Mas y Mas August 2010

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monthly newsletter of NISI MASA

AUG10

POSTERS

spotlight:

FEST TRAINING GROUND

interview:

Tomasz Opasinski insight:

KLIK! Animation festival visuals

agenda 25-29 AUGUST

Fresh Film Fest, Prague, Czech Republic

22-29 AUGUST

Visions of Prague Workshop

editorial On Thursday morning before the first metro, men start to glue urban wallpaper in our shared living room, for the soon to arrive sleepy crowd who manages to distract its attention from the first cup of many coffees. Vampires behind the tree at the bus stop, guns pointing at you from between the stacked oranges. All signals of fairytales that can for about 1,5 hours make you forget about those 17 espressos to come. The film posters you get to see alongside toothpastes and lowcost travel are our express tickets to a happy place, carefully disguising the charge for overweight luggage and possible emotional overcast that awaits when the lights go on. In the streets, film posters don’t stand out so much from other advertisements.

Posters slide vertically into your view, shortly afterwards followed by cold soup, or you just see one when looking over your shoulder, turning the wheel on an orange stoplight. Could have been Colgate too though.

For highly commercial films, the design of the posters often resemble the style of fashion magazines*. In some cases, this sadly echoes the world presented in the film very closely. Look at Samantha on the latest Sex and the City poster, if you can find her. If a film should more appeal to an ‘edgy’ crowd, the typefont becomes a bit more quirky, images are decentralized, maybe it harks back to one of the decades of the last century. So your ‘personal’ taste will draw you into the movie theatre (not always promising that the film is to your taste too). Even the new bohemian has its hook.

There is nothing wrong with that, this is exactly the purpose of the film poster; COME AND SEE THIS! And ofcourse you are not going to intention-

ally fool a housewife into thinking she is seeing a romcom by sticking flowers into a soldiers hair on the poster. The driving power of a poster is faith in its message.

Concerning the display of posters in cinemas, they are in fact not so far removed from a gallery (actually the other end of the spectrum nowadays of a posters living space, see Dominika’s article on page 3). Glass casings, frames, sometimes even accompanying tags with a description of its species (origin, maker etc). And some specimens you rarely get to see.

Film festivals are the best place to see an exotic and wider collection of independent, smaller budget and short film posters that you will most probably not encounter while walking your dog. Since the purpose here is less to get you to buy a ticket, but more to prove the artistic value of the film and the quality of the creative team, chances are higher of the poster being more ‘artsy’ and less following the classic techniques like the golden section rule and the use of a photocomposition of the main cast.

Money and art, sometimes they hate each other, sometimes they leech on each other, even imitating each other to twirlingly bite each other in the tail. But whatever its reasons of fabrication, a poster is in the first place a creation, that can be appreciated just for that. Craftsmanship and aesthetics.

Don’t say there was never one you considered to put on your wall.

by Maartje Alders

* luckily not in all cases, for some very good Hollywood design, read the interview on page 5.

Mas y Mas is a monthly newsletter published by the association NISI MASA. EDITORIAL STAFF Coordination Maartje Alders Jass Seljamaa Design Maartje Alders

Contributors to this issue: Jass Seljamaa, Dominika Uhríková, Maximilien van Aertryck, Nermin Pınar Erdoğan, Kaspar Kaur

NISI MASA (European Office) 99 Rue du Faubourg Saint Denis 75010, Paris, France Tel/Fax: +33 (0)9 60 39 63 38 + 33 (0)6 32 61 70 26 Email europe@nisimasa.com Website www.nisimasa.com

credits.

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Film Posters

dossier

This time its film posters! Everyone has their favourites, so we asked all of you to post them to our facebook wall. Dominika Uhrikova wrote a piece on film poster history, we have an Interview with Tomasz Opasinski, who is the Artistic Director for many Hollywood production posters. Dario van Vree, the KLIK! Amsterdam animation festival creative director answered questions and we present a small poster-treasure from Poland – Homework.

