Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol.5

[TheDot]

Though not to take away from the current cover art bitching, I thought I'd point out that Sweet Smell of Success IS a digipak, NOT a clear case in a sleeve. It's similar to Breathless and Amarcord.

Sweet Smell of Success

All that effort put in to the Sweet Smell of Success digipack, it comes out looking great and then on the inside it looks like they just got bored! Do love the rest of the packaging though, and cant wait to finally pick it up.

[fdm]

Dunno, the new covers are so-so, a couple good ones, a few bad ones. But, gotta say the worst to me recently, possibly forever, were the two for Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss. Yucko.

[matrixschmatrix]

Senso

It looks like the inside packaging on Senso is much better looking than the outer cover (which I don't hate, but it's not remarkably good).

Dunno, the new covers are so-so, a couple good ones, a few bad ones. But, gotta say the worst to me recently, possibly forever, were the two for Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss. Yucko.

Have you seen them in person? I thought they looked bad online, but Shock Corridor in particular works well in person. The Naked Kiss... well it's still not great, but I think Clowes just couldn't work himself up to the appropriate level of pulpiness there. The actual on-disc art for Naked Kiss is awesome, though.

[Murdoch]

All that effort put in to the Sweet Smell of Success digipack, it comes out looking great and then on the inside it looks like they just got bored! Do love the rest of the packaging though, and cant wait to finally pick it up.

Yeah, who the hell decided just to load the interior with yellow? That's the laziest interior I've ever seen by them.

[fdm]

Have you seen them in person? I thought they looked bad online, but Shock Corridor in particular works well in person. The Naked Kiss... well it's still not great, but I think Clowes just couldn't work himself up to the appropriate level of pulpiness there. The actual on-disc art for Naked Kiss is awesome, though.

Yeah, I waited until I had the titles in hand before saying anything, just in case. But, didn't make any difference, I think they're awful. (Haven't cracked them open yet.)

[HistoryProf]

Senso

dammit...once again the booklet cover is 10x better than the main cover

[movielocke]

gonna bet on a contractual mandate to have the leads on the cover in equal proportion.

[mfunk9786]

That much was explained in Skillman's blog entry. I think they came up with a very clever way to accomplish that.

[Norbie]

That cover for The Great Dictator looks seriously artifacted, like it was blown up from a thumbnail image

Maybe the cover is not final?

[kinjitsu]

[mfunk9786]

Why?! The original cover looked much better.

[swo17]

Surely some contractual obligation came to light regarding the size of the title and reference to the book on the front cover.

[movielocke]

isn't that the same still with a different title font/box plus new text at the bottom of the frame? I guess the book attribution was a contractual thing.

anyone want to repost the original? the link from the april announcements post in this thread is dead.

[mfunk9786]

Here you go.

[swo17]

[movielocke]

I see nothing to really be fussed about.

[mfunk9786]

The white-in-yellow text box is hideous.

[oldsheperd]

I think I've gotten a few knicknacks from Kes. They're like Pier 1 Imports right?

[zedz]

Let me guess: the contractual stipulation was that Barry Hines' name had to be the same size as Ken Loach's, and that the book attribution had to appear in that particular formulation. Probably also something about their names being no less than 20% the height of the title or somesuch.

So without the time to do a complete redesign (with the writer's credit plastered on the side of a truck being driven across the background?) the poor graphic designer had to either use the bottom fifth of the cover for the writer credit and have the kid's chin resting on the title, or shrink everything down, leaving the title too puny. So I guess the box around the title is the unfortunate solution for restoring a bit of its heft.

I bet Criterion's designers are really missing all the non-major studio commissions they used to do.

[movielocke]

I think the only thing you missed is that the book/author attribution had to probably be the same text color as the title as well with probably the same alignment (left, right or centered).

[heredity4me]

Is it strange that the year changed on the cover too? Thanks for explaining some of those possible contractual obligations: a very strange world.

[Cinephrenic]

Maybe they releasing the book as well.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Another theory: It may well have been Loach's own request -- he doesn't have much truck for the auteur theory, and the UK posters for his recent films (at least as far back as Sweet Sixteen) have a credit for Paul Laverty in the same size as Loach's. They also use the "directed by" phrasing instead of "a film by." Perhaps Loach wanted to single out Hines' role in the original story instead of going with something like "Screenplay by Barry Hines, Ken Loach, and Tony Garnett."

[James]

Oddly enough, all that really bothers my eyes about the revision is the fact that they bolded everything except the book title!

[TonyleStephanois]

Another theory: It may well have been Loach's own request -- he doesn't have much truck for the auteur theory, and the UK posters for his recent films (at least as far back as Sweet Sixteen) have a credit for Paul Laverty in the same size as Loach's. They also use the "directed by" phrasing instead of "a film by." Perhaps Loach wanted to single out Hines' role in the original story instead of going with something like "Screenplay by Barry Hines, Ken Loach, and Tony Garnett."

Indeed, Loach doesn't believe in the auteur theory at all and sees filmmaking as a collaborative art. When he speaks about his filmmaking he says 'we' rather than 'I' or 'my'.