Hey guys, I'm Gary Pullen and you're watching Rated Art, Scenes of a Graphic Nature.
Enjoy!
London is, you know, a fair-sized city, so there was, you know, a few comic book stores downtown.
I collected horror magazines when I was a kid, you know, Mad Magazine and Famous Monsters in
the Fangoria, Gorzone, Deep Red was another one by Chas Ballon. That kind of became sort of my Bible, really.
And, yeah, I mean, also when I was very, very young, my introduction to horror was a TV show called
The Hilarious House of Freightonstein, and it was like a horror-host-type scenario, kind of like Billy Van Stardt in it.
He was a Canadian comedian, and he played about 10 different characters, like the librarian, the Wolfman, the Count,
and him and the Count, the Count and Igor were trying to revive a Frankenstein.
It was like an educational kid's show, not so much educational, more just entertaining, very much like an
SCTV kind of skit comedy, and that was filmed and shot in Hamilton. I now live in Hamilton, which is great.
I drive by the old CHCH, where it was filmed many times, and it starred Vincent Price.
He did sort of these intros and outros. He would say a little scary poem, and they'd be on to the next skit.
And some people might look at you, I've got three heads if you mention it, but it has a huge fan base here,
and I've worked with the people behind the show on some official merchandise,
and the DVD releases had some of my artwork on it, so that was kind of a trip.
So I guess, yeah, I sort of grew up watching that show. That introduced me to, that was my gateway to horror.
It opened up like, they spoofed all the universal monster stuff.
So it was like, well, where did that come from, right? So then you sort of, you find out who Frankenstein is, you find out who Vincent Price is.
Basil Gogos, you know, the Gertsch, he was a cartoonist, Vincent Locke, Steven Bassett.
These were more comic book artists, I think Steven did Swamp Thing, Bernie Reitz,
and I mean, you know, all these artists were featured in these magazines.
Did I mention Basil Gogos from Famous Monsters? Yeah, I mean, you know, like, that's the big one.
I mean, I'll never forget the first time I saw an issue of Famous Monsters in one of his brightly colored, you know, vivid portraits
on the cover of the magazine, it literally blew me to the back of the store.
I had to have this in my life. I, you know, I just, I don't know why I can't explain why I was into it, but I had to have it.
And I was, you know, there wasn't too many kids, you know, my aides that were really into horror films.
They weren't allowed to watch them. They were told they were a bad thing.
Luckily, you know, my parents with some guidance, you know, they didn't exactly let me watch everything, but they let me watch a lot of stuff.
And it really shaped my love for the horror genre.
I mean, it just grew and grew and grew.
You know, yeah, and then I just, like, my binders were filled with drawings of stuff I made up or stuff I was just copying from posters or band logos, you know.
I mean, I was sort of that kid. I was one of the kids in the gate, basically. That was me, you know.
I would wheel in a VCR and I would introduce, you know, whoever was interested.
You know, I would rent horror films and we were watching Hellraiser and Donna the Dead and Night of the Living Dead and Nightmare on the Street.
And I was, you know, the class kind of, you know, they got excited when I would bring in a movie because, oh, what are we going to watch today?
And it was always a horror film, you know, always.
And so it always stayed with me, but the rabid collector in me did go away for a little bit. You know, I kind of, like, had other priorities, right?
When I moved to Toronto, that's when, you know, I also met Rumored Magazine at the time.
Early, like in their first year of publications, they'd done three issues that they were basically just giving away for just consignment and whatnot in the beginning.
And so I met them at a screening. I believe it was Full Cheese the Beyond and they were giving out issues or, sorry, selling issues in the lobby.
And I had moved to Toronto after graduating from design school and, you know, I walked right up to the table. I said, you know, I'm a huge horror fan.
I'm an illustrator, designer. I would love to work with you guys. I gave them a crappy business card that I made.
And, yeah, before I knew it, you know, they were calling too.
And just before I knew it, I was kind of working full-time at a commercial design firm, working on really corporate stuff.
And then on my off hours, I was moonlighting for Rumored and just doing whatever they needed me to do.
