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Hollywood

  • According to an interview between the Kubrick and Michel Ciment, Kubrick attempted to create this photograph initially using extras. But was unhappy with the result. The photo we now know, was ultimately shopped together. Kubrick literally photographed Jack Nicholson from an approximate high angle shot peering down. Then airbrushed Nicholson into the “picture library” photo Kubrick found. Incredible.

    Did you have all those extras pose for the last shot?

    “No, they were in a photograph taken in 1921 which we found in a picture library. I originally planned to use extras, but it proved impossible to make them look as good as the people in the photograph. So I very carefully photographed Jack, matching the angle and the lighting of the 1921 photograph, and shooting him from different distances too, so that his face would be larger and smaller on the negative. This allowed the choice of an image size which when enlarged would match the grain structure in the original photograph. The photograph of Jack’s face was then airbrushed into the main photograph, and I think the result looked perfect. Every face around Jack is an archetype of the period.”

  • I’ll let the poster artwork do all the talking here. I could not be more excited for this movie.

    It’s notable to mention that this is the first Alien-franchise theatrical release from Disney since the 20th Century Fox acquisition.

  • I’m a little at a loss for words.

    Carl Weathers has played so many wonderful roles over his tenure as an actor. I always thought he had such a lovely voice and brought us so much delight on the screen. It wasn’t until recently I learned he was an Oakland Raider in the NFL briefly!

    Weathers has had some iconic roles in the past, and frankly it’s a tragedy he doesn’t have a Hollywood Star. Maybe that could change posthumously. The man had major roles in Toy Story, Rocky, and Predator. Those 3 titles alone, were some heavy-hitters.

    Take a few moments to take in Weather’s considerate thoughts about how he perceived the character Greef Karga. You can tell that he was very jazzed to be him. Weathers is a studied man of many talents — chief among them is theater and he’s a director himself too. I just love hearing him carefully choose his words here. You can really tell he’s excited to have such an amazing opportunity to essentially take part in a modern western, and carve out Karga as a benevolent complex character on-screen.

    Here’s a few other noteworthy (and hilarious) characters he’s portrayed.

    High Magistrate Greef Karga

    (a starving) Carl Weathers as himself in Arrested Development

    Who could forget Chubbs Peterson?

    Rest easy Carl ❤️

  • I came across these film posters a while back, but I just had to share these. A few of the images below are from the exhibition African Gaze, a showcase of nearly 100 film posters all deriving from the country that hugs the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana. Most of the pieces were from the Collection of Karun Thakar & the late Mark Shivas. For the uninitiated, Mark Shivas was a film and tv producer. Over his career, he produced for BBC and Channel 4 but tragically passed away from cancer in 2008.

    The Brunei Gallery at the University of London put together this show in early 2019:

    The late 1980s in Ghana saw the emergence of exuberant new visual modes of expression in a new local and innovative film industry (alongside that of Nigeria commonly referred to as Nollywood), especially in the ways films were promoted by vivid hand painted posters on sack or canvass.

    Highly skilled artists emerged to create striking images with their surfaces co-ordinated in eye catching colour arrangements to command the attention of passers-by. These film posters were commissioned by mobile local entrepreneurs taking the films to a range of communities and using the cloth posters that could be rolled up, unfurled and transported very easily as they criss-crossed the country. The intense competition between films enhanced the creativity and imaginative possibilities realised by the artists in the film posters and established their individual renown.

    I don’t recall seeing any Sai in The Matrix, but this is awesome.

    The Ghanian film posters are such a phenomenon, that even Conan got in on the fun:

    The artist, Daniel Anum Jasper, is seriously talented, and gracious. I would recommend giving him a follow on his Instagram account, @dajasperart. He is incredible, and continues to produce film posters very much in the spirit of his predecessors. You can see more of the film posters at this story from the BBC, here.

    You can find a few more of these Ghanian film posters at the Deadly Prey Gallery in Chicago. They sell reproductions and originals (apparently) on at their shop.

  • Neil Genzlinger reporting for The New York Times:

    Syd Mead, a designer whose wide-ranging work included envisioning vehicles of the future as well as helping to shape the look of environments in movies like “Blade Runner,” “Tron” and “Aliens,” died on Monday at his home in Pasadena, Calif. He was 86.

    His spouse, Roger Servick, said the cause was lymphoma.

    Mr. Mead started out in the car business, designing for Ford. By 1970 he had founded his own firm, Syd Mead Inc., and had a wide range of clients, working on architectural interiors and exteriors, restaurants, catalogs and more.

    I never knew he began his career at Ford. That’s pretty rad, and it shows. His depictions (or visions?) of vehicles and transport are honest and divine.

    Aliens and Blade Runner’s sterile living environments, dank off-world Weyland-Yutani industrial complexes, and the jagged colonial spacescapes gripped my young imagination like a face-hugger. I doubt any of Ridley Scott’s motion pictures would be the same without Mead’s futuristic conceptual input. I mean look at this stuff:

    Syd Mead is a very well respected conceptual designer and artist, whose work has influenced multiple generations of sci-fi creators and artists for decades. Tendrils of his work can be found alive and well in the far-away worlds in Hollywood. Obviously his most notable breakout was Blade Runner. Just look anywhere beyond off-world. Moon, Guardians of the Galaxy, the Star Wars franchise, Interstellar and even Pixar films such as WALL·E are a few notable areas where Hollywood really latched onto Mead’s futuristic visions: floating colonies, shiny white airlocks, moody AI, light-cycles, damp neon-lit cities, levitating transports and of course Cyber Trucks.

    Godspeed Syd. You’ll be missed.