Now, I have my concept, my attributes, sketches,
and I have a list of stories that I want to tell.
My sketches have been fine so far,
but now it's time to make it real,
to give the poster
resonance and a connection.
I chose pivotal moments from several stories.
Great!
Now, how do I actually portray them?
First,
I tried photography as a medium with some sample images.
These wouldn't be the final images,
but help me see the visual tone
of photography.
I liked the result visually.
It was unexpected and a little odd.
But since this was for a film festival,
the first question would be, what
film is that?
Followed by, who is that?
That's distracting and would send the wrong message.
So, back to illustration.
Again,
I liked some of these.
They were unique and understandable and felt kind of nostalgic.
But
now I was simply illustrating the story.
There
was no work for the viewer.
Uh,
yeah, that's Adam and Eve.
And again, is that an animated film or is that an art festival?
If
the viewer didn't need to think about the meaning,
it had no
meaning power.
It would be quickly forgotten.
I was becoming alarmed that I had gone down a path that led nowhere.
You
know, when you wake up in the middle of the night and think,
what have I done?
Fortunately,
Samantha Fleming, who was the eyes of Sundance,
reminded me to slow down,
clear my mind, and stop trying to figure out what she and Robert Redford wanted.
What
would you do if it were just for you?
And you had no client, she asked.
In
other words, worry less about what I want and trust your gut.
This was super smart advice.
I
went back to my original sketches and remembered an old paperback book cover and the Saul Bass title sequence from Around the World in 80 Days.
I
realized I was on the right track conceptually and I
went back and did what I wanted to do.
Like a film, I would recast the stories with my own actors.
These
would be Victorian etchings of people and I'd place them in a brand new set.
The
etchings were recognizable,
but not too specific.
It was just man,
woman,
or balloon.
The
next step was to build the asset like a kit of parts.
I
pulled out every old book I had,
found a collection of etchings in the library,
and even curated my flat files for possible images.
I
needed an etching for each character,
forms for the sets,
and items to create the background.
Once the collection was complete,
I started to design the poster,
which was the most visible part of the campaign.
These were rough, low res, and would certainly require fine tuning,
but they helped me determine which stories would work.
Icarus, who made wax wings and flew
too close to the sun,
and David defeating the giant Goliath.
I
tried multiple stories, like Newton and the apple when he discovered gravity, or
Moby Dick, and
I tried different etchings to represent the people in the myths.
It
was clear that this was going to work,
or it was going to sink the idea.
This
led me to the myth of William Tell from medieval Switzerland for the main poster.
Now
here's the short story.
William Tell is sentenced to be executed by an evil local tyrant.
As an added mean twist,
the tyrant promises Tell that he would be saved if he could shoot an apple off the head of his son in a single attempt.
Unknown
to the tyrant, Tell was an expert marksman.
He
aimed and split the apple in half with no harm to his son and escapes the village.
Clearly,
life in the Middle Ages was not fun.
As
I mentioned earlier,
I didn't want to find an illustration of the story.
I wanted to make my version.
I
recast Tell's son with an etching.
In
reality, this is not William Tell's son.
It happens to be
Samuel Adams.
Yes, a distant relative of mine.
I
substituted the apple with a film reel to communicate the idea of hitting the mark as a filmmaker.
My
first pass told the story clearly.
It was clear and perfectly fine,
but rather dull.
It
lacked any sense of drama and felt expected.
I found a more graphic and high contrast image and moved in closer,
making the face dominant.
Now
people will always look at faces first.
It's in our DNA.
And
then I moved in even closer,
because
big
should always be very big.
I determined to use as few elements as possible and still communicate the story.
Did
I need the tree,
bow and arrow, Tell and the crowd?
No.
This
alone gave all the information needed.
That made the color even more critical to add drama.
For another concept, I recast the story of Genesis and Adam and Eve,
the serpent and the fruit of knowledge.
The story talks about temptation,
knowledge,
good and evil, and ejection from Eden.
These
ideas are often the central theme of contemporary film.
Like the William Tell poster,
the story was clear,
but the composition was kind of a mess.
Again,
working with the scale of the elements started to create some order.
I
gave the serpent center stage,
rotated it a bit to add energy,
and point to the type,
and made the branches larger and asymmetrical.
These
moves helped create tension and the feeling of a stage set.
But again,
color would be the saving grace here.
I spoke with my creative partners at Sundance to get their thoughts about color.
Samantha
Fleming made it clear.
Bob isn't crazy about pastel colors.
He likes rich and deep tones.
Like the process we used previously,
I worked with the images from the research that related to the brand.
I sampled these images to find a range of light and dark,
warm, cool, and neutral.
And I avoided pastels.
After
many explorations, I had a palette that matched the attributes and would be broad enough for a variety of needs.
But these were still rough RGB colors sampled from the images.
They needed more refinement.
I
adjusted the RGB values for the
web and motion team to be simpler.
Instead of red 230,
green 179, and blue 52,
I rounded the values up or down.
These
tiny shifts won't affect the color too much,
but they make it easier to specify and more consistent when applied.
I'd rather have this consistency on all items than fight with a super specific and complicated color value.
I
did the same for the CMYK values.
Cyan
19.22%, magenta 94.9%, black 10.59%.
That's pretty hard to remember or tell someone when they ask,
hey, hey Sean, what are the CMYK values for the red?
It's
easier to shout back 20, 100,
110.
This gives every printer working on the project the exact same values.
I
make these adjustments all the time.
Believe me, it makes life so much simpler.
To finish, I assign Pantone numbers to each color.
They won't be exact since Pantone is a spot ink color,
not a mix of CMYK or RGB values,
but they will be required when I have the chance to use them in printing or specify the color for merchandise.
This
takes some subjective thinking.
You may need to choose a color that is close,
but not exact as there may not be a perfect match.
Keep the same idea.
Don't fixate on something impossible.
Remember,
no two people see color the same way.
With
CMYK, RGB, and Pantone numbers specified,
the chances of a color being modified by a printer or manufacturer are lower.
Everyone
working on the project,
from designers to printers, web designers,
the motion team, and the client is on the same page,
not trying to match the colors by eye.
Now,
I had a color palette.
I assigned a color to each character.
I decided that I could use any color in the palette on anyone.
If Picasso could paint people in blue,
why couldn't I have a green man,
orange woman, or yellow horse?
Sort of like the multicolored zebra when I was in the first grade.