And they would pay me, you know, X amount of dollars a month and the publisher, Rodrigo Guadino, who owns it.
You know, he said back then, hey, like, you know, once I can match your salary that you're making at the design firm, I'd love to hire you on as art director.
And within maybe like two or three years of meeting them, they, I was able to quit my corporate gig and go join the circus with Remark.
And it was, you know, it was a good job. It was, you know, it was amazing.
It was sort of like I was able to kind of take their sort of first couple of years of publishing.
And like I said, I was already doing stuff for them, but I could take the mag now and just make it my own entirely.
I could redesign everything, redesign all the columns, brand it, you know what I'm saying?
Like just really, and at the time, you know, I was bringing in influences from famous monsters and bringing in influences from deep red,
because Chasse Ballant was an illustrator as well.
And I was, you know, bringing in, you know, those kinds of visual influences I wanted Rumored to have.
I wanted to give it a visual punch that just, you know, because when I'm looking at something, I feel like it should look as good as it has written.
And, you know, there's really no excuse for a magazine to have bad design.
And because there's a lot of designers out there that would just love the opportunity.
I just like focused on this thing. I wanted to make it the best magazine, horror magazine going.
You know, there was a lot of competition out there at the time.
And the office, it's like when they hired me, they had an office and that's where I went every day.
And then they bought an old movie theater and turned it into Rumored, which was awesome.
You know, when they moved to the West End of Toronto, they bought a funeral home, which is like this historical building.
And it was amazing, you know, our funeral home became the Rumored House of Horror.
And I mean, you can't even write that, you know, like,
and it obviously helped the profile of the magazine.
And it was just this bustling place, man, like everyone in film wanted to visit, you know.
I mean, Clyde Barker would drop by, Angus Scrim would drop by.
You get to meet these people and they had seen the magazine.
They're admirers of the magazine and they like what you do, you know.
But people picked up on, at least, they picked up on it.
They picked up on the passion behind it and the mag took off.
And it's still going today, which is great to see.
As much as I love the job there, I didn't have a lot of time for all my own stuff, honestly,
because of the covers I was doing, the level of artwork I was doing for the magazine and the amount of work, actually.
I mean, I was doing 70 hour work weeks.
I mean, it was just kind of like, you know what?
After 13, 10 plus years, I was ready for a change.
And print, as we all know, the newsstands are shrinking.
And so are the advertising dollars that go into magazines that pay people to be there.
And it was kind of the right time for me.
It was sort of like, you know what?
I'm getting some recognition, yes.
And I'm getting emails from film directors.
I was also doing stuff on the side.
Yeah, I'd say about maybe a couple of years before I actually left the magazine.
I was doing, you know, some stuff whenever I could fit it in on the side.
So I had already started working with some big profile stuff like Tales From Me On The Pale with Larry Fessiden
and Glen McQuaid from Glass Eye Picks.
That was a lot of fun, great stuff.
You know, so I was doing stuff like that.
I was doing Arrow Video.
I was already doing maybe a couple of Arrow Video titles on the side.
Mondo as well.
I started kind of working with them, not as much as I do now, but at the time, you know, I would fit it in when I could.
You know, and just, yeah, before I knew it, my extracurricular stuff was doing this, right?
Like, you know, and so I thought, well, you know, the first year is going to be a little rocky.
Luckily, my wife, you know, works a very good job.
And, you know, she sort of was like, you know, my safety net a little bit there in the first year.
But by second year, it was like, okay, I'm doing as well as I did at the magazine.
And by third year, okay, I'm trying to make Ghoulashgiri a brand as well as, you know, yeah, I'm an illustrator and I'm an artist.
But, and at one time, I, you know, I wanted to be anonymous.
I didn't want the attention.
I didn't want one of the work out there, and this was in the early days of Remark.
I just, I didn't want to be interviewed.
I didn't want to be in front of the camera or anything like that.
I still don't really want to.
But now I don't mind talking about my artwork because I want to, you know, when I meet an artist, I want to know about them too.
But so for a while, I sort of put that, I was a little shy with that stuff.
But then I realized, well, you're not going to get anywhere if you're just sitting in the basement, not talking to anybody, right?
