Filmmaker, author and photographer Henry Chalfant, the director of much-loved early-1980s hip hop street art documentary, Style Wars, has just launched a new website that is set to feature his astonishing Big Grafitti Archive. Henry’s portfolio features countless breathtaking shots that effectively helped to communicate grafitti art to the rest of the world, and he plans to make the Big Graffiti Archive available as a DVD set. That’s one for the OG Christmas list, then. Click on the image above to check the subway car in all of its glory.
Another ingredient in the crucible of hip hop, New York’s street gang culture, is explored in Rubble Kings, a new documentary from director Shan Nicholson that’s currently on the film festival circuit. Check the trailer below…
We first showed a tilt shift movie with the video Little Big Berlin and this film, which makes shots of New York seem like a toy town is also a must-see. Surely it’s only a matter of time before this technique is brought to wider public attention in a music video, advertisement or film – it’s an innovative, charming and quirky way to show a city at work.
We first became aware of this guy’s work when Hollywood director Jon Favreau tweeted a hand drawn poster for Iron Man II earlier this year.
The illustrator’s name is Tyler Stout, who hails from Washington in the States. He’s spent years caught up watching films and honing his craft, and it’s through this focus that you can see why he didn’t have a girlfriend until he was in his early 20s.
But it’s that kind of love for the subject matter that’s paid off in his later life, getting commissions to produce brilliantly observed re-imagings of current and classic movie posters.
We’re hugely keen on his ‘Kuato Lives’ Total Recall poster – the ‘two weeeeeeeeeks’ head is great – but all of his posters bring something to the party that hasn’t been seen in film posters for years.
Let’s hope we see a return to these sorts of promo values in the near future – all of our lives would be the better for it.
For more of Tyler’s work, stop by at his website – you may even be able to pick yourself up a print, but you’ll need to be quick!
On September 18th, the Cinespia crew are set to end their tenth season of post-sundown, open-air classic movie screenings in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on LA’s Santa Monica Boulevard with a showing of Night of the Living Dead.
The du jour brand for hipsters. Lifetime, started as a DIY basement outfit and have steadily progressed to creating full collections. Watching this video shows they still haven’t lost their edge. It’s nice when brands mess with clichés.
I know, a film about the origins of Facebook sounds like nothing more than a TV movie of the week, but when it’s directed by David Fincher and scripted by The West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin you have to take notice.
Like all the best teasers, this one manages to completely grip you without actually showing you anything. Nice, if obvious, movie logo at the end too.
Ellroy's prime source material - propaganda disguised as a TV tie-in!
Noir icon James Ellroy is well known for his almost seamless blending of fact and fiction, but a recent chance purchase of a copy of 1940s magazine On The QT at a market stall in Bath popped another piece of his creative puzzle into place.
Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of noir titan Jim Thompson‘s irredeemably dark fifth novel of 1952, The Killer Inside Me, has been attracting considerable flak for its brutality and amoral tone. Reportedly, even the film’s co-star, Jessica Alba, didn’t make it to the end of the gala showing at the Sundance Film Festival, so unflinching was the portrayal of a violent scene between her character and the work’s anti-hero, Texan Deputy Sheriff, Lou Ford (Casey Affleck).
Mike McCarthy’s excellent slice of totally independently-made, dystopian big screen noir, Cigarette Girl, as previously blogged about on We Love Creative, is set to receive its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Tuesday 22 June.
Pixar story artist, Josh Cooley, has been creating his collection of Innapropriate Golden Books (a beloved US kiddie book range – think Ladybird) for the last two years. What has he done with this collection? Made a book of course. Check out some samples…
The Princess Bride has got to be one of my desert island DVDs. I already have the 15th anniversary edition, but the 20th is tempting… Got to love this fabulous ambigram cover design…
Cigarette Girl is the latest big screen slice of rock’n’roll-infused, dystopian noir from prolific, Memphis-based filmmaker, cartoonist and musician Mike McCarthy. He’s worked with rising director Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan) on such projects as MTV’s Emmy Award-winning Five Dollar Cover series; brought the world a host of lowbrow epics (including Elvis Meets The Beatles, “An unpopular movie about the most popular icons of our time”); and helmed promos for The Hives, Japan’s Guitar Wolf and other underground rock’n’roll icons.
The winner of this year’s Oscar for animated short is Logorama, a wonderful inspirational design classic… that’s also a great quiz…. can you name all the logos used in its beautiful construction*?
There has been trend in 2009 for designers to take slices of popular culture and mash them up with old skool design. It looks like it’s an idea that isn’t running out of steam any time soon as Stéphane Massa-Bidal has shown with the latest incarnation – his series of internet phenoms as 1960’s style Pelican Classics.
Olly Moss was the first one out of the blocks with his revamped film posters and video games as books – all very Saul Bass.
M S Corley gave us books as, wait for it… books. Again heavily influenced by Bass.
Kinetic typography is a wonderful thing, but sometimes it’s immense power can be used for the dark side. Watch this speeck from Psycho…. if you DARE!!! Mwa ha ha ha… etc.
Someone very geeky is collecting opening and closing title stills from classic movies. This is shaping up to be a great resource for movie logos and motion graphics. They are gathered here for your pleasure
Even though this documentary is about US rather than UK ad creatives, it’s still a big screen documentary about creatives. A rare thing and it looks good! Here’s the HD trailer followed by the official blurb…
ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative revolution” of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others featured in ART & COPY were responsible for “Just Do It,” “I Love NY,” “Where’s the Beef?,” “Got Milk,” “Think Different,” and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents. They managed to grab the attention of millions and truly move them. Visually interwoven with their stories, TV satellites are launched, billboards are erected, and the social and cultural impact of their ads are brought to light in this dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion.
Here’s the opening credits to Stanley Kubrick’s wonderful Dr Strangelove. The titles were designed and hand drawn by a guy called Pablo Ferro. He started work as a comic book artist in 1953 and went on to work with Stan Lee of Marvel Comics before going on to do various animation projects and movie titles. He’s still going strong and there’s a film being made about his life which is scheduled to be released next year and is a combination of animation and documentary.
Toyota is promoting its new car, the IQ, by having it drive a new font into existence and it turns out that it’s a genius idea. Designers are emailing the video to each other, blogs are picking it up – it’s gone viral. Plus, every letter of the font (free to download) shows the car’s tight manoeuvring: take a look at the lower case f, k and z, the precision of the upper case O – all of it shows great driving skills and fun. It was a leap this concept but it’s really worked and the font looks cute, dinky and odd. Just like the car.
WARNING: The soundtrack is far too bleepy and squelchy for its own good.
This looks fantastic! The September Issue is a no-holds-barred documentary taking us behind the scenes of American Vogue. So far so dull, until you meet the terrifying legend that is Editor-in-chief Anna Wintour! Obviously, the commissioning of this documentary had absolutely nothing to do with the runaway success of The Devil Wears Prada. Even from the trailer below though, Anna makes Meryl’s fictional alter ego seem a little tame.