Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Someone's learning Illustrator...

I try, I really do. Here's a logo (the lettering part already existed) incorporating a new mascot I designed.
Here's a logotype for Diamond Ruby who is the main character in my friend's soon-to-be-published novel. Picture her initials on the front of a baseball cap in 1923. Stay tuned as this may be featured on other materials, like a poster and actual caps.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

More Star Wars by fans



I got interviewed for this ABC Online article about the Star Wars Uncut project, which is a good opportunity to link to it again, and to point you to a clip by my friends' son Gio, a gradeschooler whose clip is awesome and whose drawings (above) of Stormtroopers, C3P0, and Leia put mine to shame.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

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.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

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.

Friday, September 25, 2009

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.

Monday, September 21, 2009

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.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

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.