So I want to, you know, I started to kind of like do a little more self-promotion, you know, and say, hey, like, okay, I've got, you know, Remark, but I'm also, you know, Ghoulashgiri.
I was going to tons with Remark, like for years, we did tons of conventions.
And so I was going, you know, with the magazine, but I was getting a lot of accolades for the work, my work.
And then Remark would actually, they would let me, you know, take a corner of their booth and sell some of my own prints.
And, you know, that was really, you know, they encouraged it too.
It wasn't just like, you know, they just, you can only do this and that, you know, they were very good about, you know, because I, you know, they want to see, you know, people happy.
So, you know, I mean, it was good that way too, because I could sort of like do both, you know.
They definitely come to me with titles, you know, you know, I think my artwork speaks to a particular kind of film.
Usually it's the 80s, the bright, vivid stuff, you know, the crazy over-the-top movies.
You know, I definitely, you know, I do a lot of B-movie stuff and I'll happily do it.
But, you know, I also like when I, I like to say I step out of the graveyard a little bit, I like doing, like I recently did 10 Cloverfield Lane.
Now, I know that's a horror film, but it's not a B-movie.
You know, it's got, it's got some clout, right?
I love doing horror films. I think, you know, with, you know, obviously my brand is geared towards that.
But I also, you know, I mean, I love not doing non-horror related stuff too.
And I, you know, I'm always sort of excited. I did a big Lebowski poster.
You know, I've done a poster for the hockey movie The Goon, you know, or Goon it's called.
You know, I've, you know, I've done, premature was a comedy for IFC that I did.
So it's sort of like, I like stepping out too.
You know, I want to show people that I'm not just, you know, like, I don't want to do toxic Avenger over and over again.
You know, in the end, it's coming up with a concept and then executing. I want to show that I can do that.
It was, yeah. That was with Death Waltz when they were on their own.
And yeah, just, you know, Spencer contacted me and said, hey, do you want to work for us?
I said, absolutely, you know, I had done a, I had done record covers before, but not, not horror movie soundtrack stuff, right?
That was my first, like, tackling a soundtrack design for, you know, one of my favorite movies too.
So that was sort of the, the one that kind of opened the floodgates a little bit, I think.
With, you know, again, what can I bring new to a film poster or a soundtrack design or an image, you know, a film image, let's say.
Sometimes the music inspires it from the soundtrack. Sometimes it's just kind of a no brainer.
Sometimes the wax work or Mondo, they have a particular idea and then that helps and I go from there.
You know, so it's sort of like, you know, you just sort of like, what, what, what can I, what can I, what can I bring to it?
Like there's movies I've turned down because I just feel that I can't bring anything new to that. That doesn't excite me.
That's been done before or done better, you know, I mean, that's, you know, so I try to, I picked up that excites me.
If I get that initial reaction with the title, a film that I'm really super familiar with or if I'm not familiar with it, I'll revisit it.
Sometimes like, well, with, I guess with Mondo, like they'll say, hey, you got any, you got any stuff you haven't used or you got any, like, roughs for anything yet, you know, is there a poster you want to do?
You know, you're like, oh, well, hang on a second, then you spend a couple of days or you look in your, your back files sometimes for ideas that, you know, like, I mean, you got to think like representing like, you know, 10 ideas for one thing.
So there's, I've got like a back pocket filled with like, you know, ideas that haven't been that are perfectly good that just for whatever reason didn't work for, for that particular project.
So I just keep all that stuff, like around, you know, it just floats around, it's like, oh, I got a poster for that, or I had an idea for that, we can, we can tweak.
You know, so yeah, I do sometimes I pitch or I'll, I'll email a particular person and say, hey, I would love to work with you, you know, I don't do it as much as I should, I should hustle a little more.
But I find that the work is coming in so it's sort of like, you know, I haven't had to update, like, you know, a portfolio to show to hit the pavement, right.
I mean, luckily, I've been, I've been sort of like inundated with, with, you know, people wanting a movie poster, whether it's like an indie movie that nobody's seen yet to like, you know, a property that's, you know, got some,
you know, what do you want to call it, like, it's got fans behind, it's got, you know, it's, it's got a lot of recognition behind.
