Monster / B1 / Japan

04.06.11

PosterPosterPoster
Title
Monster
AKA
--
Year of Film
2003
Director
Patty Jenkins
Starring
Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Lee Tergesen, Annie Corley, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Marco St. John, Marc Macaulay, Scott Wilson
Origin of Film
USA | Germany
Genre(s) of Film
Drama | Romance | Crime
Type of Poster
B1
Style of Poster
--
Origin of Poster
Japan
Year of Poster
2004
Designer
Unknown
Artist
Unknown
Size (inches)
28 11/16" x 40.5"
SS or DS
SS
Tagline
--

A striking design for this superb film based on a nine month period in the life of notorious prostitute-turned-serial-killer Aileen Wuornos. The physical transformation of the usually stunning Charlize Theron (as Aileen) has to be seen to be believed, and she’s fully deserving of the multiple awards (including an Oscar) that her performance garnered.

I’m not sure who painted the flower at the top of the poster, so leave a comment or send me an email if you know so I can credit the artist.

The poster is printed on a thick, textured paper and you should be able to see this in the close-up photos.

Here’s the trailer for the film.

Outland / quad / UK

30.05.11

PosterPosterPosterPosterPoster
Title
Outland
AKA
Atmosfera zero (Italy) | Outland - Comando Titânio (Brazil) | Rumstation Jupiter (Denmark) | Operation Outland (Sweden)
Year of Film
1981
Director
Peter Hyams
Starring
Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen, James Sikking, Kika Markham, Clarke Peters, Steven Berkoff
Origin of Film
UK
Genre(s) of Film
Sci-Fi | Action | Crime
Type of Poster
Quad
Style of Poster
--
Origin of Poster
UK
Year of Poster
1981
Designer
Unknown
Artist
DFS
Size (inches)
30" x 39 15/16"
SS or DS
SS
Tagline
On Jupiter's moon, something deadly is happening

One of my favourite non-James Bond roles for Sean Connery, this 1981 Sci-Fi thriller still stands up 30 years after its release. The film was an acknowledged influence on Duncan Jones‘ superb 2009 film Moon, which I can heartily recommend. It also has one of the best posters of the past few years.

I was lucky enough to see a double-bill of the two films together presented by Jones (at the Prince Charles Cinema in London) where he talked about his love for Outland and the influence it had on his directorial debut. Without spoiling things, the design of a particular space craft in Moon is a great homage to one in Outland.

I’ve had some trouble identifying who the artist’s initials ‘DFS’ belong to and would appreciate any help with confirming this.

Here’s the trailer for the film.

Flash Gordon / one sheet / USA

25.05.11

PosterPosterPosterPosterPoster
Title
Flash Gordon
AKA
Blixt Gordon (Sweden)
Year of Film
1980
Director
Mike Hodges
Starring
Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Chaim Topol, Timothy Dalton, Max von Sydow, Ornella Muti, Brian Blessed
Origin of Film
USA | UK
Genre(s) of Film
Sci-Fi | Action
Type of Poster
One sheet
Style of Poster
--
Origin of Poster
USA
Year of Poster
1980
Designer
Unknown
Artist
Richard Amsel
Size (inches)
27" x 41"
SS or DS
SS
NSS #
--
Tagline
Pathetic Earthlings... Who Can Save You Now?

This is the final release one sheet for Flash Gordon with artwork by the great Richard Amsel, who is responsible for probably my favourite Indiana Jones poster, the Raiders of the Lost Ark 1982 re-release one sheet. The advance was illustrated by Lawrence Noble and features a similarly menacing Ming the Merciless at the top of the poster.

It took me a long time to find a rolled version of the poster and even though this particular one is not in mint condition I’m still happy to add it to the collection.

The tagline and logo are notably great.

Launch Day

21.05.11

Victory one sheet

After two years of preparation, I am very proud and excited (and a bit nervous) to finally reveal this personal project to the world. Film on Paper was created because I decided I wanted to photograph my collection of original film posters and share them with a wider audience. The site represents 17 years worth of collecting and features posters from all genres as well as several countries, multiple sizes and various formats.

