Original subtitles

There is one artist for every couple of decades...

that encapsulates what film experience was for a couple of generations.

And I think for my generation and the generation right before me,

Drew Struzan was the movie.

There's images that Drew has drawn that are burned in my brain forever.

They'll never go away.

His posters are modern day classics.

That's not an opinion. It's a statement of fact.

It's not just an ad, you know? It's the first notes of the piece.

It's the beginning of the story.

His artistic interpretation of what that story is, in one image,

really made you want to run out and see that movie.

He is a storyteller, and that's what makes him very, very unique...

and ranks him with the great poster artists of all time.

And when you're talking about the best of the best,

you've got Drew sitting right up there with those guys.

He's one of the first artists who's become a pop star, a rock star.

Myself and my other artist friends, we would just drool over his stuff.

He just got your attention. It was like, "Wow. I wanna go to that place.

I wanna be there. I wanna be in that light.

Whatever makes you look like that, I want that shit around me."

You anticipate the new poster from Drew.

Almost anybody who's anybody in the film business...

wants him to do posters for them.

He's been such a benefit and such a kind of second sight to a lot of my films.

Everyone. Everyone, arguably worldwide, knows his work.

They may not know his name, but everyone's seen his movie posters.

He did the Back to the Future series.

Drew did Goonies for me. He did Hook. He did Batteries Not Included.

Drew really came along for the long ride of the Amblin years...

and just made a tremendous contribution.

He does just a great, great job of bringing out the best...

in whatever it is that he's painting.

I had to almost live up to the art...

that we later were going to ask Drew to create for the poster.

He will inevitably influence every artist that comes afterward.

- I'm a big fan of Drew Struzan. - It's beautiful work.

It's just great work, and there's only one. He's one of a kind.

- Nobody else is Drew Struzan, I promise you. - There is nobody else like him.

- He's the best. - He's a legend.

- He's an original. - He's amazing.

He's part of the movie experience.

Having Drew Struzan do your posters--

almost worth making movies just for that.

We have a lot of original art here.

You've done a lot of different kinds of things for us,

with all different kinds of demands.

And the fun part is that they've been all different kinds of scenes.

You get something like this, you're getting into minor characters--

Jabba the Hutt's too minor a character, but it's still--

That was one of the rare times you didn't have to paint Han, Luke and Leia.

- Right. Or no laser swords. - Yes.

- [ Both Chuckle ] - Thanks for--

So you got to do fat slugs...

and crazy little Muppet-type characters...

and a lot of crazy musicians.

- All of which-- They're very memorable to us. - Yeah.

I like that picture a lot.

It's the painting where I can show people my heart...

and my experience and my knowledge...

or understanding or passions or whatever it is--

That's how I express it, and that's how I share it.

I guess that's what makes us human--

is that we can share knowledge and wisdom and experiences,

and painting is how I do that.

They say I could draw before I could talk.

That doesn't mean I didn't talk till 15--

It's just what I do. It's what I've always loved to do.

They told me I used to draw on the toilet paper and roll it back up...

'cause that was the only available paper in the house.

So, you know, you just take what you can.

If you don't know what you're lacking, it doesn't bother you.

As much as, like, we say we need love--

If you're never given any, you don't know what you're missing.

You don't know you don't have it 'cause you've never seen it.

I didn't have any as a child.

Parents didn't love me, didn't like me.

They were afraid of me for some screwy reason.

When I left home and got out of high school--

[ Chuckles ] I said, "I want to go learn something." So--

I didn't pack my bags. I didn't have anything. I just went.

I left, and I didn't lose anything by leaving.

They didn't want me anyway, you know.

I actually went home for the end of one term,

and they locked me out of the house, so I never went back.

[ Chuckles ]

It was 1966.

We were actually at a dance in San Jose.

And we had both been drug there--

me by my sister and him by a friend of his.

And I don't know-- There he was, across the room,

and he was just... really cute.

My life changed when I found somebody to love me...

and someone I could give love to.

He and Dylan met when they were teenagers,

and they've been together ever since.

Actually, it started out at the Ping-Pong tables.

And I realized that he wasn't gonna make any kind of move,

so I just managed to hit my Ping-Pong ball over to his table--

you know, get things rolling.

I think of them as a unit.

I think of them as a single person, in a way.

We both didn't have much of a home and a home life,

and we were both lonely.

And... couldn't put words to it at the time,

but it was two people in need of love.

We found one another that wanted the same thing and did it the same way...

and it's still the same today.

That was summer break when we all met.

And he went back to school, back to Art Center.

And he sent-- The first letter had a portrait of me in it.

That's-- You know. That's pretty powerful stuff.

When you go to college, before you go to class, you go to the counselor.

And they ask you the question you're supposed to ask in bars.

"So what's your major?" You know.

I said, "What's my choices?"

I mean, I was naive. All I really wanted to do was learn art.

He went to Art Center for six years,

and that school-- That's not just a couple of little art classes.

Six days a week, you paint every day.

It was cheap at the time,

but it was 100% more than I had.

I'd go in the front door in the day and get some class...

and then the counselors or the accountants would come around...

and kick me out 'cause I didn't pay.

So they'd kick me out and I'd come back in the back door.

I'm gonna pay eventually. I didn't want to miss any of this education, so--

That's how I put myself through college, is just slowly.

I'd sell paintings I did for homework to other students...

and then I could pay for it.

Art Center was always supposed to be a school that teaches you to be a professional.

And he really learned that lesson.

He wasn't eating or anything, so he had a lot of extra time, right? No.

[ Laughs ]

Starving artist that he was.

Um-- No, seriously though. He worked very, very hard all through school,

and I just think he has that ethic.

I used to eat only two days a week, when I went to see my girlfriend,

and five days a week, I didn't eat.

We were so poor when we started out.

And I worked at the county in order for him to go back and get his degree at school.

First year I was married, we had the baby.

He cost 1,500 bucks.

We got the best doctor in L.A. to deliver and care for the baby.

I made $3,000 that year.

So we lived on 1,500 bucks-- a family of three.

That was so hard. Just so hard.

I didn't make enough money for us to have child care and eat at the same time,

so we spent a lot of years below the poverty line.

So far below the poverty line, they didn't count us, you know, but--

We were happy as could be.

I think you don't become a master artist like Struzan...

without putting in those hours and dedicating that time...

and really, really doing...

what you have to do.

Quite simply, I just gave up eating.

'Cause that's a waste of money.

So I spent my money on paint instead of eating.

I know exactly what Struzan's talking about...

when he says that he had to choose between paint or food.

It's-It's-- You know.

You make the obvious choice. Unless you're dying, you choose paint.

You use just-- Just a little bit.

[ Laughs ]

And paint on both sides and the edges.

Unless you come from a privileged background,

as an artist, you're going to literally starve a little bit.

Being an artist isn't a means to an end. It's a means to a means.

And that happens even when you have no means.

You just-- I mean--

I can imagine--

I'm putting words in his mouth,

but you get pictures in your head, you gotta get 'em out.

You can't do that while you're waiting tables.

If Drew had a backup job...

in case the painting didn't work out,

then 99 times out of 100, you end up doing that backup job.

Because the art-- Doing that, that's just too hard.

To this day, I'll just squeeze out the littlest amount of paint from a tube,

and I spread it very thin.

Poverty produced a technique. [ Chuckles ]

Drew found the thing very early in life that he loved,

and he stuck with it.

Just like, you know--

Just like he found Dylan. He loved her, and he stuck with her.

You know, and they stuck with each other.

After school,

he worked very hard at trying to get work.

And that was kind of a difficult struggle...

because nobody wants to give you work when you haven't done work.

I think he was smart enough to know that fine art...

wasn't gonna be right for him right at that moment,

with a wife and child--

It takes years to become a recognized fine artist.