A (Very Short) History of film Posters

By Dominika Uhríková While being an essential part of any film’s promotion, film posters themselves were not originally meant to be sold. Yet they have gradually become extremely sought after by cinemagoers, some of whom are ready to pay a fortune for what was once considered a scrap of paper.

Indeed, a few years ago, an original poster for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis sold for some $690,000.

In the 1920s, when the famous dystopian flick was released, theatre owners used to buy such posters from the producing companies for a few cents, and throw them away as soon as the movie stopped playing.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that the artists responsible for the design of film posters did not care for their quality. Having rich experience in advertising from other entertainment areas like vaudeville, circus and fairs, the designers used all their tried-and-true techniques to attract people. This is also why, at the beginning, they relied on the traditional “one-sheet” size.

In the early days, when actors were anonymous, posters usually depicted only the production company logo, the film’s title and sometimes a photo from the film with a short description, in either two or three colours. By the 1920s, however, much more consideration was given to the “stars” appearing on the screen. Movie papers of course had to reflect this trend, and from that time on, they would include a photo of the leading actor or couple and their names.

The Great Depression and the Second World War led production companies to cut their advertising budgets, but the film industry suffered an even more severe blow after the arrival of television in the 1950s. To maintain their audience, movie companies had to change the style of advertising. Stone lithograph movie posters were replaced by ones that looked more like photographs.

The 1960s and 1970s brought further changes to the way how movie posters were designed: sex and violence became common themes and clay-coated paper on which they were now being printed made them glossier and smoother. Movie posters from flicks such as The Godfather or Star Wars are still among the most demanded by fans.

And finally, the past couple of decades with its numerous blockbusters has meant more advertising, all poster formats and styles one can imagine, and a boom of poster reprints to satisfy less demanding collectors (or to trick the less experienced ones).

So there are two lessons coming out of all this for potential collectors: think twice before paying $690,000 for a film poster, for it may be a fake; or, think twice before throwing away a film poster, for it may bear $690,000 to your grandchildren.

While doing research for this issue for some reason stuff from Poland kept creeping around the corner. In addition to our interviewee we found this remarkable group called Homework, who design posters and have already won recognition abroad with their rebranding of old classics. Until recently the posters were on display in several venues in London, who knows where they will pop up next...In the mean time, you can check their website: www.homework.com.pl.

dossier

Film Posters

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For this month’s issue we announced a call to write about your favorite movie posters. Thanks TO everyONE who posted and as promised, here are the most interesting ones:

INTERVIEW *// DARIO VAN VREE *// FESTIVAL POSTERS *//

Une Liaison Pornographique (Nermin Pınar Erdoğan, Turkey)

This is one of the European versions of the poster of the movie "Une Liaison Pornographique" of Frederic Fonteyne. it is, I think, the best movie poster which directly reflects the atmosphere of the movie, and the emotion it gives to the audience. It stands on my biggest wall for years and is almost one of the essential pieces of furniture for me.

Dario is creative director of the KLIK! animation festival in Amsterdam. He designs all festival posters himself.

by Jass Seljamaa

What role do posters play in your festival's overall visual image?

Posters play a very important role, especially because in animation graphics and design are an integral part of the art form. Animation filmmakers are well aware of design choices that you make as a festival, what image you present. We are a young and playful festival, it is important that this is expressed in our graphic designs. I like to be close to the fire and make the illustrations for the posters myself and I'm involved in most of the graphic works that are made for KLIK!. Some people think the style is a little childish, but I like that, we don't want to take ourselves too seriously.

Do you have one poster for the whole festival or also posters for different screenings? Are they all printed or can you also find some other mediums, like handpaint for example?

We have one poster for the main event in September and one other poster for our call for entries, that starts in march. The first is for the audience, the other is targeted at the animation-makers themselves. We always print our posters. I wish we had the time to have our posters hand-made. We even thought about doing something like that for this year's edition, to hand-paint parts of the posters, but it was just too much work on top of everything.

Rosemary’s Baby (Kaspar Kaur, Estonia)

I've always loved the poster for Rosemary's Baby.

It has such a simple and elegant design that nicely captures the mysterious atmosphere and dream-like detachment from reality. Marvelous!

Is it worth making a poster for a short film?

I love it when filmmakers send a movie poster along with their film. When we receive a poster and the film is selected we always put it up on a wall, to visible places at the festival locations. It really adds to the festival ambiance. As a filmmaker, you will attract more attention to your film if you send or bring posters to festivals. It can also be a way for an animator to show their graphic skills. All in all it is definitely something worth spending some time and money on. Printing a few hundred posters is pretty cheap these days, so why not do it?

KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival will be held from 15 to 19 september in (surprisingly) Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

For more info: www.klikamsterdam.nl

5

Film Posters

dossier

Interview*// Tomasz Opasinski

Y

ou have created many posters for films like The Bourne Ultimatum, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Resident Evil.

Its a common misconception that one designer by himself can design a whole campaign (at least in Hollywood). There are hundreds of us under the "entertainment advertising" umbrella; designers, art directors, copywriters, illustrators, account executives, models, photographers... Campaigns you see were produced by tens of people - not just one person, it's just impossible to do. Every single day I work on 2-4 different campaigns, I create few posters, few logos, paint some backgrounds, art direct photo shoots, answer phones, go to meetings.

These campaigns vary from comedy, through drama to horror and then comes gaming and interactive.. Let me put it this way: it's not that easy as it appears on the surface.

What is your favorite poster? Where do you get your inspiration?

Paris Je T'Aime (Red heart made of multiple Eiffel Towers, see right) for some reason inspires me every day. It was one of my quickest idea-to-release projects ever and it works as a "fuse to the dynamite" perfectly. Inspiration? There are wild stories playing in my head all day long, images illustrating a moment or accidental thoughts. I love "connect the dots" game and I think that my photographic memory tremendously helps me with it. For The Curious Case of Benjamin Button one of my proposed posters was huge clock hands "glued to each other" like "hot cheese" in a sandwich... with those strings and overall feel of something gooey. The idea actually came from my lunch sandwich. I never had an office with 43736723875245453 books and catalogs to inspire me. My office is where my head is.

What is the process for making a film poster?

With every single poster that I'm heavily involved in, I prefer to leave an "open door": make you think, make you interested and intrigued those three ingredients wrapped in an image are the key to success. This visual interpretation of the story, feelings and action gives me thrills and chills... I love it. For each A-list movie release we have to create a few hundred poster-concepts, yes... a few hundred. We're given scripts, sometimes raw-cuts of the movie to get a sense of what is going on and how a particular movie "feels". As far as artistic freedom goes, it’s not that easy. Essentially, my job as an art director or creative director is quite far from painting or Photoshopping. I have to solve a given problem: the final product of these deliberations is a visual interpretation of my solutions in a shape of the poster. In the end: it's about money – in an ideal world, we want a poster to help us bring as much people to the theatres as we can.

It’s strange, while doing research on movie posters we stumbled upon you and a Polish agency called Homework.

There is this thing with Polish old school designers, they have mastered disguise. Disguise where you present a candle as a symbol of life, where you illustrate people's personality as onion layers. My generation grew up in this environment. Talented people are everywhere, but what makes some of them special is the tradition and culture they come from. Without the communist era you wouldn't hear about Polish posters much. What you see now is a post communist echo illustrated and printed in the shape of a movie poster.

How is the fast-paced technology change affecting poster design?

I think you can surely expect 3D in a really near future. By 3D, I mean software like Maxon Cinema, Autodesk Maya or Pixologic Zbrush coming our way... it's not just Photoshop anymore.

Inception, Shrek, Harry Potter, Batman and the Transformers campaigns relied heavily on 3D modeling, lighting and rendering.

Recently I noticed that posters in general are going through some sort of existence/personality crisis. Classic (old school) posters hang in galleries (this is where they don't belong by the way) and modern posters have less and less space to spread their wings. What I mean is that Internet takes over and posters don't really know what to do with themselves. Some people try to convert posters for internet usage; a tiny little square at 120 pixels wide represents 27 by 40 inch poster - it's just tragic what is happening with this medium. A full size poster has different focal points, different type proportions, all those intricate details, nuances. Are those posters going to be seen only on your iPhones and iPads? Sadly, probably.

by Jass Seljamaa

news & screeni 10th Anniversary of NISI MASA! announcement

It's unbelievable, but NISI MASA will turn 10 next year! The big birthday will take place from

1st to 4th of September 2011 Note it in your diaries, all past present and future Nisimasians. Location yet to be announced!

We are looking for video material from all past activities of the network to make a visual history, to be screened at the bash!

If you have any kind of video material of your activities with NISI MASA, please contact Maximilien Van Aertryck – max@nisimasa.se

Istanbul Express participants selected!

All together we received 139 applications from 31 different countries. The 6-member international jury marked that the level of applicants were good and it was not an easy decision. The most popular train was Tallinn > Istanbul (57 applications).

Turin > Istanbul May Abdalla - UK, Francois-Xavier Lesaffre - France, Alexandra Indaco - Netherlands, Alper Dutkin - Turkey, Olivier Jourdain Belgium, Rui Silveira - Portugal, Marcin Knyziak - UK, Iris Segundo Garcia - Germany, Lea Silvia Moneta Caglio - Germany, Alastair Cole - UK, Leo Bruges - Scotland, Pyotr Magnus Nedov - Germany

sessions, presentations and workshops will focus on pivotal topics such as dubbing, subtitling, voice-over and translation.

San Sebastian > Istanbul Ainara Vera Esparza - Spain, Anna Brufau Spain, Ezgi Kaplan - Turkey, Dena Popova - Bulgaria, Igor Bezinovic - Croatia, Sander Lopez Cardozo - Netherlands, Lyubomir Pechev - Bulgaria, Pablo Fajardo - Spain Paulo Martinho - UK, Paulo Couto - Portugal, Severine Beaudot - Germany, Tirza Bosshardt - Switzerland, Germany, Tito Guedes - Portugal, Zeynep Merve Uygun - Turkey

European Year of Volunteering

Fresh Film Fest 2010

The event takes place from October 6 - 8 in Berlin, Germany. www.languages-media.com

call for relay reporters

Do you have volunteering experience and a video and journalistic background?

The European Commission wants to invite one person from each Member State to volunteer and report from the field extraordinary stories of volunteers. This experience will include the opportunity to spend 10 days shooting in another EU country plus one whole year webreporting from your country.

More info at www.eyvolunteering.eu,

deadline 9th of August

The 7th annual festival of first features and student films is held in Prague from 25th to 29th of August. In 5 days, the

Call for articles on multilingualism

festival aims to provide a wide portrait of contemporary young world cinema and hosts professional non-public presentations. Up to 150 films in five competitive sections of the Official Selection are screened during the festival. www.freshfilmfest.net

And here is the selection!: Tallinn > Istanbul Vappu Tuomisto - Finland, Jerker Beckmen - Sweden, Liso Cassano - France, Catalin Musat - Romania, Vincent Bitaud - France, Nicolas Servide Staffolani - Denmark, Grzegorz Brzozowski - Poland, Vefik Karaege - Turkey, Bas Voorwinde - Netherlands, Luca Lucchesi - Germany, Marius Mihai Apopei - Romania, Julia SzéphelyiFrankl - Hungary, Mara Trifu - Romania Lucille Caballero - France, Ando Naulainen - Estonia

Languages & the Media – Conference

Programme Online!

Languages & The Media participants will discuss changes, innovations and the latest developments in the global media world with a focus on language transfer in the audiovisual media. A multitude of

As multilingualism is NISI MASAs main topic this year with two big projects on the theme (Istanbul Express, Polyglot) we are actively seeking relevant material. If you have something on your mind relating to the topic, don’t keep it to yourself. We will publish the articles in our blogs, websites and later selected articles will be printed as a book and published together with Polyglot Cine-Boat workshop films DVD. If you’d like to write, please contact jass@nisimasa.com.

ings KOSOVO 08.08.2010 - 20:30

Matter of taste screening NISI MASA member organization 7arte is organizing several screenings from 6th to 9th of August in Mitrovica cinema, Kosovo. Screenings will start every night at 20:30, with local short films on the first night, animation on 7th, Matter of Taste films on 8th and in the closing night video arts and music performances.

More info at www.7-arte.org (in Albanian).

Sarajevo Film festival WiNNERS NISI MASA presence among the winners of this years Sarajevo Film Festival!: Two films that Valentina Oresic from KinoKlubZagreb and Andrada Romagno from Control N produced got awards for Sarajevo City of film. A Romanian participant of Istanbul Express, Catalin Musat, is the director of one of the films: The Atlantic Group Award THE TICKET COLLECTOR / REVIZOR Director: Catalin Musat Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania An Award of the British Council and the Operation Cinema Project SMART GIRLS / PAMETNICE Directresses: Hana Jusić, Sonja Tarokić Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia Maya Vitkova's Stanka Goes Home was awarded with a special jury prize of 1000 € in the short film competition: Special Jury Mentions: STANKA GOES HOME / STANKA SE PRIBIRA VKASHTI Directress: Maya Vitkova Bulgaria Congratulations to all!

Maya Vitkova at the offical award ceremony (second from left)

FEST TRAINING GROUND

spotlight

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Our board member Maximilien Van Aertryck went to Portugal, to visit FEST Training Ground - an event where film makers and film enthusiasts from all over the world gather in one week, to attend a deluxe training from workshops to master classes, lectured by industry experts with recognized achievements. FEST - Training Ground is organized by FEST – Associação Cultural, a new member of the NISI MASA network. Here Max's report.

Behind the sandy beaches, next to the cocktails and their little straw hats, in between the gentle stray dogs, the rather small city of Espinho, South of Porto, was the place to be last month to attend FEST, young film festival and Talent Campus à la portugaise.

Unique in its form in the country, these master classes, lectures, debates and round tables reveal the necessity of dialogue between the professional and amateur world, and more strikingly, the deep desire amongst Portuguese filmmakers for more international opportunities. For that reason, FEST recently joined the NISI MASA network, opening many doors for more Portuguese presence in the young cinema of our continent. Let the revolução begin.

It was a week in June, shortly before the massive touristic invasion that brings a coast city like Espinho the sustainability to endure the calm winter, that a few hundred young filmmakers migrated to what is always a pleasure, an international film festival. But although the rows of movies, docs and shorts in the different competitions were enjoyed by many, the actual eldorado that the numerous Germans, Russians, Serbs and Portuguese cineasts were searching didn't involve any reel. Behind open doors, cinema was projected through the words and advices of numerous professionals of the industry, each in his own field, each in its own way. The networking platform and creative summit "Training Ground" is open to everybody, from everywhere. Cinematography was narrated by Larry Smith, Kubrick's latest DOP, music whistled by David McMillan and his three academy awards, and documentary voice-overed by Christian Frei, director of War Photographer, and his unique Herzog toned articulation.

A very humorous and personal lecture given by Israeli author and scriptwriter Etgar Keret was my personal favourite. The camera d'or winner in 2007 in Cannes did not only speak about his craft and position in cinema, but also about his integrity, his life before making it to his passion, and finally his identity, all on a very personal level, punctuated by a lecture of one of his first short novels.

Training Ground holds a solid program, and when the daily lectures were over, the drinks and talks with the local filmmakers unveiled their incitement for more mobility and development going to the European level. Portugal is small, and the young generation is too tired to be assimilated to the long lasting tradition of the old peers, weighed on by Manoel de Oliveras' international legacy (currently the oldest active filmmaker in the world).

FEST is strongly committed to follow the right path and change the tendency. Already this year they are calling for short film scripts for NISI MASA's European short film development, and successfully sent many filmmakers to the Istanbul Express documentary workshop this autumn.

We're proud to have you onboard, see you soon in Espinho!

Contact: FEST TRAINING GROUND Filipe Pereira fest@fest.pt http://fest.pt/

To waTCh some of this year's masterclasses:

http://tv.fest.pt