DEATHWATCH – THE MOVIE POSTER.

TA-DAAAAAAAAA!!

I’m seriously really proud of this, you guys. I’ll post the version with all the actors’ names and stuff later. But I was so excited I had to share! Deathwatch will be out on DVD this August.

I’ll post a final version, one with all the credits on it, tomorrow.

(Shameless link to our RedBubble page)

(“I hacked the motion censors!”)

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I’m pretty sure Ed hacks things with her mind. 

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I often forget this tip when I’m writing. All of my action beats center around the distance between my character’s chin and eyebrows. Their whole body could be flailing around and none of my readers would know it.

It wasn’t until Susan May Warren gave me a tip during a critique, that I learned to fix this mistake. I still have to double check it in my editing, but I’m getting better at involving more of the setting and full body actions.

Fixing The Floating Head Syndrome In Three Easy Steps:

1.  Identify the facial action beats you have in your story. An action beat is simply the actions your characters do that surrounds the dialogue.

For example: “She died her hair purple?” Darren’s eyebrows reached his hairline.

The action beat is the part about Darren’s eyebrows. There can be some of these types of action beats, but you really need to have some that anchor the character in their setting or show emotion through full body actions.

2. Change the facial action to a full body action that shows emotion. In this example, we can see that Darren is surprised. So let’s pick another action beat.

Change: “She died her hair purple?” Darren dropped his plate. His eyebrows reached his hairline.

3. Anchor the action beat in the setting. We didn’t need to keep the second action beat above, but I chose to for now. You can take Darren’s body action beat and have it interact with the setting, so we can see it happening.

Change: “She died her hair purple?” Darren dropped his tray on the lunch table, the clatter echoing through the high school cafeteria.

Through this we have learned something about the setting for our scene, given larger actions as well as adding the sense of sound to the environment. It is much fuller in view than the first one.

There are other things you can do to show more with an action beat, especially when it comes to characters. You could mention the food splattering all over Darren’s letter jacket or his bifocals.

Building your action beats into beats that interact the character’s full body with setting, while adding personality appearance will have the same impact as a rich cast in a play with a fabulous set.

What boring action beats annoy you as a reader? Or what boring action beats do you catch yourself repeating?

It’s almost as funny as that old Funny or Die floating heads video.

Glasgow – not a giant silver wood louse but the SECC building
After weeks travelling over mountains and and across the isles of Scotland we are back in the city. We are used to drivers waving at each other on the quiet roads up north, but here we are, just another car looking for a parking place and it feels strange, like sitting on a warm seat that someone has just vacated,  mixed with a general feeling of confinement. Having said that, Glasgow has really exceeded our expectations.
The architecture is really adventurous and results in stunning skylines.

Centuries ago Glasgow had money coming in from tobacco plantations in Virginia and some of that wealth was spent on remarkable buildings like the Kelvingrove museum and art gallery, whose bizarre floating heads exhibit is seen below.

Ten heads are better than one

We had to film in the historic George Square later but as a campsite of protesters had set up there and were about to be evicted and surrounded by news crews we were faced with the difficult job of filming the area but not showing the crews and people. I’m not against protesting at all, it’s one of our given rights, but if you are, how do you show it?

The moment of eviction for around 35 – 40 protesters was approaching, the TV news crews all had their cameras facing the camp. We however, had ours facing in the opposite direction, across the square which caused some confusion among the news teams and I actually saw one or two of the journalists discussing us in a huddle as if we were in on some secret and we knew the direction the police units would be moving in from. One producer actually ordered his cameraman to point his camera across the square at the impassive lion statues we were filming!

Art and culture play an important part of life in Glasgow and we did our best to film whatever we could – see Andy, below, who confessed to feeling a bit overdressed.

