Interview with Couchcutter

Here's an interview from the Couch Cutter with DD about poster design and general exploitation movie chat... COUCHCUTTER.COM

Tromas Fathers Day Poster

Lock up your fathers it's... Fathers Day

I got approached by the ladies and gentlemen at Troma and Astron 6 and to do what the dude does best and come up with some classic exploitation art for there new film Fathers day, So this ones all flames, boobs, chainsaw, guns and of course a car chase...

The subject of the film is a rather sensitive one... dad rape 'all fathers all raped... can you see a pattern' to quote!!

Now I didn't want to display man on dad action in graphic detail for fear of turning people off (and its also not the main style angle we where going for, The film itself has some awesome home video touches like its almost recorded straight off the TV with intro ads and even a trailer break so we wanted to communicate that trip with the classic 70's, 80's style... which is why i guess they came to me!!). They had some really strong characters going on and i do love my classic character driven posters So i really concentrated on them for the layout.

The title design was supplied for this one and the design is quite a square block so i had to center things around it in the layout as its not a format which i could just run along the bottom of the poster. I then worked the main characters in a sort of pyramid form (with them almost coming out of the title and looming away into the distance... a bit of a homage to the man who loved cat dancing poster there!) surround by the flames which work great as a vehicle to frame the characters and they also do have a meaning... but you need to watch the film to find out what!!

With that as the focal point i worked all the other elements around it to give the poster its narrative. I brought in the dad rapist as the largest character in as hes the evil character and wanted him to have that mysterious haunting quality in the background looming over the proceedings. This is the offset on the right hand corner with the classic girl being assaulted scene... which seems to be becoming a regular occurrence in these posters! (see Savage Streets and Hobo).

The inclusion of the priest and 80's man whore where also vital as they are two integral characters to the plot so i couldn't leave them off!!! plus the priest does add an unusual angle to the narrative i felt.

Lets not forget that classic car chase car chase which had to be added for two reason 1. it is the amendment to the helicopter rule, (one or the other has to appear in there some where!!!) and 2. i think the guys at Astron 6 where rather proud of there death defying stunt work on this one so wanted it included in there somewhere.

Finally to get that specific balance of the sex and the violence i used the strippers to frame the bottom of the poster (note the creative nipple coverage!!) and tada... you have yourself a classic exploitation poster!

The whole thing went rather smoothly, so thanks to the guys and girls at Troma / Astron 6 for that!

Interview Part 1

Hi,

Thought i'd share this, i got interview request by Marcus Goodman about getting started, poster design in general on his site Hamster Triathlon so i thought it was cool you can read me rambling on: PART. 1 HERE

Savage Streets Linda Blair

Savage streets was a cool one to work on as i got to give it that real 80's video cover style mixed with the classic action poster montage structure and inject a little something different to the other versions that have been done, the composition was the main challenge with this one as there had already been about 6 totally different posters, video covers and DVD covers already designed for it in the past, and they where all great (even if someone felt Adrienne Barbeau was hotter looking that Linda Blair on the classic uk Medusa release).

Watching the film there was one (or two) BIG things that jumped out at me! I have never seen such an indulgent use of breast in a film since an episode of Benny Hill! from Linda Blair bouncing down the street in the intro, to the gym class work out, to the shower fight scene.... i could go on! (im never going to be able to watch the exorcist the same again!!!). So wanted it to have an 80's action film meets tacky 80's porn vibe. Which i reflected in the colour scheme, Linda 'glamour' baby doll pout porn hair pose... I admit it may be a bit heavy on the sex but i felt that this was a big part of the film and an avenue for the design which hadn't really been explored so blatantly before in the other poster/cover treatments, so it was a different approach which would allow me to bring something alternative to cover.

I also really enjoyed playing about with the type giving it a new title treatment and getting that quintessential VHS style to it... ahh a rough script with a flat colour drop shadow... nothing says video box art better!!!

Well hope you like this take on a classic video title.

Pervert!

PERVERT! Well this was a bit of an oddity Its one crazy ass movie, created as a homage to Russ Meyer movies of the 60s.

Which really needed to be drawn out in the tone of the cover as the danger was people could get turned off by thinking its was just some crappy soft core porno film which are A) awful and B) a dime a dozen.

So this design is a total love letter (or soiled sock!... bad joke!) to the sexploitation film posters of the 60's and 70's.

unlike allot of the action / horror style posters theses usually had a more minimal layouts focusing on the one girl with the big curves to pull in the punters to the seedy cinema joints, i did have to tone the curves down a bit though after the first draft so i hope ive still managed to maintain the impression of Mary Cary having some shape in this film and not just looking stick thin).
where these posters really went for it though was with the use of type, something which doesn't get used much in the Arrow illustrations so i think ive made up for it with Pervert!!
Russ Meyer's was a total show man (i read some where that he used to make the posters first then if they where well received then he would make the film) and there was a definite carnival approach to selling these films, with outlandish statements made on them, so i took a couple of quotes form the us poster and DVD, but i have to admit im responsible for the cumming to get you and Busting out in... all bad puns i know!

I found allot of inspiration from posters like 'A trip with teacher' and 'Stepmother' where i loved the juxtaposing of illustration styles the main character is quite polished and then having rough sketchy line drawings for the background characters, its something i hadn't done before and i think works really well.

For the film title it was a bit of a twist on the classic cookie font which just says 70s and sexy so well, the phallic exclamation mark is actually not just a childish joke but like the innkeepers title has a bit more meaning behind it and the strange storyline...