PHEW! Okay, this one took a while. I made this for my dad's birthday back in June/July, although it didn't start out that way. I saw the amazing Light Study images that Jade Macalla had done and I instantly had this thought from the image that ended up getting used about doing a movie poster for a Lee Marvin-esque crime film in the vein of Point Blank or Prime Cut.

It expanded from there and I decided to do a lobbycard (or a series of them if possible) for a fake film that would pay homage to my favorite 70s gritty manly action films. The kind of stuff that'd be directed by John Flynn or Don Siegel (R.I.P. guys!). The Rolling Thunder/The Outfit or Dirty Harry/Charly Varrick kind of stuff. Or as mentioned before, Point Blank or Prime Cut. Maybe a little Mr. Majestyk for good measure. He's gotta get his melons.

I was going to work out a full storyline and post it in here but unfortunately time has gotten away from me. The image was finished in time but I couldn't find one of the stock pieces I had used and since I didn't want to put it up without proper credit I put off posting this image for quite some time. But now it's here! Yippee! You don't get the storyline, but the basic gist is kind of like this:

The hero would be a stoic man, probably more of an aged delivery guy who works for very bad people. A hit gets put out on him, but he's just the fall guy for the son of a bank robber that went on a shooting spree with his two buddies during a failed heist. (or maybe he pulls a heist and it pisses off some people, a more common stereotype of the time period) It puts the stoic man on the run, his daughter gets kidnapped, there's political machinations he doesn't know about, and a couple of grim beatings later the daughter's dead and our hero has to get some payback. The primary poster image would be the iconic moment where he tells whatever female love interest he has (I shoulda included her, now that I think about it) that he's now gotta take care of unfinished business. (in the words of Tommy Lee Jones, "gonna kill a buncha people.")

Basically, it'd have great old 70s cars, take place in a mixture of the city and rural environments, lots of great tough guy dialogue, probably have a script that feels like it's based on an Elmore Leonard or Donald Westlake novel, and of course...a Jerry Fielding or Lalo Schifrin soundtrack.

Oh, also as you can tell, the title is in Italian (this is meant to be an Italian Lobbycard)! As the title of this posting says, it's Hell Comes With A Bullet (tagline: A story of a man, his gun, his vengeance"). I don't actually know Italian (I intend to learn this winter), so if anyone wants to correct the translation I got, you're welcome to. ^_^' The reason for it being an Italian lobbycard is the design and layout of this is inspired by the lobbycard (from Mexico) of the spaghetti western Apocalypse Joe (or some variant thereof) with Anthony Steffan. I love spaghetti westerns and Italian film from the 50s-80s and when I was making the poster dad, myself, and my friend Phil were getting caught up on Enzo Castellari movies like Street Law and Inglorious Bastards and such. (I actually have quite a few Polizio films laying in wait for me) So it makes sense that it came out of that time period for me.

Let's see, there's a lot...I guess I can mention that the "character images" is an interesting thing, they're actually full images themselves which is why the credits below are a bit weird because you'll be going "there's all that in THERE?" but yes, there really is all that in there. It's just tiny. I'm considering doing at least one of them as an alternate version of this but the blue I'm not sure is going to work. Maybe take that and make it a completely different type of poster. (maybe an English/UK poster) But I will say that image turned out way better than expected. Some of them did not, however, which is why the yellow guy down there looks a bit wonky. (you should see how the girl turned out in that image...yuck!) There's I think one more I didn't include in this, but it's irrelevant.

Anyway, I wanted to give a quick thanks before I jump into the credits.

#1. Thanks to my dad for donating his genetic code to my being, which led to the creation of this poster/lobbycard for his birthday! (he dug it, though I need to pass him the file so he can make it his wallpaper on his MacBook )

#2. Thanks to [link] for their amazing selection of Lobbycard and Poster images of Italian westerns. GREAT resource if you dug the Leone films and want to know more about that sub-genre and era of movies!

#3. HUMONGOUS gratitude to the people who give up their time to the art of stock here at DA. You guys rock and I feel bad I'm not using enough of your work often enough. Or that I don't do enough with it to make it my own, to use it as true inspiration. I can only hope you all appreciate what I've done here with your contributions.

Well, now that I've gone and made a doozy of a posting here and need to get to sleep, I'll get the credits out and roll on.

HOPEFULLY I didn't forget anybody.

The Backdrops


[link] <- lobbycard backdrop (GREAT photo, dish!)


[link] <- sort-of-visible backdrop in one of the character images


[link] <- sort-of-visible backdrop in one of the character images.


[link] <- ocean backdrop that's "sort of" visible in the backdrop of the blue dude's character image


[link] <- wood floor added to hero shot (barely visible at this point, I think, but it's there!)


[link] <- wallpaper added behind hero shot


Erh, for some reason, I couldn't find the exact sky photo in my stash, but a teensy bit (like 0.05% of it) does show up in the blue dude's character image. Credit where credit's due, but damn I wish I could find the exact package it's from.


The Players


[link] <- Gun arm from left in lobby card (had to crop the image, which sucks )
[link] <- The light study that inspired the piece in the first place!


[link] <- girl image in the character images.


[link] <- cowboy with revolver in lobby card


[link] <- cigar dude in blue shirt within the lobby card image (hope ya don't mind the violent tone, dude!)


[link] <- the cool dude with the hat in one image. (an image that turned out so well I'm probably going to do an alternate poster with it)

Misc


[link] <- the paper texture (totally awesome stuff, go check out his work!)


[link] <- Concrete texture for lighting and overlaying. This helped SO much. Kudos to Pratt!