So, yeah, I mean, it kind of, yeah, a little bit of both, but I would say mainly people sort of come to me and say, hey, do you want to do this title?
And a lot of the times they've seen my work and they, they think I would be a good fit for it, and that helps too.
Yeah, no, I would love to do a Texas Chainsaw Massacre poster or vinyl.
I mean, I could do one today and probably get away with releasing it.
See, I, I want to do it officially.
I mean, I, I'm sort of like, I feel like I'm a little bit on the radar now.
So I, I, I do everything officially, or I get permission from a person that, you know, a film director or something.
You know, so posters and vinyls, I don't put out myself, obviously, but yeah, for posters and artwork.
But yeah, I would love to do a Texas Chainsaw Massacre poster.
The Monster Squad was my first full packaging for Mondo.
Before that, I had done Tales from the Crypt seven inch, a Batman, Clayface seven inch, I think there was something else.
But then they, they, you know, they put out this guy here.
So that was my contribution to the Wolfman.
And then, and then I had designed these back covers for all the releases.
I have them online, just Mondo Monster Squad, you know, and
so, so this idea actually, you know, I shoot, I shot them a few ideas for the front cover here for my Wolfman.
And, and, and then I also thought, you know, I'm going to show them this cool idea I had of like the sort of like,
classified ads in the back of a Monster Magazine kind of deal where you cut out, send away for a mask or, you know, X-ray glasses or whatever it is,
those crazy classifieds.
And, and it was sort of like, I got excited because it was like, wow, I just, you know, like, you could mash the Monster Squad,
you know, property with that kind of theme.
And it really seemed to work.
So Mondo really liked that.
So we made them all, you know, the back covers where we kind of, we color coded them to sort of match the fronts.
But when it came time to do the full packaging, they said, hey, you know what, we really like that idea of, you know, the whole monster,
the classified ads and the fake ads for, for stuff.
Why don't we do that for the full packaging?
And yeah, it just seemed to make sense.
And then I got excited and, and it was sort of like, oh, like, you know, you could do like a riff off like, you know, Jack Davis's, you know,
six foot Frankenstein cut out that used to be able to buy and hang on the wall.
Why don't we do, you know, Newton's Frankenstein, right?
Like, I mean, take Monster Squad and just, you know, mash it with that, all that great stuff that we remember from when we were a kid.
That's the thing about records I love doing is vinyl is that you can play with that center label.
You can do some really, really great stuff.
I can't wait to get to the label part when you place it over the Wolfman.
I mean, it takes a no brainer, you know, there's his nards, right?
I mean, stupid stuff like that.
Like, it makes it's, you know, kind of juvenile, but it's funny when it relates to the movie, right?
If I'm really particularly excited about something, I'll show a mockup of the label on a colored vinyl, which has happened, you know, a few times, like,
like, I guess an example, that would be Friday, 13th, 3D, where the lenses make the vinyls.
And I know that we kind of landed on the same idea there with the mask, right?
Unbeat knowingly of our two minds, but, you know, it just sort of made sense, you know, sort of like, so I pitched that to Waxberg,
I said, well, why don't we make them the red and the green?
Oh, of course, you know, it's like that, like, yeah, that makes so much sense, you know, for the movie.
And you land on those ideas and you're just like, it just takes it to a whole new level.
It was like, I had that as the center label, and then Kevin's like, well, why don't we make a picture disc out of that?
And I was like, yeah, it's incredible.
Like, again, it's like, you know, it's just that fun.
Well, you know, just the first thing comes to mind, well, it's a lid.
And then on the back of the chud, you know, the lid is off and you can see all the little chuds down in the tunnel.
So fun stuff like that, you know, I mean, that's kind of what gets me out of bed in the morning.
Like, I would love, like, the changeling to come out, I mean, to go back to a property that I'd love to tackle.
And I've done some changeling related artwork here and there, but it's all kind of like, you know, sort of like on my own kind of thing.
But I would love to do like an official poster or do the soundtrack. The soundtrack is very good.
