She Wore Blue Velvet

I have written before about how much this movie affected me when I first saw it. I should probably mention that I haven't seen it in over twenty years and don't necessarily want to view it again. The snippet they used in "The Squid and the Whale" was enough for me. But "Blue Velvet" has stayed with me. It's a good entry point anyway to look at poster design in different places.
Here is a Turkish version. Helpless damsel and macho violence.

This German version focuses on montage and heavy symbolism.

These two evocative French posters show characters looking out, helplessly. The one on the left decorated the front window of a video store near my college, so I would be greeted by that haunted look whenever I walked to class.

I saw a copy of this hanging in an office at the JBFC, signed by Isabella Rossellini herself. What does this disturbing and violent image have to do with the disturbing and violent film? The story is that it is based on a scene excised from the final cut of the film.

This is a Polish poster by Jan Mlodozeniec, who created many film posters and applied his light and clever touch to even the darkest subjects.

This is a DIY poster for a 2008 Valentine's Day college campus screening. Looks like it's 5 in a run of 25 screen prints. I bet they all were taken soon after being posted. I know I would have wanted one.

Like, whoa!

What if, like, you could be inside the sphere that M.C. Escher is holding, and be, like, peering out, and looking all around the room? Dude, now you can.

http://www.ciudadesferica.com/varios/experimentos/escher/

Final Star Wars scene

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 021 from Gregory Nemec on Vimeo.

My last one (only three are allowed, which is probably a good thing for my sanity) which includes my first attempt at hand-painted frames. The rapidly changing lighting is so much a part of the shot of the pod launching that I didn't see another way to do it. I already had a healthy respect for Alexander Petrov, but my respect for him has grown.

Starring Obi-Wan, C3P0, Han and Chewie

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 351 from Gregory Nemec on Vimeo.

I am bitten by the Sweding bug. I chose this scene because it wasn't really a scene, it's bits of three different threads of the story. Who wants to act that out? But animating it is no problem. Also, a chance to draw four of my favorite characters (see title of this post) AND Stormtroopers? Please.

The Death of Biggs

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 453 from Gregory Nemec on Vimeo.

Here is my contribution to the GREATEST IDEA EVER on the internet. The idea in a nutshell: chop up the first Star Wars* into fifteen second clips and let people shoot their own versions of those clips. Compile them all in one place and you have a remake of a beloved movie, in hundreds of different styles. Some are pretty much just like the "Sweded" scenes in "Be Kind Rewind", with various degrees of professionalism. Many use Lego and action figures, and at least one artist used hand-painted paper bag puppets. I did mine in cut paper stop-motion, with a few self-imposed limitations: no sketching with pencil first, no do-overs. If I had been too picky, I never would have finished all fourteen shots. Fourteen shots for fifteen seconds of film! I noticed a lot of animators gravitated to the action scenes, with lots of quick cuts.

I love all the creative solutions people came up with to re-create moments from the film. A narrow hallway for the garbage compactor scene. A computer keyboard as the surface of the Death Star. And, wow, a milk carton on its side DOES look just like a Jawa sandcrawler.

*okay, I have a beef with them using the "new and improved" version, not the original version. But whoever did scene 196 decided not to have Greedo shoot first. See, it's the GREATEST IDEA EVER on the internet.

It's not copying, it's an homage.

(click on my artwork to see it much bigger)

Autobiographical numbers describe themselves. For example, the subject of this art is 1210, and it has 1 zero, 2 ones, 1 two, and 0 threes. 1—2—1—0. Get it? It's the smallest autobiographical number. Fun for a geek like me, and fun to be able to add my name to the long list of people who have ripped off the famous Rockwell triple self-portrait. Of course he was the master of doing that:

Dime Bag show ending soon!

I had a great time at the opening of Dime Bag 3, featuring my little rabbit painting and lots of great art by lots of artists. Stop by Giant Robot and see all the work by Wednesday. Then it's coming down. Trust me, it's worth seeing. Tiny work that packs a big wallop. You can buy the individual pieces of art, ranging in price from $10 to $500, online if you can't make it to the show. Check out Giant Robot for details. There are lots of photos of the super-crowded opening courtesy of Giant Robot on Flickr, but here are the highlights from a Greg-centric point of view.



Illustrator and co-curator Jordin Isip. The look of a man who just hung up almost 300 works of art.



The red dot means someone bought my painting. I hope it gets a good home.




This was one of two walls full of art. I hear that additional work went up after the opening. Click images to see in more detail.



This is what happens when you invite several hundred artists to be in a show, and they each bring a friend or two...


So since my wife was sad that my painting might be sold, and she liked it, I created a companion piece for her. She likes it even better. Maybe because we have two bunnies of our own now.