You just don't do it overnight.

Even though sometimes it seems like it is, it takes years, sometimes a lifetime.

And he needed money and he needed work.

That's when he decided-- about a year after he got out of school--

to take a studio job.

At that time, we were probably one of the top three companies in the country...

doing album covers.

Just doing album covers. That's all we did.

With Pacific Eye & Ear, it was in the hands of a pro.

I started hiring illustrators, because in those days,

illustration, more than photography,

was really desirable on album covers.

They actually liked unknown new artists, 'cause they'd do something different.

This guy calls and says, "I'd like to come show my book."

"Okay. Sure. Go ahead." You know?

So guy shows up, and it's Drew Struzan.

I mean, every time I turned a page,

it was like, "Oh, my God. This is like-- I've never seen work like this."

When we got through talking, he said to me,

"You know, I'm having real trouble finding a job.

I've got a brand-new baby.

I've got a wife, and I need to get a paycheck."

He said, "If you hire me,

I'll work five days, and you only have to pay me for four...

until you see that I bring value."

I said to him-- I swear to God, I said--

"You know what, man? If you can do the work like this book,

you work five days, you get paid five days."

I thought that was heaven,

that I could work and actually get a check...

and count on it at the end of the week.

And that, while it wasn't a lot of money, it was twice what I was making,

so it felt like a lot of money.

And even though we didn't have a life of luxury,

at least we were able to eat.

He pretty much stayed to himself.

He was-- It was all about family.

It was about him and his wife and his kid.

He didn't really socialize with us.

We'd all go to concerts...

and hang with the bands and stuff, but he never did any of that.

He was always at home with his wife and his kid, and we respected that.

This guy was so focused, it--

He was oblivious to all of this kind of chaos,

distractions and everything that were going on.

We'd be having a brainstorming session or something.

He'd just be talking and adding to it, but he'd be sketching.

And by the time we were landed on an idea,

he goes, "You mean like this?"

It was like, "Oh, shit. How'd he do that?"

A classic one is Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath.

I only remember it because people keep it alive. They keep talking about it.

And I was just instructed to draw a picture of a man dying--

was the way I recall it.

So I said, "Let's do front and back cover.

Let me do the front cover a bad man dying.

And the same man if he was good, and we'll put him on the back cover,

and this is what it would look like if it was a good man dying."

Drew is the character on both front and back. He drew himself in there.

That's him with the snakes around him on the front,

and on the back, he's the peaceful guy laying in bed.

I was a huge Alice Cooper fan, huge Alice Cooper fan.

And I remember when that album came,

and I got it and I loved it.

I was like, "Oh, it's that guy who did the artwork."

Alice was really neat. He's a nice guy.

He used to come around the studio where I was working and watch me paint.

When I did Welcome to My Nightmare,

he wanted to change the image a little bit, the self--

Instead of all the makeup and the bugs and the scary stuff,

do something classy.

So I said, "Okay. Put him in a tux."

It's not Alice Cooper at all...

from what I know of Alice Cooper--

the dark, sinister--

snakes and everything he did.

He's a wonderful musician and a wonderful cover.

That's probably what made it work. It was such a left field kind of cover,

where he comes in so clean and immaculate and everything.

It was like somebody of real quality and a high degree of talent...

took some time to put his head into what my head,

as a 14-year-old kid, would be in approaching this album.

My sense of anticipation, my sense of, "What is this? What am I gonna hear?"

No doubt that Rolling Stone picked it as one of the top covers of all time.

It's a beautiful cover.

The blessing of that job was that...

what I was doing was getting printed...

and it was getting seen.

I was the first guy in L.A....

to really do creative advertising...

on a boutique freelance basis for the studios.

Tony was-- [ Huffs ]

a huge part of what might be termed my success.

He really gave me big breaks when I was young...

and unconnected and didn't know what was going on.

When they had a big album,

the record company would buy a billboard on the Sunset Strip.