And but the problem is, is, you know, and I can totally understand through Mondo and Waxwork and Death Balls, is there is, is there enough fans is going to cover the cost of even printing these things?
You got to pay the arse. You got to make these damn things and sell them and time and energy.
So it's sort of like certain titles may not be ready for it yet. You know, I don't know.
I mean, there's still kind of living up, living in obscurity.
You know, I talk about the changeling quite a bit because I want to keep promoting it. I want to keep it in the mind's eye.
And that's what's great about it. Like, and I know, like, you know, Mondo and Waxwork, they're actively trying to find those films that you want to see as they're out there, man.
Like, they're, they're, they're finding the people who did it. Like, and I've been, I've been able to help to a little bit with some of my contacts.
Like, I've been able to say, hey, I can put you in touch with that person. And before we knew it, we had the record out. You know what I mean?
I thought that was great. Um, you know, just come, they had their own wish list, you know, and like you said, luckily, you know, we all have the same taste.
We want to see the same things like TCM. Where's it? Where, you know, who's putting that out?
Like, I would love a Texas Chainsaw Master soundtrack. I know there's not music on it, but, you know, even a film like Black Christmas where it's a lot of just kind of visual, sorry, audio cues.
And, and there is some music, but there's a lot, there's enough there to make a cool looking record.
Yeah, I did. I mean, that was, oh man, again, that's another like, you know, kind of pinch me moment bucket list. Yeah.
Before I knew it was on the bucket list kind of things like, you know what I mean? It's like, wow, you know, like I'm working with goblin here.
Um, and the guys were great. Luckily, I, I've gotten to meet Maurizio in the band. He lives in Toronto.
So, yeah, I mean, you know, he's, he's, we're friends, you know, we, we, you know, he comes to events that we put on and stuff, and we hang out and he's just a really cool guy.
And, and, and they're very excited now that there's this been resurgence and what they've done in the 70s and 80s. I mean, so it's for them to put on a tour.
And then the goblin thing came about because yes, I knew him and also a friend of mine on Keats of Risk was working merch with them and said, hey, do you want to do a poster for a tour we're doing?
I'm going to go on the road with them and I'm going to help them sell the merch. Would you like to come up with an image? And I was like, yeah, of course.
And we did. And then I got to do two posters for them. So both tours they did 2013 and 2014. I got to do a poster for each tour.
And, and again, it's sort of like, you know, getting projects like that, I think is really important for a lot of young designers out there because, you know, it's, it's a profile too, right?
Getting your name attached to something that has a fan base, you know, that's gonna, that's gonna accelerate your brand too.
So nowadays, I sort of pick projects that they do have a little juice behind them, you know, they do have fan base behind them, they do have recognition.
I mean, because, or if it's an indie film, okay, they've got, you know, some known actors in there or they've got a trailer, you know, it's a go, you know what I mean?
They're not just an indie film that, hey, we need artwork, but like, yeah, I could do a lot of those kinds of films, but it's not really going to get seen on a wide audience.
So that gets to be important at some point too, where you want to make sure that the stuff you're doing is reaching a wide audience, because that means you're reaching a wide audience too, right?
Well, for sure I do. Like, pretty much every project, you know, you get that sort of like, oh man, what can I bring to the table gear? Like, right now I'm working on a poster for a really well-known title for a really well-known Blu-ray company in the UK.
The title has, the title has been reinterpreted a billion gazillion times by some of the top pop culture artists of today to the best in the world from yesterday.
So what can I do that's going to be different?
What can I bring to the table that's going to excite a new fan, a potential new fan to the movie, and fans of the old film that have seen every key art that's come out before it?
Like, to me, it's got to have a concept behind it. Like, what's different, what's been, what hasn't been done before? Like, you know, like, say, just as a stupid example, like, Pulp Fiction.
What can I do that's going to be different than the gazillion pop culture artists' interpretations?
Okay, I'm going to take the menu in the restaurant with Travolta and, let's see, we're live here. So what's her name? Gosh.
Uma Thurman. And what can I do with Travolta and Uma Thurman? That scene, I can take the menu that they're at the restaurant and make a poster out of the menu. That kind of a thing.
