Retouching
MGM iPhone Soundboard Apps
This project landed in my lap by accident. Well, that’s not 100% true. I made it land there…
When asked to create the landing page for our new iPhone apps, we were given screenshots of the apps that were in development at the time. Being the design snob that I am, I was taken aback by their seemingly arbitrary and non-standard construction. Not to mention its overall sloppiness (hard to read colored text, stretched or squashed button labels, poorly resized and uncorrected imagery, etc.).
I just needed to make a stink about it, but instead of just complaining about the design, I ended up taking on the job myself over the weekends and evenings that followed.
The options and soundboard screen’s orientation were turned to portrait view for better one-handed usability and to avoid the iPhone’s speaker from being covered by the user’s hand during playback of the sound. Overall design was completely re-thoughtout for a more standard experience. The images for the slideshows were retouched for best possible color representation, taking into consideration the age of the assets.
Once the app was redesigned it was a matter of creating assets for the 5 features that were getting companion apps: Rocky, Fargo, Robocop, Silence of the Lambs and Army of Darkness. Included in those assets were the icons that appear in the app. Those I took creative license, creating Ash’s chainsaw from Army, Hannibal’s mask from Lambs, Rocky’s hero pose, Robocop’s mechanical head, and of course, the woodchipper from Fargo:
The apps went on to be downloaded more than 100,000 within a relatively short period of time, and are still going strong. So far, the most popular app has been the Army of Darkness, based on the last of the Evil Dead trilogy films. It’s such a classic flick with some great quotes.
Check out the apps in iTunes: Army, Rocky, Lambs, Fargo, Robocop
Below are before and after shots of the original app design, the icons, and samples of the finished app.
MGM Logo
The MGM logo is one of the most recognized brands in the world and is synonymous with Hollywood.
With the release of the films Valkyrie and Quantum of Solace, the new motion version of the MGM logo was issued for use before feature films. Although not much different from its predecessor, the new logo was considerable cleaned up, using original elements from decades ago.
The same original elements were used here in the revision to the static logo. Using ultra-high resolution scans of the film ribbon and Leo, I ended up with a massive working file measuring 20,000 pixels wide and weighing in at over 3GB in size once all of my retouching was done. Pretty friggin’ big for a guy who’s used to working with web graphics.
Special attention was payed to the texture of Leo’s hair which in the original painting, did not exist. Purists may call me crazy for adding it in, but they were subtle enough and added much more texture and depth that I decided it was for the better. I also needed a good alpha channel for blending purposes. This meant hand painting in all of the hair at the edges of Leo’s mane. Fun!
Overall color was graded to a more natural golden tone, away from the yellow and orange of the preceding logo.
The end result is one of subtle but much needed enhancements.
Diskeeper Postcards
Diskeeper Corporation had to promote to companies that had the Diskeeper product installed on only half of their computer network. Besides being the model for this campaign (yes, my mom has these on her fridge), I also handled concept, design, layout, typesetting, photography/lighting set up, and image retouching/manipulation. I also created a parachute in 3D for use in the last card.
Included below is each postcard followed by the progression of the Photoshop work I did for each card.
2009 Oscar 1-sheet parodies
Every year around Oscar season my friends Jamie and Joe prepare for their annual Academy Awards party. I love to help out by designing the invitations for them. For the 2009 Oscars we decided to recreate the 1-sheets for the five films nominated for Best Picture to serve as te cover of the invitations.
This entailed a photo shoot and several hours in Photoshop, erasing parts of the original imagery, color correction of the new photography, compositing and finally typesetting and finishing.
The results were so good that they even decided to get full-sized prints made as decorations at the party.
NOTE: A little background is needed for a couple of these to make sense…
Slumdog: They live in Brentwood.
The Reader: Jamie is a Psychologist.
Full-resolution versions located here.
Impact Vat
OK, this was one of the coolest things I’ve ever worked on, and not just graphically.
This concept for Impact Video on Demand (an MGM service for cable and satellite providers), was truly unique in that it used some tricky javascript to filter movie titles. Users would drag ‘Action Elements’ from a periodic table into this vat of acid and the site would deliver movie titles tagged to that element. The more elements you dragged in, the narrower your search results ended up being. Unfortunately the feature never went live for a few reasons.
Luckily however, I get to share the artwork I did for it with you :) This graphic, like most web graphics, had a final size of about 200 pixels wide. Being detail obsessed, I made sure to create it at about 10 times that size.
It started with a hand drawn sketch that I then recreated in Illustrator adding some basic shading. Once I was happy with that I brought it into Photoshop and added all the texture and details.
The end result was a completely over the top vat of orange acid (to match the Impact brand.
Impact’s website: http://www.impactvod.com/
Chili Peppers at The Troubadour
I was lucky enough to attend a secret Red Hot Chili Peppers show at the Troubadour in Hollywood in May of 2006. I snapped a bunch of shots that night but since there wasn’t a single image that conveyed the energy of the band as a whole, I ended up taking the best parts of multiple images and compositing them together. Being their first gig at the legendary club, I wanted to make sure that I included the neon sign and the crowd to show how small a venue this multi-platinum selling band was playing in.
Each image title points out the parts I used to create the final composite image:
Impact Ax
This was a fun little piece I did as part of a background image for the Impact site for MGM.
The ax started out as a flat 2D illustration in Illustrator. I then angled it, added some perspective and extrusion, then did some basic shading in Illustrator before bringing it into Photoshop for final texturing and finishing.
I wish I had done this one at a large size, but alas I didn’t :(
See it in action (refresh til you see axes): http://www.impactvod.com/
Photo Restorations
Here are some restorations done for TLC Photo Studio in Yonkers, NY. The most challenging parts were when I needed to create parts of the picture that were very badly damaged or even completely missing.
Retouching J.D.
Shania Twain’s drummer was showcased in an ad for The Laptop Snare Drum from Rhythm Tech. Before the ad could run, some adjustments needed to be made on this picture of J.D. practicing on the tour bus. How many differences can you see between the before & after?