The ‘About’ section features further details about the creation and intention of the site, but I thought it might be worth listing some statistics:

– At launch there are 1494 posters represented with their own individual pages and a total of 12,080 images attached to them.
– These pages represent approximately 950 individual films (exact figure to be confirmed)
– All the photographs were taken by me and in total over 2 terabytes of images were captured before they were curated.
– Every single image was manually tweaked (lens correction, cropping, white-balance corrected etc) using Adobe Lightroom. No batch-processing here!
– In total I have spent well over 1000 hours preparing the site for launch.

You can navigate the archive page by page or use the search to find specific posters. Searches can be based on a number of different criteria, including titles, actors, directors, artist, format, year etc. You can also click the poster details on each page to trigger a search for similar items.

I’ve reordered a few pages to the front of the archive and here are some other ideas to get you started:

Check out the awesome artwork of arguably the greatest poster artist, Drew Struzan
The simple but brilliant Japanese B1 for Run Lola, Run
The range of posters I’ve collected for two of my favourite films: Blade Runner and The Thing
Probably my favourite British poster for one of the best British films of all time, Withnail and I
The creepy Japanese poster for Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now
The superb designs of Tyler Stout and Martin Ansin
The unique linocut artwork by the great Peter Strausfeld on this Seven Samurai quad
And the poster I keep to remind me just how bad poster design can get: Cadence

Please subscribe to the Twitter feed as I’ll be tweeting every time I add a poster to the site (at least one a week) and I have some real beauties lined up to share with you. I’m also planning various features and am currently setting up some interesting interviews with some folks associated with the world of poster design.

I’d really appreciate any feedback/questions you have as I want to continue evolving the site to make it as easy to use and navigate as possible.

I hope it’s fairly clear that this site represents a labour of love for me and I plan to continue updating it for a long time to come.

Enjoy!

 

Bad Man / quad / UK

21.05.11

PosterPosterPosterPoster
Title
Bad Man
AKA
The No Mercy Man (USA) | Fire in the Wind (UK - video title)
Year of Film
1973
Director
Daniel Vance
Starring
Steve Sandor (as Stephen Sandor), Rockne Tarkington, Richard X. Slattery, Heidi Vaughn, Mike Lane (as Michael Lane), Ron Thompson, David Booth, Daniel Oaks
Origin of Film
USA
Genre(s) of Film
Action | Thriller
Type of Poster
Quad
Style of Poster
--
Origin of Poster
UK
Year of Poster
1976
Designer
Unknown
Artist
Tom Chantrell
Size (inches)
30" x 40"
SS or DS
SS
Tagline
When he was good he was very very good But when he was bad... he was BLOODY!

The Big Lebowski / screen print / Tyler Stout / Posters and Toys variant / USA

21.05.11

PosterPosterPosterPosterPoster
Title
The Big Lebowski
AKA
Il grande Lebowski (Italy)
Year of Film
1998
Director
Joel Coen
Starring
Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, Peter Stormare, Flea, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Jack Kehler, John Turturro, David Thewlis, Sam Elliott, Ben Gazzara
Origin of Film
USA | UK
Genre(s) of Film
Comedy | Crime
Type of Poster
Screen print
Style of Poster
Posters and Toys variant
Origin of Poster
USA
Year of Poster
2009
Designer
Tyler Stout
Artist
Tyler Stout
Size (inches)
24" x 36"
SS or DS
SS
Tagline
--

This is the scarce Posters and Toys variant of the 2011 screen print by Tyler Stout for the much-loved Coen Brothers classic, The Big LebowskiJeff Bridges stars as The Dude, a lifelong slacker who also happens to share his name with a millionaire philanthropist with a trophy wife who owes money to a shady pornographer. A pair of hired goons break into his place, rough him up and urinate on his rug. When the goons realise they have the wrong man they leave The Dude alone but, after consulting with his friends Walter (a memorable turn by John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi), he decides to seek out the real Lebowski to seek compensation for the rug, but things start to spiral out of control when the wife is kidnapped and he agrees to help secure her return.

To say the film has become something of a cultural phenomenon since its release in 1998 would be an understatement. As well as a worldwide legion of fans, there’s the annual Lebowski-Fest, which started in 2002 in Louisville, Kentucky and has since been held in several other cities. Jeff Bridges iconic ‘The Dude’ character is even the focus behind a form of religion called Dudeism.

I’d have a hard time choosing between this and Fargo as my favourite Coen Brothers film, although Raising Arizona and Barton Fink are also strong contenders.

I recently spotted this rather excellent GIF.