You know, that might, that might be exciting. Or what can I do, like, like, like, I haven't done JAWS yet.
Mainly because I just haven't had that idea. And there's been some incredible, like, recent interpretations of that poster.
You know, my buddy Justin did a great one just recently, too, with the shark, you know, making up the skyline, you know, really cool.
Like, I mean, so yeah, you get that sort of, you do get that fear, or that sort of like that, oh man, what can I, what can I bring to the table?
That's going to excite me over the next month or week or however long it's going to take to do and excite potential new fans and old fans.
So that does get, that does get a little bit, you know, it does get a little bit like intimidating.
You know, I've always like, you know, just there's, you know, like I said, like I mentioned earlier, I'm working on a poster that I just can't seem to get too excited about my ideas because they're okay.
But it's like, I know that there's something else that I'm missing. I'm missing some waiting for that one thing that's really going to, you know, excite me to spend the next two weeks on it.
You know what I mean?
So, yeah, that can be, that can be a challenge, that can be a challenge. Other times, it can be easier, like, I'll already have the idea in mind.
Oh, I can't wait, like finally somebody asked me to do that, or, or finally I can do this poster, and I've had this idea, like, even if it's a stupid sketch or a thumbnail I've written down somewhere.
You know, that excites me to and, okay, now I've got something in the bank that I can revisit kind of thing.
I had an idea for a poster that it wasn't done. Thank God I didn't really spend much time on it, but I started roughing it out.
And it was a pet cemetery poster. And I was going to do it for a company. It was going to be a licensed one.
And, yeah, one day I just log on to Facebook and, you know, you know, gallery, you name it, whatever, there it was. My, my very idea already fleshed out, very, it looked great, it was cool.
But, you know, just, I just, back to the drawing board, I didn't even, didn't even, you know, it was just too close.
Yeah, same basic thing, but here's the butt part to that. I think a lot of us as artists, we're always trying to be the inventors, right? Like, hey, we came up with that idea first.
And that's what I like to do is sort of, at least not like, look, we didn't invent the wheel, but like, we like to be the first to say, hey, you know, that was my concept and nobody's really done anything quite like it.
That's always sort of the best case scenario. But what happens sometimes is you do land on an idea that somebody has already done, or it's a little bit close.
And I used to scrap those ideas, or even if they were just a smidget close, and I was talking to Rob Jones at Mondo about this very thing.
And he says, you know what, you're going to do it differently, because everything's been done before. Everything has literally been done before.
So just do it in your own way, and it'll be different. And no one would ever put the two together, really.
You can take two things and put them together, and that becomes original.
Yeah, like I knew going in, so they said, you know, Aero just came to me with, how would you like to do phantasm?
And I was like, absolutely, like, you know, I'm a big fan of, like, the series.
And yeah, and I got excited, you know, so I was like, you know what, yeah, I can do that.
And then of course, it's like, oh, what am I going to do? It's been done a billion times.
But yeah, I just sort of like, when I found out what the packaging was going to be like, and it kind of comes in like, that box kind of looks like an Escher kind of thing.
So, you know, Aero did kind of throw out, well, maybe we can do something Escher-esque with that.
So I thought, okay, well, let's do something like that for the outer box.
And then how do I tie in all the movies into one cohesive set?
Like, I wanted it to look like when it spilled out that it all belongs together, rather than, okay, here's phantasm one,
and let's get every headshot in there and a tombstone.
And okay, here's phantasm two, and let's get the same characters with just facing different ways.
Yeah, I didn't want to do like, you know, I've got, you know, I'm starting to see a lot of, I get, I really get to kind of get that fatigue with like the illustrated body parts, you know.
So I try to come up, I like coming up with concepts and not just your favorite character holding onto an ice cream cone over here.
Here's another guy holding onto a gun, but, you know, I mean, that stuff obviously there's a place for it, but I try to steer the client away from those types of things.
So what I wanted to do was, hey, it comes with a ball.
Why don't we, you know, and every movie has a new ball, right?
You know, part two had the one with the little windmill on it.
