Illustrator and InDesign: Khoua Eh Lee

Sneaking in one last post before the end of the year!
This piece is part of the final assignment in InDesign class. The student, Khoua Eh (pronounced Khooie) Lee created an illustrated book from Robert McCammon's short story Nightcrawlers, which became the best episode of the new Twilight Zone of the 80s (not to be confused with the new Twilight Zone of more recent years, hosted by Forrest Whittaker).
The story deals with Vietnam vets who... well, read it for yourself.  The link in the title above posts the whole story.
There's a very manic, nail-biting, edge-of your-seat sensation in both the story and the episode. While Khoua Eh's internal illustrations were not as successful as they might have been in conveying that sense, the cover, created in Illustrator CS3, does so admirably.

Khoua Eh is a student who moved into design from animation, and has made great strides as a designer in recent quarters. He's about to enter Portfolio class, which is a whole fresh challenge- but I think he's up to it!

Photoshop: Jeffrey Bailey

As the quarter just ended, we'll take a break from the storyboards and present something else.
Once again, a success story from the movie poster assignment.
This is the work of Jeff Bailey, a design student who is about to enter the Portfolio class. Though this was done a couple quarters ago, Jeff revisited the piece as part of the Calendar design project in InDesign class.
Jeff is a very spritied and professional individual who just landed a paying internship in the design field!

Jeff completed this piece more than half a year before the documentary on Dr. Thompson was released, and he was unaware of the forthcoming documentary during the creation of this image! I find his use of the Find Outlines filter, combined with the stark,vibrant palette, very effective.

For use of the piece in his calendar, he deleted the credits, studio logo and ratings. I must say that it's a cleaner piece without that stuff, but it's crucial to recognize that in the field one does not have the option of omitting mandated copy!

For comparison's sake, here's the poster of the actual film:

 

 

 

A very different approach, but one more influenced by Jeff's favorite illustrator, Ralph Steadman.

Storyboards: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, part 4 and whole board 1

The conclusion of the first board. I will speed up posting these, as at this rate, it will take me more than two months to do the whole thing!

It takes a bit of decoding, but it's possible to follow every move from these boards. The recurring problem is the overuse, sometimes inaccurate, of the term "full shot", which refers to a full-figure shot, also called a long shot.

Here's all of Board One.

Next week, the top tier of Board Two.

Storyboards: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, part 3

More about this assignment:
After viewing the entire film, the students pick one scene of at least 5 minutes and prepare a full-pasteup board. This board shows every camera, character and object motion. It also documents every sound in the film. Essentially, they are dissecting a well-made film as a learning tool.
There is a facile aspect to this. I've been on enough shoots to know that the anlaytical aspects are often instinctive during the shoot, so looking at filmmaking form a theoretical viewpoint does not always apply. However, it's still useful to look at shot composition and continuity.
There are some technical errors on these boards, but most are minute. The most galring error is the misspelling of Rance Stoddard's name in the captions. Aside from having access to imdb.com, a source of record for film information, the students could have watched the movie more carefully, as the name is spelled out in big letters on screen in the story!
Ah well. A small concern, but one that would be embarrassing in a story meeting.
This week's panels: