youth Part Deux

Well, I got censored. I totally understand why, the whole depiction of violence against women. I get it. The thing is the whole movie is about male domination/control over women. There is probably some political subtext that has flown high enough over my head to have achieved orbit, but I think my first poster is a more accurate representation of the explosive and violent nature of the film.

Anyway, enough with the sour grapes - here is the final version of the poster for Cruel Story of Youth for the Calgary Cinematheque. Like I said, I understand the hesitation so I, begrudgingly, changed the image to be a contrast of the main characters before and after, a kind of "that was then, this is now" approach. Click here for the original, I still think it's the stronger one.

I guess my next poster featuring four mop top lads with doll parts and raw meat will get censored too.

Oh well.

Cruel Story of Youth

A new addition to the posters I've been working on for the Calgary Cinematheque. This is for Cruel Story of Youth, a 1960 film directed by Nagisa Oshima (who also directed the movie Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence with David Bowie).

I like to watch the movie before designing the poster to see if there is anything that will inspire me, or if there is an underlying theme that I feel I should expand upon, and this was an interesting movie to watch because the film is done in such a frank way – it's an extreme version of Rebel Without A Cause (a movie that was made 5 years earlier) – misunderstood youth trying to figure out their place in this world sort of stuff.

I won't go into the details of the movie, I have provided a link to the imdb site for that, but needless to say I was struck by the energy of the film and I tried to convey that in the poster.

Seven Samurai

The next presentation for the Calgary Cinematheque will be Seven Samurai. This is one of the first foreign films I had ever watched and it is outstanding. I wanted to give the overall poster an expressive feel to tie in with the action of the film, plus I prefer posters that have a more illustrative quality, that's something that I find is missing in poster design these days. So the first thing I tried doing was a Drew Struzan approach, with the gessoed board and the pencil crayons, but it wasn't working for me -I'll keep at it though because, after all, it just takes time and patience, and the Drew Struzan "how to" dvd that I've watched more than a few times already (Thank goodness for ebay, because otherwise it's a pretty pricey flick).

So with press time fast approaching I decided to use the technique I used for the Expo Volunteer poster I had just finished. I took photos of paint strokes and created a variety of masks out of them and then layered pieces of the larger image over top of each other to give it a layered, painterly look and applying color in select areas to give it more of an expressive feeling.

I'm really happy with the end result. I can't wait to see it out in the world.