And then part three had the, you know, the saw or whatever in the eyeball.
And, you know, part four, sorry, part four had the saw and the head, you know, of it.
And it was like, why don't we just kind of like brand it with the ball, make it all about the ball.
And, and economically it worked too, you know, we could get it done in the short amount of time they wanted it done.
And, and it just sort of, I picked a color palette and picked a theme and just went with it.
And that's, and when they first saw it, they were like, awesome.
Like there was no, all right, well, let's think this and, you know, maybe some minor tweaks, which is the best you can hope for.
And, and yeah, it was, it was kind of worked out in a really great way.
That was a, you know, the box set was an example of the packaging steering the design.
You know, it was sort of like, hey, it came with this concept.
Now we can come up with ideas to make the package work.
It was more or less like, I knew that it was going to have a ball in it and they sent me sort of like a really raw, like digital 3D photo of the box with the ball in it before they had it manufactured.
But they had it all worked out, right?
And it was sort of like, okay, then they're going to be on the CD cases, but they're only a certain size.
So it's got to hold all the films in this little thing.
You know, I actually nowadays, I do everything as like a poster.
And then I, then I make it because it could be a poster after they might like it so much instead of blowing up the artwork again.
Phantasm, I actually got to see the 4K restoration in the theater as I was sort of on the job and that was great.
You know, I got to watch that film in the theater and so it was nice revisiting it.
But I've seen that movie enough times where I think I probably could come up with something.
You know, certain films, I will go back and watch again like the Monster Squad I did because there was all these little cool things in the clubhouse I wanted to see.
You're like, you know, sometimes you're, you know, when you're, when you're doing artwork for a film or soundtrack, sometimes you'll watch the movie again because, you know, you're looking at it through different eyes when you're sort of officially working on it.
And so occasionally, you know, I try to watch the movies.
But sometimes, sometimes you don't always have the time either.
But, you know, but I like to, again, certain movies like Text Chainsaw Massacre, I think I could confidently do a poster with just, you know, the images that I have available or, you know, just ideas floating around in the attic there.
I think I could, you know, probably do a movie that I'm so well versed in, I could, I probably don't need to watch that one again.
The only time I would do that is if, like I said, I am, you know, say I'm, you know, drawing the bedroom of a, of a, of a bedroom in the film, I might go back and see what's on the walls and see how that kind of stuff looks.
Or a particular line of dialogue sometimes, but, but mostly like, yeah, it depends.
But I like to see the movies, you know, before I, before I do start, because again, you are sort of seeing it through different eyes.
Yeah, lots of, lots of screen grabs while watching the films.
Yeah, you'll do like, you know, you'll, you'll pause at a particular angle. Sometimes you'll, you'll take like three different photos and put them together to make one reference image.
That happens quite a bit actually.
You know, sometimes if you're working on stuff that like, well with phantasm, I was lucky enough to have this
prop that I bought.
It's not a prop from any of the films, but it's, it's fabricated from a guy in the States and the name of the company's failing me.
It's like nightmare customs, I think.
So this was kind of handy to have around just sort of like, hey, I need it on this angle, you know, I need it on that angle or like dead on kind of thing, you know.
So I would just kind of just sit here like we are here and nothing too glamorous and just just get it down.
Sometimes I'll take pictures of, you know, like my wife makes a great model, you know, I'll need like, like her holding onto a knife or, you know, a woman from a 1950s sci-fi film screaming.
I can take a picture of her screaming and then I can draw a different haircut on her to kind of make it look like she's from the 50s or.
Okay, there's a movie for a documentary coming out called 24 by 36.
It's, it played festivals, played a fantastic fest, which was the festival they wanted to get in because it's so tied into Mando artwork and what's happening in Austin.
So it played there and yeah, it's really good.
Kevin Burke directed it.
I saw the film when it was first done and it had Kevin's narration and then they got distribution with Snow Fork pictures who put out the Dune documentary Alejandro Tereschi's Dune.
So, I mean, and they, they recut the film, but it's awesome.
Like they made it better basically, like, I mean, and so yeah, it was really cool to see kind of like this, this movie evolve and I've kind of like, Kevin and I have been friends for a long time.
