As Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption – The Green Mile – the Mist) wrote in the foreword « Movie posters suck these days. »
He may have a point here, marketing people killed about everything removing the artists from the process of creating movie posters and the art of illustrators like Drew Struzan considered old-fashioned and too artistic to appeal for modern audiences *cough*
Although Drew Struzan is behind some of the most iconic movie posters (Back to the Future trilogy – Star Wars – Indiana Jones series), his name is still unfamilliar somehow.
The artbook is a wide selection of his work including lots of alternate posters (usually a mix of acrylic paint and aerography) and « comps », short for comprehensive: pre-work sketches and rough illustrations.
Rise and fall of movie poster illustration in Hollywood.
Besides the artwork, the book offers a glimpse of how Struzan was dealing with « the suits » as he used to call the studio executives, from handshake during his early work to tens pages of contracts when he retired.
And anecdotes too, when he had a 24-hour deadline to illustrate the poster of John Carpenter‘s The Thing, a delivery guy was waiting for the finishing painting until he left with the canvas still wet!
While his very distinctive portraits are based on stills, we learn that he used to arrange shots being his own model for body references, with his wife and friends too.
A look back to forty years of work in which you can feel all the passion and the sincerity which, sometimes, bring some rushes of nostalgia.
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Title / Author : The Art of Drew Struzan / D. Struzan & David J. Schow
Publisher : Titan Books
Published : 2010
Format : Hardback 162 pages
ISBN : 9781848566194
