THE NEW JERSEY TURNPIKES is a comedy about the waning days of the ABA (American Basketball Association) league in 1975. The manager of the team was played by Kelsey Grammer, who also narrated the film. The comedy, which I labeled a Jockumentary, was positioned as 1970s kitsch, especially thanks to lead character Kool Williams (played by Orlando Jones). In the film, Jones grabs a lot...

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Toy action figures come to life and do battle in SMALL SOLDIERS, with a suburban neighborhood caught in the middle. When newspapers were the most popular way to find movies at local theaters, movie studios generated a large amount of new artwork for newspaper ads. These ads would change weekly to maintain interest weeks after a film's release. The highest number of people to see a...

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The Ron Howard film EDtv stars Matthew McConaughey as the subject of a 24 hour a day reality show. When the film was released in the late 1990s, reality TV shows like Survivor and Big Brother had not even yet debuted. The only comparable reality series on air at the time was Cops. The client did not want the poster to look like an ad for...

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THE FIFTH ELEMENT was a science fiction epic from French director Luc Besson and starring Bruce Willis. In the 23rd century, a mysterious evil force threatens humanity. The only way to stop this menace is the Fifth Element, which comes to Earth with stones representing four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Working on teaser movie poster designs, we were given an existing logo created for...

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THE FALL is a thriller in the classic sense; the various incarnations of the double-cross. The haunting look from actress Hélène de Fougerolles in the poster definitely leaves an impression. It is an undefined look, meaning it is open to speculation, much like her character in the story. The color also gives it a somber feel. This promotional poster (a poster created before final key art...

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All's fair in the war of love.

Or so goes the copy line I wrote for this THREE TO TANGO movie poster. Actually I preferred another line I wrote:

A love triangle with too many sides.

For this Matthew Perry, Neve Campbell, and Dylan McDermott sandwich, I employed a time honored (at least in 1999) technique of "half-tone dots" as a design treatment. This was in response to the...

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Todd Solondz offers a dark satire in the form of the film STORYTELLING. Divided into two parts: "Fiction" revolves around a college writing class, while "Non-Fiction" is about a documentary filmmaker studying a suburban family. The film was difficult to capture within the confines of poster art. With it's wide ranging attacks on suburban repression and an array of taboo subjects, conventional poster ideas were not...

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The science fiction space epic STARSHIP TROOPERS sends high school kids (in the name of "citizenship means service") into space to do battle with giant bugs. The film also tries to offer a bit of satire and a critique of fascism. Looking at the film's production design and script, director Paul Verhoeven was ready to embrace military satire and imagery. Drawing on the "Why We Fight"...

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"So tell me what you want, what you really really want!" So sayeth the Spice Girls, and in the case of this movie poster, Columbia Pictures. The client wanted to market SPICE WORLD as being sexy and fun, but not skew too young as far as audiences go -- younger fans would be a case of preaching to the choir. The original comp of this poster had...

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ROCK STAR is loosely based on the real-life story of Tim "Ripper" Owens, lead singer of a Judas Priest cover band who ends up playing with his real-life idols. When first working on this project, the film was titled METAL GOD. Then the title became the unwieldy SO YOU WANNA BE A ROCK STAR. This was then shortened to it's final title of ROCK STAR. For the...

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