Glasgow school of art is stuffed to the gills with copies of old roman statues and has an incredible collection of designer Charles Macintosh’s furniture

Glasgow school of art has an incredible collection of designer Charles Macintosh’s furniture

In the last few days of filming, our camera, the Panasonic AG AF101, had developed a worrying fault which meant we were sometimes unable to record until we had jiggled the cable to the hard drive recorder a bit ( jiggled is a highly technical term that takes months of training and needs very precise hand to eye coordination )
In an attempt to get this resolved I called the fittest firm in Glasgow called Mitcorp who managed to mend our camera whilst Andy and I were pacing the workshop like nervous fathers to be. A big thanks goes out to Richard and Danny B who both stayed late to help us – a big Wild Open Eye thanks guys. Jerry and Andy

Richard Devlin from Mitcorp

The newest floating heads painting. I built this panel from salvaged wood because I sometimes like to paint on textured surfaces. I’m starting to build the color up, but this painting still has a ways to go. The cat is filled with dread and the pig looks surprised. It must be something the chicken said. Also some smaller canvases in progress. I’m getting ready to stretch a HUGE canvas this week…… details to come.

Kelvingrove Building

Floating heads

They would be great for Hallowe’en to hang inside your house!

Table Piece Z 85 “Tiptoe” 1982

I have no idea what this is suppose to be but I find it compelling in some way. It’s very abstract and creates interesting shapes.

“Britain’s leading abstract sculpture Anthony Caro feels his work needs no explanation. We should just enjoy the different shapes and surfaces – and how we see them change as we walk around.”

                                                                                       

  

It’s 1942 and the second World War rages on. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a puny weakling with a ton of heart and a truckload of good old fashioned guts. Unfortunately for him, he’s got a shopping list of medical issues, is about 5 foot tall, weighs about as much as a cheeseburger and has this weird, shifting head problem where it seems like it’s balanced precariously on his neck instead of firmly attached to it. Guys like this, they ain’t Army material. What they are, in fact, is prime lab rat material for slightly dodgy European scientists (Stanley Tucci) to perform weird experiments on. Before anyone can say “Human Centipede!”, Steve’s been injected with glowing blue liquid and steamed in a sarcophagus. Out pops Super Steve, now a good foot taller, built like a brick shithouse and sporting a spanking new haircut! Wonders! Not only is this the origin of the first Avenger, it’s also the origin of those magic pants that change size no matter how big the superhero gets! So that’s where Hulk’s stretchy pants came from.

But what’s a superhero without a supervillain you ask? Well, hold your horses. Over in Europe the Nazi’s are going berserk. And their super secret scientist squad (the SSSS?), name of Hydra, seem to be working autonomously with unlimited funding and manpower. Led by the menacingly arched eyebrows of Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), aka Red Skull, Hydra have attained the macguffin of the gods and are preparing to launch a devastating attack on the east coast of the United States. America needs a hero. Someone with bucketloads of guts, but also killer biceps and a really strange running style. Who ya gonna call?

Captain America! Fuck… Meh.

At the risk of upsetting the natives, I wasn’t overly impressed by ‘Captain America’. This is not to say it’s not worth watching, because it’s an easy, pleasant, uninspired time waster perfect for a Sunday afternoon. And this is my problem with the Marvel films. They’re ALL like this. I’ve never watched one and truly enjoyed myself. They’re so hell-bent on setting up the characters for future instalments that they forget to tell a compelling tale, with interesting characters and above all else, tension. It’s an action adventure. It’s supposed to be exciting. But with ‘Captain America’ it felt like joining the dots and going through the motions. Particularly when it came time for Steve to get into the action. The first hour or so is all set up, and it’s actually pretty well done considering there isn’t a single surprise to be found. All the pieces are put in place, as the film steps through the necessary origin. There’s Steve putting up a fight while clearly outsized. And there’s Steve longing to do his part. There’s Steve proving again how much guts he has. There’s everyone underestimating Steve. Poor old Steve. He just wants to fight the good fight.

All credit must go to Joe Johnston for saving this film from being a complete turkey. I’ve always liked his films at a technical level, even when they weren’t very good (Jurassic Park III for example). He’s almost a relic of another era. He doesn’t cut every 6^th of a second. There’s no queasy cam. He frames his shots so you can clearly see what is happening and where everyone is in relation to one another. He keeps the pace moving nicely without gimmicks. He’s a very solid director in search of quality material. One that I’ve always had a soft spot for. And here it’s no different. In the first hour, before the shoddy bluescreen and special effects take over, ‘Captain America’ is an enjoyable film.

