In the upcoming documentary/movie "Man vs Snake", Don Bluth himself helped the movie team to create an amazing poster.
In a recent update, Andy & Tim (the guys behind this movie) showed behind the scenes stages of how the poster came together :
The Evolution of a Movie Poster
Well the first problem was how to represent the primal battle that a title like MAN VS SNAKE implies. We wanted something epic, something that captured the magic of the quest that Tim was on and inherent drama of a man doing a battle against a giant snake -- albeit a video game snake. We asked our storyboard artist friend, Mike Wetterhan (The Amazing Spiderman) to imagine this kind of scenario and he came up with a couple of concepts (see below) that show Tim, Dwayne, Walter and Tina in a labyrinth setting doing battle with a snake.
Early Concepts by Mike Wetterhan
Mike's concepts were really cool and a great proof of concept. The next step was to find an artist who could take the seed of this idea and expand on it and create the character designs and final art. Well, when it comes to art and video games, there's one artist that immediately sprang to mind, Don Bluth.
Don Bluth Enters the Picture
Don Bluth was a Disney animator who worked on classics like Robin Hood, Winnie the Pooh and Pete's Dragon before starting his own legendary animation company, Don Bluth Films, where he was the creative force behind The Secret of NIMH and An American Tale. Don also created the revolutionary video games Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, amazing games that used early Laserdisc technology that essentially allowed the player to "play the animation." These games are still wildly popular today, having been released in stunning high definition.
But where was Don Bluth and would he be interested in helping our crazy little film? After a bit of sleuthing on the internets, we found an email address and sent him an inquiry. After a few weeks, we were completely surprised when we heard back! And yes, he was willing to help. Don's first step was sit down and start drafting, trying to get feel for the characters in the film. Here are some examples.
After getting comfortable in terms of understanding the characters, the next step was to execute some actual character concepts. Here's what he came up with for Tim and Dwayne.
Tim looks pretty great. Don totally captured his sense of fun, intensity and passion, Dwayne on other was, well, shall we say "a little large" and way too intense. It did make us laugh though. Now, while one might get that impression from watching our trailer and seeing some of the more "colorful" ways Dwayne has of expressing himself, we felt that Don should make the necessary corrections to bring the artwork more in line with Dwayne's actual personality.
For the next set of character studies, Don envisioned Tim, Dwayne and Walter in medieval dress, à la Dragon's Lair. Really cool don't you think?
Don even did a few "labyrinth layouts", check them out...
While these are really awesome, and definitely evoke the adventure/quest aspect of Dragon's Lair, we felt it didn't focus on the central theme of our film. In addition, the design was very dense, there was almost too much going on. After discussing with Don, we decided to simplify the layout and focus it much more on the competition between Tim and Dwayne on Nibbler. Something more along the lines of this...
Okay, that's more like. While Dwayne is still a little on the large side and they both players look like they're performing an unnatural act with the Nibbler cabinet, for the first time we now see the actual game in the design. Moreover, the composition is strong and captures the friendly, yet fierce competition between the players. It's really fun!
But what's a competition without a referee? Don revised the layout and brilliantly added Walter back officiating the contest.
And thus a poster was born! The next step was to clean up the line art and add the title to get it ready for final color. Here's what it looks like ready to be colored.
Our friend, Hawk, who is an incredibly talented artist in his own right (he does some amazing work for Quantumn Mechanix), took on the job of coloring the poster. We think he did an awesome job putting the final touches on this great poster. Thanks Hawk!
And thanks Don!
We think the final poster totally captures the spirit of competition and fun which is at the heart of this little documentary.
We hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look at the evolution of a poster. Keep spreading the word and GO NIBBLER!
-- Andy & TimThis project is currently on the way on kickstarter,it's still time to support it :
MAN VS SNAKE: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler