By We here at Flixist had the privilege of interviewing one of the premier movie poster designers in the business today, Tomasz Opasinski. We asked him about his life, works, and his thoughts and hopes for the movie industry. Check out after the jump for the full interview!
1. Tomasz, would you please tell us a bit about your background and how you got started in the advertising business?
T.O. – Sure thing, thank you for having me here. I appreciate it. I was born and raised in Poland (…not Holland, Poland). Since my childhood, I have always drawn or painted in one way or another. Nasty stuff on the walls or “cute swans and palm trees” in my notepads at school – instead of learning math. I had a fantastic (although poor as hell) childhood. Several years later, for some strange reason, I went to school of Inland Navigation (!).
Years went by and, because of my bad vision, I couldn’t continue my education in navigation anymore. Came back full circle into “drawing things” – but this time on a computer. Amiga 500, ahhh… memories. Ammm… Later, I had finished “Advertising School” and got into this whole advertising thing a bit deeper. Since then – 15 years ago – I had nothing but fun working in advertising (yes, yes, yes… there is a ton of stress also, I know). Each company I’ve worked for has an awesome group of people, friends forever. Anyway… in 2001, I moved to US, first to Milwaukee, WI and then to Los Angeles, CA where my entertainment experience kicked in – movie posters (love it!). Many things changed since then, from culture and how movies are watched to technology and how we present posters to the viewer. Now, 10 years later, I got a new perspective on this business and a few crazy ideas about how to make it even more fun. I have learned a lot and I’m going to use it all in my own agency. I’m blessed to work with amazing artists and great business partners… there is no business like a showbusiness! And here we are, present day, April 2011. Long story short, right? 🙂
2. You seem to have a lot of non-commissioned works in your portfolio, so I would like to know, why did you get specifically into advertising and design, and why do you continue to make non-commercial works?
T.O. – I love how advertising works and what the outcome is. I love creative thinking, art and associated lifestyle. Each brainstorm is like a 3 hour-long episode of “Family Guy” or “Simpson’s”, fan-ta-stic! How can you not love it? Oh I get it… when you have to work until midnight? Oh yes – forgot about that. But still, it’s a cool job. I got into non-commercial artwork for one reason: I wanted to do my own version of posters with no limits. I think you’d be able to write a book on just limits in movie poster design! Every time I hear: “Oh nooooooo, you can’t do it this way…” I want to do one of my own and just hang it on the wall. Reverse psychology I guess. I had a few posters in the works, printed nicely on canvas with archival inks and people seemed to appreciate my take on this matter, so I continued. I love it. It’s also my hobby, so I come home from work and still do stuff in Photoshop until 2AM or later. My wife wants to send me to some sort of “Poster Designer Rehab” with Dr. OZ or something, soon. 🙂 I also sell some of my art online.
3. What is it like working with movie studios and the film industry to create a movie poster? And how much do you think a movie poster can influence people in their perceptions of a movie?
T.O. – Let me start with the second part of your question. In my opinion movie posters were (as a medium) huuuge even a few years ago. Now, things have changed: we have Twitter and/or Facebook where opinions are being created in an instant. No longer is “one sheet” the “king of the jungle”. Most people see those posters only at 90×133 PIXELS (it means TINY, 60 times smaller than regular poster) on their iTunes account!!! Scary as sh*t! If you’d think about it for a moment, posters have to reinvent themselves …or die. Agencies and designers are just a tiny part of this machine that has to switch into a different gear, quickly. We’re working on it. Going back to the first part of your question… Posters always had something magical to them (it’s a different “magical” than Apple’s “magical”), they told stories, they were intriguing… I liked it and I decided to spend my life designing them. Pretty big sacrifice. Studios are like any other client for any other advertising agency, they demand, they have their vision – we just help them to materialize this vision. Each of us has certain expertise under our belt and we share it when it comes to working together. We laugh, we cry, we bite our nails time to time, it’s all good.
4. There’s a really interesting section of your website called evolutions, where you sort of show how you digitally change a picture or film still into a totally different image. Could you talk about this process and tell us about the programs you use to make these changes?
T.O. – It all goes back to my workshops at CSUN Northridge where almost every student asked me: “So, what did you do to achieve this? Was it one image and you just slapped title on it?” An idea was born then – to show how it really works and what it takes to design a poster those days. It also helps students to prepare mentally and technically to do this job. It takes years to train your brain for it. I’m talking about complicated photo imagery now – nothing simple. So I had started the Evolution part and believe me, workshops have never been the same since then. In the end we’re getting better prepared students to work with us now. Simple, but very effective since there are no books available on this subject. It all starts with an idea and goes into production This is what you see in Evolution, how to get from your original idea and available resources to a final image where your idea is fully illustrated and available for viewing or presenting. The tools are simple, but are getting more sophisticated. In the past it was only Adobe Photoshop. Now it’s more than that, you need some 3D program (Autodesk Maya for example) and/or motion oriented piece of software like Adobe After Effects.
5. One of the other parts of your site that I find to be really fascinating is the section where you go over various design systems – word based, curve based and metaphor based. I am curious to not only know more about these systems that you employ, but also why you’ve chosen to put these on your website and how you go about deciding what type of system you will use for each project?
T.O. – It all goes under education/students section. All those systems were invented by me to help new and younger employees to get up to speed in a short (at least shorter) period of time. Of course I teach how to “think poster,” but those systems can help us build a solid foundation. There is one more system not mentioned on my site: DWYFLDS – Do Whatever You Feel Like Design System… 🙂 You can see effects of this one all around Those systems have only educational value – I don’t think about them when designing every single poster, they help me once in a while. I often think how to improve them in the future. Stop by one of my workshops and you’ll know all about it!
6. A couple of your more recent projects have actually been for clients in Poland. What’s it like working in this international fashion and is design regarded differently in these two countries?
T.O. – First: clients everywhere are the same, culture and perception of your work changes from country to country. Europe is a bit faster and more open when it comes to digital art than US – sorry to say. Galleries, magazines, agencies they, for some reason, got this “digital bug” a few years before us here. No worries though, we’re catching up. If I’d have to look for something that I don’t like in this system, it would be a time difference and all the time zones… what a terrible concept it is, let me tell you. When I go to bed – they wake up ready to roll, all fresh and all… Ugh! Anyway, there is way more projects in the works – not all of them can be featured on my site, but they’re all in my portfolio (iPad) or the upcoming gallery. Talking about cultures… I’m getting ready to premiere my art in Japan as we speak. Wish me luck!
7. How has being a teacher affected the way that you approach or perceive both your commercial and studio works?
T.O. – I love to teach and I wasn’t forced/pressured in any way to do this. However, I was forced to rethink everything I know. Not only rethink, but also put all of it in order. Not only order, but presentable order. And this is what helped me to crystallize my ideas and shaped my decisions in a big way. Each workshop/class is similar to a 3-4 hour long brainstorm, which is a fantastic feeling, trust me. It’s like going to the gym… you sweat, you’re tired as hell, but damn was it good or what? Same here. I hope I don’t smell as bad as at the gym… Anyway, all this helps me to grow and be more mature when it comes to business. Whatever I learn from my business I’ll give back to my students and whatever I learn from the students will find its place in my business. My Experimental Art may get crazier, just a warning.
8. What would you like to tell people who are just starting out in the advertising or poster design industry, or people who are interested in learning more about these topics?
T.O. – Right off the bat I can tell you that most people will think about this job as of “Photoshop Monkey Job”, which it is not – at least in my company. An IDEA is what counts here, execution is a secondary thing. Again, I’m talking from my own experience and about my surroundings. We can teach you Photoshop in 3 months, from nada, but we won’t change the way you think and come up with “an idea” – this YOU have to bring on board. So if you’re starting now or planning on it, start with metaphors and looking at the world with a skew. Unfortunately, for some reason, there is not much on the market as far as books go for some strange reason all lectures stop on early 90’s and as far as I know – today is 2011. Yeah, I’m sarcastic. I’m working on a book, but with this speed I’ll finish it around 2030, I think. So don’t really wait for it.
9. What was the first movie you saw that really moved you on an emotional level? What about it has stayed with you for all of these years?
T.O. – I have pretty good “photographic memory” and I tend to remember weird things – which constantly amazes my wife and myself also time to time. But there is one scene that I’ll never-never forget. It’s from “The English Patient” where Count (kind of unfortunate name, isn’t it?) leaves injured Katherine in the cave (after plane crash) promising help… and gets thrown into jail in Cairo, leaving her to die there. This was worse that 7 Titanic’s!!! I don’t know why, but this moment is hard wired in my mind. “Family Guy” moves me also… Giggity… 🙂
10. Are there any film remakes or adaptations you would love to see happen in the future? If it did occur, and you had the honor of making the poster for it, what kind of a design would you choose?
T.O. – I’d love to see “True Grit” remake soon (like next week or so) where you can actually understand what the hell Jeff Bridges was talking about… seriously. All I understood was: “I can do nothing for you son…” – that’s it. Sad. Very sad. Oh, oh… one more thing… can we replace Hailee Steinfeld with Sofia Vergara or Christina Hendricks? I mean, since we’re talking about remaking whole movie, why not, right? 🙂 $352.744.019 more in opening night, guaranteed! As far the second part of your question, I’d love to take a stab at “Indiana Jones” trilogy. Who knows, I may do few on my own soon. I wish a day had like 35 hours or so (instead of 24).
Thanks, Tomasz, for giving us the opportunity to talk about you and your works!
T.O. – Oh noooo, thank youuuu! 🙂