But I know the exact point where it went downhill for me, and it’s the moment where Schmidt removes his mask to reveal his true nature, the Red Skull. From this point on it turned into a science fiction special effects movie. It didn’t even feel like a period movie anymore. There’s laser guns, futuristic tanks and jets, and a noseless guy with a bright red makeup job. Where did Schmidt get a Mission: Impossible mask from anyway? Hugo Weaving, so entertaining and menacing as Schmidt, is hamstrung by immovable makeup that renders him characterless. It reminded me of Bodhi in the Nixon mask talking to Johnny Utah. There’s no character to the makeup. I would’ve much preferred the film without Red Skull. Let Weaving continue his nutty performance as Schmidt and the film would be all the better for it.

It’s no wonder Chris Evans turned down the role numerous times. I wouldn’t want to sign a contract that required me to play Steve Rogers nine times either. That he finally signed for six doesn’t soften the blow. Evans does as much as one could ask in the role, and I commend him for it. But there’s no getting around the fact that it’s not a very interesting character. He’s got guts. He never quits, even when the chips are down. Beyond that, we never really get to know Steve Rogers. And once he puts on the suit and picks up the shield, he’s just an action toy, throwing himself about and beating up the faceless hoard of bad guys.

This isn’t the fault of Evans or Johnston. The blame goes to the screenwriters, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and all the Marvel brass. It’s all about ‘The Avengers’ and future ‘Captain America’ adventures. The ending, shown in a brief scene that opens the movie, renders the outcome inevitable. Because we all know that Cap has to end up frozen so he can be thawed out for a current day Avengers movie, all tension is drained from then film and we end up witnessing two hours of stake-less set up. So intent on franchising are Marvel, that they keep forgetting to actually make interesting and compelling films.

‘Captain America’ really began to irk me in the way it set about to so blatantly cater to everyone it possibly could. Time and time again Cap is surrounded by a melting pot of good buddies. There’s the nameless black guy, the nameless asian guy (“from Fresno”), the nameless French guy, and the nameless American guy with a Bill the Butcher moustache and a bowler hat so he looks kinda Irish or something. All these guys get absolutely no characterisation but appear in the background, or filling the frame around Cap for most of the second half of the movie. And I’m not even going to go into the whole not really Nazi’s thing. There’s one swastika glimpsed in the corner of the screen on a guys arm. Apart from that, you wouldn’t even know they were fighting Nazi’s. Why they felt compelled to water down the bad guys to such a level is beyond me. Even to the point of the scientist character (who’s German), telling Steve “People forget that the Nazi’s invaded Germany first.” The overload of play it safe, don’t want to offend anyone, political correctness is astounding.

I’ve never read any of the ‘Captain America’ funnybooks, and maybe this is the reason why the film didn’t work as well for me as it has for others. But a film that goes through the motions in order to set up the next film isn’t good enough for me. I credit Joe Johnston for the mild success of the film, particularly the good first hour, but this film does not inspire me to watch any further adventures of Steve Rogers. ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ is not as good as ‘Thor’, or the first ‘Iron Man’, but better than ‘The Incredible Hulk’ and ‘Iron Man 2′. Take from that what you will.

I give ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ two Floating Head Jeff Bridges out of a possible four.

For Droids a jolly good fellow!

2011 – Captain America: The First Avenger

2010 – ? (I’ve just realised I haven’t done one for this year!)

2009 – The Collector

2008 – The Midnight Meat Train

2007 – Hot Rod

2006 – Bon Cop Bad Cop

2005 – The Dukes of Hazzard

2004 – The Manchurian Candidate

2003 – Gigli

2002 – Signs

2001 – Rush Hour 2

2000 – Hollow Man

1999 – The Iron Giant

1998 – BASEketball

1997 – In The Company of Men

1996 – Chain Reaction

1995 – Babe

1994 – Clear and Present Danger

1993 – The Fugitive

1992 – Buffy The Vampire Slayer

1991 – 1989 – Mini-Reviews of Slacker, Young Guns II and Lock Up

1988 – The Blob

1987 – The Lost Boys

1986 – Flight of the Navigator

1985 – Weird Science

1984 – ?

1983 – ?

1982 – ?

1981 – ?

1980 – ?

1979 – ?

1978 – ?