So I, you know, I was there from the very beginning to all the way through the process to watch and watch and make this movie, seeing the reactions.
You know, it's coming out on DVD soon.
I don't know when, but I definitely want poster collectors to see this movie.
I think you're really going to enjoy it kind of goes chronological.
It goes from like sort of the, the Bob Peake days, you know, sort of like the Roger Castel who did Jaws, Ansel as well, all the way to like kind of like the last third of the movie is like interviews with sort of like contemporary artists doing this kind of artwork.
I mean, it's, yeah, I don't think we're called alternative poster artists.
Yeah, I think it's more just either it's poster artist or just artist. I'm not sure how we're built, but yeah, it's interesting.
I think they did a really good job sort of like catching people up to like, you know, it kind of goes from like, again, like sort of like the Goonies, Gremlins era, you know, 70s posters, you know, that kind of stuff to 80s to all the way to like the 90s when, you know, home video art and,
and, and, and, you know, artwork, well, they became heartless really to, you know, now it's sort of there's this push for original artwork on the covers, people want that feeling again.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, unfortunately, may never go away because that's how people need to digest a movie. I mean, it's, you know, if it's got Tom Cruise on it, well, it's going to have a side profile of Tom Cruise. And then inside that side profile will be all the, you know, the, the other actors and then maybe an explosion at the bottom.
But it's sort of like, you know, the ages, you know, it's a digital age, people, they digest things quicker, you know, they, they see that little box cover on iTunes, and that's what they need to see to, you know, you can't walk up to a poster these days and just, you know, go inside and look at all the little things on them.
But so I get why, you know, I get why it's there, why it exists, but it doesn't mean, doesn't mean we have to like it. You know what I mean? You know, I look at it like Saul Bass, it's that kind of thing where it's just like a cool striking image.
It's a concept, you know, Saul Bass's posters weren't complex at all. They were just very, and, and why did that go away? I mean, you know what I mean? Like, why do we need to see every actor's face on a film poster?
Why can't we look at a film as a concept, not as a fashion statement or how somebody looks or that kind of stuff.
So, you know, it is kind of coming back in a little bit. I mean, you know, we hear stories of execs that have our artwork on their walls, but even they don't have the power to quite go all the way with it because of consumerism and the way people are looking at iTunes
when a movie comes on or Netflix when a movie comes on. So, and, you know, a lot of these companies that are designing posters, design houses, they know what they get.
They're trying to push, they're trying to push for that kind of thing, too, or, or, you know, they don't want to do the exploding head design, you know, sometimes that's what the client wants, though, and you have to kind of buckle up a little bit.
But, you know, but, you know, but it is, it is creeping into the mainstream. It really is. I mean, you know, you're starting to see artwork like, you know, an inherent device had a great series of posters that looked really great.
They were all, you know, Drive had a lot of great, you know, official art behind it. So, you know, like, yeah, like it is, it is there, but I think they do it for a certain type of film, too, right?
A certain type of film, or what they do, which I think is good, it works for me, is they'll do festival run posters.
But when the DVD comes out, then it's that photoshopped kind of thing, right? That's, that's fine. I get it.
At least we have the ones that they hired the artists to do for the festival run, because those are the posters that people generate, it generated interest for, right?
Sometimes those festivals, hey, done. That's, we're going to use that on our gear. And yeah, so, you know, it's, it's cool when like, you know, sort of like the festival art becomes the official art or that poster that you did that is coming from an illustrated place and the right, you know, it's coming from a, you know, that kind of the nostalgic,
nostalgic era that we're always trying to capture, you know, I think this documentary 24 by 36 is sort of going to make people look at the movie posters a lot differently, you know.
And the people behind them, you know, back in, they address us in the movie, but you know, back in like, you know, wherever, like all the way back to the 40s and 50s, you know, artists weren't allowed to sign their work, you know, or they would sign the poster, but they would hide it in there somewhere.
It's good to see that not, you know, the artists are getting a little, you know, they're getting a little recognition for their work too. I mean, imagine that, right?
