"The Interview"

If you couldn’t tell from the time that this blog was posted, I have once again procrastinated the shih tzu out this project. If my expert hadn’t contacted me so quickly, I would have been royally screwed. And just to be clear, so you don’t think I’m worse of a student than I already am, I had an expert by the third blog. I just never contacted him….but the past is history so let’s just forget about my many, many, many, many faults during this project and move on.

So you guys can access the PDF of our email conversation, below this sentence is the link:

file://wsdhsms/19home/19mom/Documents/Genius%20Project%20Interview%20Doc.pdf

Just a little background, Vincent Vermeij (the graphic designer who makes minimal movie posters) was the main inspiration for this project. His posters and style embody minimalism and are simply amazing. To begin with, I would just like to let out a giant sigh of relief because if Mr. Vermeij hadn’t spoke English, it would have been a pain in the ass to translate it through Google (because we all know what a crappy thing that is).

Here is some of his work:

When I was brainstorming what to ask him, the main thing I wanted to take from this interview was to get insight into Mr. Vermeij’s process and how he is able to make such aesthetically beautiful and symbolic movie posters. Another thing that I valued was what his inspiration was because this helps me get into his mindset and how he makes his minimal movie posters.

After receiving and having read his response, one of the most prominent things I noticed was his light and joyous tone. Mr. Vermij seemed to really enjoy his work and his hobby of making movie posters. In the interview, he mentions on multiple occasions how I should try to have fun with this. In relation to this, he also talked about expression and identity on a few occasions. Just like any artist would say, Mr. Vermeij advised that I make my posters my own and stay original. Even though I went into this thinking about the process, I think the biggest thing I took away was to be passionate, do what you love, and to be you. Mr. Vermeij’s response seemed filled with life and energy and I think this inspired me even more to be more diligent with this and to possibly continue this after the Genius Project.

In addition to the emotion in his answers, the explanation of his process and his mindset was incredibly informative and helpful. Even though he repeats certain steps in his poster making process, Mr. Vermeij again mentioned the ideas of passion. He advised that I do movies that I really enjoyed and to act on my gut feelings when it comes to making the poster. I think that oftentimes, I am too caught up in trying to make the poster 100% perfect. Just like every other form of art, this is meant to be an expression of who I am and what I like. I plan to use this advice for my future posters, and I think that what Mr. Vermeij is saying can be applied to other aspects of my life because I tend to be very hesitant and meticulous.

Another interesting thing I took away was that Mr. Vermeij never really gave specific, concrete steps to making the perfect poster. He almost left it up to me to interpret movies how I wanted and just gave me some guidelines to follow and keep in mind.

Overall, I was really happy with the advice I got from this interview and I’m lucky that Mr. Vermeij was so friendly and motivating. As I paint two more posters, I will definitely try to take in Mr. Vermeij’s advice and apply it. I thought it was cool and interesting how even though I didn’t tell him I was painting and not graphically designing them, his advice is still applicable. In case you wanted to see more of his work, his website his below because I know I’m sure as hell going to buy some of his minimal movie posters.

chungkong.nl

Movie Recommendation #7:

Title: La Haine

Director: Mathieu Kassovitz

Starring: Vincent Cassel | Saïd Taghmaoui | Hubert Koundé

Date Released: September 1st, 1995

Sources:
chungkong.nl