Richard Attenborough’s “Chaplin” starring Robert Downey Jr.
Most of my film poster work consisted of re-jigging existing key art and title treatments to fit UK poster sizes but occasionally I got a chance do something new. In the case of Chaplin, the US poster was a simple rectangle with the doorway and the silhouette. Nothing wrong with that of course but, well, I just wanted all that light to be casting a shadow to draw the image into the poster so we commissioned an artist to paint my idea into the pre-existing image.
Robert Altman’s “The Player” starring Tim Robbins
My original idea had three Oscar statuettes playing the part of the wise monkeys. We approached the esteemed “Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences” with the idea and they suggested that, were we to go ahead with it, they would sue us for more money than God can count. Having rather less in the bank than might be required, we opted instead for illustrations of three cheap-looking glazed figurines of Griffin Mill. This one’s not strictly “pre-digital” as my role also included art directing a studio shoot of the main figure and the compositing of Tim Robbins’ head in place of the original head, using one of the early Kodak systems that was visible from the Moon.
David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” starring Sheryl Lee. But also Kyle MacLachlan, David Bowie, Chris Isaac… Basically everyone who didn’t make it into the Altman movie.
This was the result of another long session at the Kodak coal face, the aim being to get the shoulders of L:aura Palmer and Dale Cooper to form a single pice that could still be seen as belonging to either character. I was very pleased with the result, despite the fact that, in this particular photo, it looks though a balloon animal has forced its way through from another dimension, just to give it that “Popeye” look. One of the other challenges was to get any kind of detail whatsoever into Agent Cooper’;s face, as he was taken from a tiny part of a 35mm transparency that had been scanned at a the highest resolution we could manage at the time.