This is a painting I’m working on now. After playing with my images in my sketchbook and drawing a few different compositions, I can decide on what will make a good painting. I had a lot of fun this past week teaching my big animal sculpture class at Artspace. The kids I was working with were very creative and stayed focused. The results were astounding! Thanks to my helpers, Rebecca and Beth.

This is the bunny head that was my demo for the class this year.

If you’re a fan of the X-Men or comic book flicks in general, you will undoubtedly have seen at least some of the horrifically shit promotional material produced for the upcoming foray into the universe, X-Men: First Class. As a designer, I find a bad movie poster will have more sway over whether I want to see a film than your average movie-goer, and X4 is so far the best example I have experienced. My personal gripes with aspects of the film aside (beast looks like a gay version of Benecio del Toro’s Wolfman, teen angst forced in to appeal to the Twilight crowd etc.) I was still up for paying £8 to see it come June, but then images like the cast shot above began making their way around the internet and my plans of spending hard-earned money gradually changed.

I see great graphic design all the time, and it makes my brain hurt to think that 20th Century Fox has spent thousands – if not millions – of dollars on terrible Photoshop comps like that. Seriously, what the fuck happened there? Was it really too much to ask the cast for a quick photoshoot? Or if that wasn’t an option, how about assigning the job of making the composite to someone who’s actually good with the software? Still, it was early days when that line-up etched itself onto the eyes of fans the world over, I was sure the real posters wouldn’t be half as bad…

Alas, no. What the fucking hell was going on at the studio when these were being made? Did some crazy lunatic bust into the office shouting incoherent bollocks about floating heads and silhouettes and force a trainee designer to produce these two teaser posters in 15 minutes at gunpoint? In fact, considering how epically awful these are it was probably the janitor or tea lady that was forced to churn out these two doozies, because if the man or woman behind these calls themselves a “designer” they are a liar. I can maybe even understand some hack who blagged his way onto a Mac bashing these out, but then he must have had to show them to his peers, his superiors, the people fucking paying him. “Hey Bill, I finished those two X-Men teasers, you want to have a look?” “Yeah sure… Is this some kind of joke?”  But I guess nobody saw a problem, AT ALL.

Something is clearly wrong when work this dire can go through a string of supposedly creative and professional people and not one of them calls bullshit. This has somehow done the unthinkable and out-crapped the poster for Bangkok Dangerous. Say what you like about invisible guns and inexplicable lava, at least Nic Cage’s head isn’t floating in a black illustrator live-traced cut-out.

From what I gather there was quite alot of internet uproar when these were seen by pretty much everyone, and I’m sure that’s the reason for this secondary duo of teaser posters, which to be honest, are pretty good actually:

Not bad at all, the whole ‘dark reflection’ thing is hardly original, but it works given the nature of the film. Sadly though, at least for me, the damage had been done. The insanely bad promo material combined with the fact I didn’t think it looked that great to begin with has stopped me wanting to pay decent money to see it. I’d maybe folk out a couple of quid if we still had cinemas at that price (because, ya’ know, it’s X-Men), but we don’t, going to the cinema is expensive, and while I’m more than happy to folk out £10 to see Thor in IMAX, I’m now going to either download X-Men: First Class illegally, or wait until I can catch it on TV. And that is almost solely the fault of the bellends in charge of its marketing.

Getting back to the posters though, it’s almost like the knuckleheads on the board of directors weren’t satisfied with two reasonable teasers and when the time came for the official one-sheet they sent that gun-toting lunatic back into the studio, but this time I’m betting he gave the designer an hour maybe? And the brief probably went something as follows: “We gotta show all the cast, looking cool and walking toward the camera, but don’t do anything that references the source material at all, because we don’t care about the fans, they’re in the theatre already, we need to attract as broad an audience as possible.”

And look what happened…

So the film’s about a group of superhero-looking people with broken necks, walking around a blue aircraft hangar with no discernible floor. I’ll admit the second one is slightly better, at least it shows something happening, but movie posters don’t get much more generic than this. They say nothing about the tone of the flick, the characters themselves or really anything useful at all, certainly nothing that would convince me to see the damn thing, and isn’t that what the purpose of a movie poster is? All you’ve succeeded in doing is paying some moron alot of money for something completely and utterly gash.

