Monthly Archive for October, 2006
Yeah I know what you’re thinking, I’m a glutton for punishment. I get that design bug bite down hard and there’s no stopping me. So I spent some time today doing a redesign for the Visceral Industry. To be perfectly honest - I got bored of the previous design (this happens alot!) and wanted a look that would tie in more with this blog. I wanted blog and company to be unified - and I wanted to change the logo. I’m just riffing at this stage and tomorrow I may have a change of mind, but when inspiration hits - go with the flow. I spent a lot of time with the typography and for right now, this is what is causing me the main heartache. I really believe the type can make or break a final design so I looked over a ton of movie sites to see how the movie guys sell the design.
So, here’s a rough concept - let’s see this baby evolve over the next few days.
I often get asked about my header imagery for this blog. I have a bit of a fetish for finding creepy looking - almost abandoned lane-ways and underground passages throughout the city. No matter what time of day it is, they are always dark and fantastic locales to shoot in. It’s isn’t always safe and I make sure I scope out the area in an alert and conscientious manner because there is just no way of knowing who (or what!) you will bump into.
Over the past few nights I’ve gone out on some night-shooting in the city. I stumbled upon this little alleyway which is directly behind the Melbourne Town Hall. It is usually locked away behind a huge iron-fence but yesterday, I got lucky and the gate was left unlocked.
Made some time today to do some further work on the Justice Howard website. The basic premise at this stage of the development is to use the Wordpress backend to allow Justice to do her own news updates in the future. The news page will also act as a blog for all her current and upcoming projects. Incorporating the Wordpress backend may be a little tricky but as I have no PHP dev skills, it will be easier (and cheaper) going this route rather than outsourcing for a custom back-end to be built.
The background image still requires work. I am waiting on a higher-res image to work with which Justice should email shortly. No menu has been designed yet and Justice’s logo is still in the rough stage.
More on the development of the Justice Howard website:
It’s not very often that the opening of a movie gets me that excited that I just have to see it on its debut day. All the buzz for Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’ has been overwhelmingly positive with grandiose comparisions to his 1991 classic ‘Goodfellas’. Like the aforementioned ‘Goodfellas’, ‘The Departed’ chugs along at a blistering pace with vintage Scorcese direction and some damn fine cinematography setting the pace for this brutal crime drama. With an outstanding cast at his disposal (Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio et al), Scorcese brings forth a tale of contemporary crime fiction that will leave you spellbound and transfixed to the screen. Starring is Matt Damon as Colin, a Massachusetts Police officer with a hidden agenda. He’s a rat, working for Boston’s top gangster Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Colin’s a worker and he rises through the State Police ranks rapidly, tipping off Costello at every stop along the way. But there’s a problem. He’s not the only rat in the picture. The Cops have their own mole, an undercover officer working deep inside Costello’s organization. His name is William Costigan, (Leonardo DiCaprio). It’s not long before everyone figures out they’ve been compromised, and the shit hits the fan as both rats on either side of the law scramble to find and take out each other. Rivetting!
Back in 1977 when KISS released their first Marvel comic book, the band members had their own blood extracted and placed in the vats of ink that were to be used in the production of said, comic book. Now, almost 30 years later, Lionsgate Films is set to repeat the ghoulish (and gimmicky) stunt by using Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) own blood for the printing of the Saw III poster. A vial of blood was drawn from Bell and mixed with the red-ink for the printing of the poster.
“We decided to do a poster and he’s wearing a red cloak. I was talking to the printer and asked what we could do to get the deepest blood red. I asked if it would be possible to use actual blood. There was silence. He said, ‘We could try, but are you serious?’ I said I was dead serious,” says Lionsgate marketing man Tim Palen.
The posters from the first printing run, (1,000 will be sold off at $20 each). The original poster will be auctioned off with all proceeds going to the Red Cross.
All gimmicks aside, that is an incredibly striking image for a movie poster. In fact, I think it looks positively gorgeous!
Kiss-wife tells all. Really looking forward to this book. Some of the vintage behind-the-scenes KISS pics from the band’s hey day are astounding!
Back in September we reported on the leaked trailer for Frank Miller’s 300 - the movie based on Miller’s comic book/graphic novel of the same name dealing with the legendary 300 Spartans of ancient Greece. Frank Miller’s adventure series 300 is a riveting story of one of the most under-reported and glorious battles of the Persian-Greco war. While Miller has taken substantial creative liberties in reporting the details of his version of the Spartan King Leonidas and his army of 300 valiant soldiers, the events he describes are remarkably accurate.
And now, here’s this year’s sexiest and most mind-fuckingly amazing trailer - in glorius HD. But if that isn’t enough to whet your appetite, check out the production blog or better yet, get yourselves a copy of the graphic novel.
In the process of developing the website for UK band Hellfire, the band have requested that I spend some time on the logo first. They want something that looks a little like this - so I have spent some time doing some designs along those lines. With that in mind, I also trying to create a logo that will fit in with the rest of the website so the two don’t look out of place.
The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer. Philip Carlo, author of The Night Stalker, chronicling the career of notorious serial killer Richard Ramirez, profiles another true-life monster in this story. Richard Kuklinski, a Polish-American from New Jersey, is one of the most prolific murderers in American history, with more than 200 victims to his credit.
I miss HBO’s Six Feet Under so much. Such a magnificent, poignant, emotional and superbly crafted television series. From the finest opening credits ever put to film, to the death-of-the-week scenes that would set the mood and tone for each episode, to the simply astounding character development of each of the show’s protagonists - Six Feet Under was indeed, ‘TV to die for’.
Season 5 proved to be the show’s finale - and what a gut wrenching, emotive conclusion it was. Six Feet Under came full circle and wrapped up so eloquently and at the same time bathed its viewers with an overwhelming sense of melancholy despair. But it wasn’t always depressing. Even though the show left me questioning my own mortality time and time again, it also offered hope and inspiration and a strong desire to make each and every day count. Every day above ground, is a good day. Right? But the beauty of Six Feet Under is that whilst it almost always offered peace for the dead, peace for the living was hard to come by as life complexities intertwined with the show’s characters and showed us all how vulnerable we all are. In all its morbid absurdity the show featured black humour at its finest that illustrated life as a tragic comedy.
The Season 5 DVD collection also features two insightful and revealing behind the scenes featurettes. (Six Feet Under 2001-2005 & Life and Loss: The Impact of Six Feet Under) as well as other goodies such as 6 audio commentaries).
An amazing television experience that I will always look back on with fond memories.
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