By Travis Johnson
Film isn’t just a medium, it’s a culture, and it encompasses a whole range of things outside of cinema itself, all of which can be incredibly cool. Movie posters are an obvious example; the most visible and striking offshoot of movie-dom, and are a beloved part of every film fan’s life – it’s unlikely anyone reading this has never adorned their walls with posters of their favourite films. Recent years have seen the rise in popularity of bespoke and limited edition posters for old classics, many of which are eagerly snapped up within minutes of going on sale.
Hewing his way into this scene comes Sydney-based designer, Pete Majarich,who at the beginning of the year set himself the challenge of creating A Movie Poster A Day. So far he’s kept it up, too, publishing a slick, often minimalist, arch take on a classic movie every turn of the calendar so far this year. We checked in with Pete to see what the story is.
What is your background?
I’m a creative type slash designer, with a background in advertising. But I’ve always liked writing and film and creativity and cinematography in general. I’ve worked in Sydney and also in the US in different creative roles, and one day I’d love to make a film. By day I’m a designer that creates original prints and other products inspired by pop culture and minimalism, which I sell through my online store Craft and Graft. So I guess that’s how I got to where I am now.
When did you become passionate about film?
I remember a famous director once said that film is arguably the greatest of all creative mediums because it combines all disciplines – music, photography, writing and so on. It’s kind of a magical recipe that incorporates all these wonderful fields. That’s probably why I’ve always been drawn to it. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t enjoy sitting down to watch something escapist. There’s something so transformative about it. I do remember a time from about 1995-2005 where I just fell off the map completely when it came to catching up with film. Since then I’ve massively caught up and watch a few films a week, but there’s a whole chunk of ’90s classics and blockbusters that I just to this day have not seen.
What inspired this project?
It all began when I was setting my new year’s resolutions for 2016 late last year. I had been inspired by similar daily creative projects like Brock Davis and his ‘Make Something Cool Every Day‘ artworks. Each day he’d take a photo, design a t-shirt, or do a vine. His stuff is worth checking out. I wanted to try something similar where there was a blank enough slate to inspire something fresh each day, but that was also restrained enough that it would be defined as to what I had to do.
The poster is such a pure distillation of a concept; it has to communicate something in a very quick manner to all sorts of audiences. There’s no motion, no backstory, no voiceover. The poster seemed like a fun challenge to tackle each day in terms of pushing myself creatively and trying new graphic techniques, as well as exploring and expanding my love of film at the same time.
There’s also a creative theory that the more you work on something, that more you’re going to churn out goodness. Which dispels the whole “black magic” aspect of creativity, and the idea that you can only conjure the creative spirit or muse when it wants to be called. In my experience, and from working with the creative people I’ve collaborated with over the years – that’s B.S. A creative director I once had told me this tale about two groups of art students: one was told to go away and craft the most perfect, most fine-tuned, most immaculate clay pot they possibly could and bring it back at the end of the semester for grading. The second group was told to go away and just craft as many clay pots as they could. Big ones, small ones, weird ones, whatever. At the end of the semester, you can probably guess which group came back with the best clay pots. The way we’re taught might make you think that the first group that focuses on perfection will generate the most highly-acclaimed piece of art and will come out on top, but it’s just not true. The best way to have a good idea, is to have lots of ideas. There’s a similar objective with this project, I’d like to think.
Is not the prospect of a movie poster a day a bit daunting?
When I first sat down in January to do it, I gave myself a week to see if I could handle it before I shared the results with anyone. I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew. After a few days, it became apparent that there’s so much scope and so much room for different visual techniques like typography, photography, illustration, different printing methods, etc – that it was going to have legs. Most days it’s not a problem to output some sort of poster, even when day to day life gets in the way. Some days I have a clear objective in terms of what concept I want to execute, and other days I’ll literally have to throw something together in Photoshop in half an hour before I go to bed. So overall it’s so far, so good. If, at the start of the year, I’d challenged myself to go for a run every day, I’d have probably quit back in February.
What are your favourite reinterpretations so far?
It really changes every day. I try to better my efforts with each and every poster I do. That being said, I love my poster for The Shining. It’s minimalist. It’s type-driven (in a sense). And it’s based on one of my favourite films, so that probably influences it. Having said that, one of the fascinating insights of this project is that I cannot predict what designs people are going to respond to or not. The ones that I enjoy most are definitely the more conceptual ones, like the coupon visual for The Godfather. When you start looking into the movie poster world, there’s a whole community of folks creating amazing, inventive one-sheets for movies new and old. Guys like Mondo, Midnight Marauder and more. The majority of alternate posters out there are illustrative-based, and I’ll never top them in terms of drawing and detail. So I often try to go conceptual or minimalist in my approach.
Where does your personal taste in film lie? What are some of your favourite movies?
In terms of all-round appeal to pretty much every demographic, I would say Back to the Future. For a beautiful, possibly prescient vision of where humanity could go, I would pick Children of Men. We look back at Rocky and parody it now, but it’s easy to forget that it was one of the first, classic rags-to-riches sports tales. I remember not having the patience to appreciate a film like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly as a kid, but now I could watch it on repeat all day (and sometimes do). On the whole I’m a big fan of lo-fi sci-fi – films that take a single concept of reality or unreality and depict how that might play out without the use of heavy VFX or getting into detailed space opera epics. In this category I’d put films like Coherence and Another Earth. I’d also watch anything that Spike Jonze directs. In terms of favourite movies and how they translate to visual ideas, I definitely enjoy comedies but they’re generally harder to depict as posters.
What’s up next for you?
Who knows? I’m looking forward to finishing out the year by exploring more visual design and more movies along the way. Having said that, I’ll be keen to keep working on various writing and film projects that I have on the boil. Until then I’ll be counting down the remaining days of 2016 by considering what my key project will be for next year.
For more of Pete’s work check out his Instagram and his official site.