A quick Google search revealed something I was sure of before even typing the words, that there would be several fan-made posters that shit all over the stuff churned out by the ‘pros’. This is true of pretty much every high profile film (e.g Thor, Source Code, Iron Man 2, Inception), but it’s overly appropriate here as the real ones are just so amazingly bad. These guys (aside from possessing actual talent) probably would let Fox use their work for free if they asked them nicely, and prove that there is original, engaging and excellent material waiting to be mined from your big-budget abortion of an X-Men film. If I saw any one of these presented as an official poster I would be in the theatre with bells on.

by Dane Frost

by Jeffrey Zang

My favourite ones all reflect the film’s period setting with lovely, retro style. It fits really well and offers so much great imagery. Also after watching the trailers this X-Film seems to be a more serious, almost sophisticated comic book flick, something not conveyed in the official posters at all. Jeffrey Zang’s versions on the other hand make First Class look like The Third Man and Vertigo. These next two are also wonderfully 60s, and give the movie some serious credibility, conveying comic-book sensibilities as well as tension and action:

by Bryan Lenning & Michael Dee

Now as much as I dig the retro style posters, I do understand that from a mass marketing standpoint they don’t connect to the kind of audience Fox wants to attract. The basic principle of movie-making is – sadly – to make as much money as possible, and your run-of-the-mill Twi-hard probably won’t see one of the above posters and think “Gee, what a great throwback to the work of Saul Bass.” But the below piece, by Barry Villegas is much more mainstream, even using the same idea as the second teasers, but executed with more of a restrained flare, definitely reflecting the tone of the trailers, and I think it looks really good.

by Barry Villegas

Finally, if seriousness and brooding undertones isn’t your thing you have these two frankly awesome comic-book themed efforts by Erik Johnson and Rory Phillips. These are just crazy cool to me, again channelling a 1960s style and going in a slightly different direction from the others by portraying a more light-hearted comic feel. After all, it is a comic book movie, to ignore that fact is like slapping us fans in the face. Not to mention Johnson’s young Charles Xavier looks way better than James McAvoy’s real version.

by Erik Johnson

by Rory Phillips

These ones remind me of classic spy thrillers, like From Russia With Love or The Ipcress File. A suave, Mad Men-style, which again fits the film really well. Now compare the above to the latest piece of official artwork released:

See what I mean? I really hope this film tanks, people need to learn from this that you can’t be so incredibly lazy with your ad campaign simply because you’ve got a famous name. If anything this should have been the opportunity for Fox to go balls to the wall in rejuvenating the X-series (after one disappointing sequel and one truly awful prequel), to remind us that there’s life in the property yet. But it’s just another million-dollar blunder.

Do yourselves a favour and go see Thor a second time, if you pay to see First Class you’ll be proving these idiots right, and they’ll be laughing at you all the way to the bank.

Post Script – I got all the fan made posters from a competition run by the good folks at Super Punch, check it out here.

From a comic featuring the floating heads of famous people from the past, Thinkin’ Lincoln by Miles Grover. Currently on hiatus.

I hate having to scale these down, but the theme I use restricts content to one narrow column. So as usual, click to view full size.

The King

One of the main foyers has a sea of floating heads, all with different expressions. You could walk all around it to see every different face, all hung at varying heights.

Floating heads

Vanessa had some cosmetic surgery. It was really cheap and if you ever decide you don’t like it, all you have to do is put it down.

Nosejob

We even saw a real haggis in its natural habitat. It looked a little like the offspring of Rod Stewart and a chicken. PERHAPS IT WAS?

Tasty

And for what wasn’t the first time, I experienced some classic Windows kiosk FAIL.

FAIL

We also checked out the People’s Palace which had, among other things, Billy Connolly’s banana boots. There was a pretty interesting history of Glasgow here, it sounded like a city that had been through some tough times.

We camped at Strathclyde, just out of Glasgow. This was by far the cheapest camping ground we’d stayed at and the facilities weren’t too bad. There was even a dodgy amusement park nearby. I continued my binge on Irvine Welsh novels, I think I ended up reading five in all. With no power or Internet there wasn’t much else to do.

Wheee

We went to the Amazon world thing at the amusement park. These things seem to be pretty popular here, we visited one in Leeds as well.

Marmoset

There were a lot of koi carp. I wouldn’t like to put my hand in there, the way they swarm when going for food reminds me of a pack of piranhas.

Feeding frenzy

The highlight was definitely the toucans. Most of them had some degree of beak damage but were pretty content tucking into the fruit they had there.

All beak

The way they pick off a grape using just the tip of their beak, tilt their head back and then let it roll down their gullet never ceases to be interesting.

Wait for it...

]]> http://caseykoester.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/the-floating-head-syndrome/ Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:59:48 +0000 Casey http://caseykoester.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/the-floating-head-syndrome/ Recently I’ve been designing a movie poster for my Graphic Design class and part of the learning experience is finding out what not to do. Our professor showed us this very informative short about how movie posters are made in the big leagues: aka, Hollywood. I offer it for your viewing pleasure.

Movie Poster Floating Heads from Funny or Die —> Click to watch

[I'm very sorry about the link. I tried to embed it, but WordPress doesn't like the embed link for some reason.]

Okay, so honestly, I’ve never realized this before! I guess I don’t pay enough attention to modern Hollywood. *cough, cough*

The other component of our lectures in preparation for the movie poster assignment was several Powerpoints of Polish film posters. The Poles are world renown for their eclectic designs of film posters. They famously misrepresent (or at least it seems that way to us) the films they are depicting. According to my prof, the reason for this misrepresentation is that the posters were made by artists who had not yet seen the film. They were creating the posters to be used as promotional material for underground theaters in Communist Poland (Poland was communist from 1945-1989). So, when they were designing, they had a limited little verbal sketch of what this film was about. Most likely provided by a shady character who was smuggling in bootleg copies of the films. (Sounds rather like film itself, doesn’t it?)

My friend Lolita is coincidentally doing a superb series showcasing these Polish posters, so I refer you to her amazing posts – Freaky Film Posters or: Do They Feel All Right In Poland? (part 1) (part 2)

These two are my favorites of the ones Lolita shared. Obviously the first is Casablanca (1942).  Lolita is right that it would be a stronger piece without the speech bubble. If you cover up the bubble with your hand, you can see how the poster is way more powerful. I think the person who designed this poster really had seen Casablanca before designing it. You can’t get that close to the storyline without at least one viewing.

The second poster is a bit of a puzzle at first glance. Look carefully. The strange abstract tower-like object is actually a train signal. Then we have darkness, a bright spot in the corner and a silhouetted couple in the foreground. Any guesses so far? Yup, it’s none other than Brief Encounter (1945)!

Here they are side by side with the Hollywood originals. How do think the Poles stack up?

Brief Encounter, Polish and American. Notice the floating head syndrome on the left in the American poster. I do love the illustration style of the American one, though!

Casablanca, Polish and American. Boy us Americans are really plagued with this floating head thing!

**You know, all the time I’ve been writing this post the text at the top of that Polish Casablanca poster has been reminding me of something. I just figured out what it is. Check out this cover from a Manhattan Transfer CD:

Very similar, no? I wonder who this artist was inspired by?

Well, that’s all for now folks. But stay tuned for a peek at the poster I designed from all this inspiration!

It’s funnier than that Will Ferrell Swearing Baby video!

Movie Poster Floating Heads

These are some sketches from my other Moleskine sketchbook, another big black one. This one I got as a gift from the artist Lisl Steiner because she’s really nice. It’s almost full, too. Many more uploaded on flickr. Also, I’m on the Behance network now.

- Jess

Nothing makes Newscoma and me laugh harder than giant floating heads.

So you know exactly how much I was pleased to find a list of the 10 Greatest Floating Heads of All Time on OMGLists.

They cover everything from the Great Oz to Frylock to Jambi.

Here’s a little video clip to put you in the mood before you get your meckalecka hiney in gear and “head” over to check out all 10.

Movie Poster Floating Heads

original from Design Observer

note: wordpress doesn’t allow video embeds from funny or die, which is stupid because their stuff is funny. i’m trying to figure out a work-around.

Wouldn’t the world be a bit more interesting if there were just big semi-omniscient floating heads that made random appearance to proclaim certain doom or the inevitable rise in the price of low-fat yogurt?  I believe the obvious answer is, “Yes.  Yes that would make the world more interesting.”

Sigh

  The Supreme being from “Time Bandits“