One day, I was driving...

down Sunset Boulevard.

And I happened to look up,

and I saw a very striking billboard.

And the billboard was Welcome to My Nightmare.

I almost just jammed the brakes to get a better look at it.

And I went right from there to Tower Records to buy the album...

so I could find out who the illustrator was.

Turned out to be Drew Struzan.

Then I went to work, went to Seiniger's, and I ran in.

I go, "We have to find this illustrator."

So I called up one day-- I called up Pacific Eye & Ear,

and I go, "Hi. Can I talk to Drew Struzan, please?"

Drew picks up the phone.

In that very kind of quiet monotone of his, he goes, "Hello?"

And I said, "Hi, Drew. This is Tony Seiniger, Seiniger Advertising.

I do movie art, and we'd love to have you do a movie poster."

"Oh, I don't know about that. I'm very busy here," and all that.

I said, "Let me tell you something.

I think you'd be really good at doing movie posters."

"Oh, yeah?" So I finally got him to agree...

to come over to the office and meet with me.

Movie business was notorious. They stole all the good talent because they had all the money.

He came over after work one day.

And I asked him, "What do you make there at Pacific Eye & Ear?"

I can't remember the actual figure,

but I was shocked at how little a man of this talent was making.

I said, "Let me tell you something.

If you did a movie poster, you could make as much on one job...

as you make at Pacific Eye & Ear all year long."

You could do an album cover for $5,000,

or you could do a movie poster for $20,000 or $25,000 or $50,000.

They didn't care. They had all the money in the world.

I think that gave him the impetus to leave and start out on his own.

I didn't need the steady job anymore,

'cause people were looking for me.

And that was the next step down that road, is I went out on my own.

At this point, he had left Pacific Eye & Ear...

and was willing to strike out on his own as an illustrator.

We gave him a movie called The Black Bird, with George Segal.

I had this idea-- I was always ripping off Norman Rockwell...

and other famous illustrators.

Not having my own style and being very young,

I said, "I can paint like pretty much anybody."

"Can you do this style? Can you do that style?"

"Can you do like a Rockwell style?"

I said, "I can paint like Rockwell."

"Yeah." He's very laid-back.

Drew nailed it.

Then the movie industry started seeing the work that was being done,

so there's the old thing-- you do the work, you get seen,

and now they know that you can do the work,

so they start offering jobs.

Once he got going, man, it was like, that's it.

Everybody else just grabbed him.

So Drew Struzan and I worked together for almost 20 years.

We started with The Black Bird in 1975,

and I think the last painting we did together was maybe Hook in 1991.

Somehow he saw my talent early on, when I was just in my 20s,

and gave me great work to do.

I mean, actually hired me to do movie posters when I knew nothing about it.

I knew how to paint, but I didn't know the job of working in the movies.

I was familiar with Drew Struzan's work before he worked on Star Wars.

I wasn't hired by George. I was hired by a fellow student, Charlie White.

Had to be '76, '77, I imagine,

that I met Drew-- I heard about Drew.

He had a design studio. He was very entrepreneurial. Still is.

And he had that job. So he designed the lettering...

and he designed the idea of the poster and everything.

Only trouble was, he was a wonderful airbrush artist,

but he didn't do portraits.

As odd as it may sound, I did very few people.

So he knew me and that I did them,

so he called and said, "Do you want to share a poster?

I'll do the robots and you do the people?"

Sure. A job's a job. Didn't matter to me.

It was Star Wars. Didn't mean anything at the time.

It was just another job.

[ Audience Cheering ]

So I said, "I'll do it on one condition,

that I get to watch you paint some of your part in airbrush."

'Cause I'd never seen an airbrush in my life,

so I wanted to see how he did it, being the master of it.

We had, I think, seven or eight days to do the whole thing.

What was special about it initially...

is I painted the portrait of Luke and Leia in oil paints...

and he painted the rest of the poster with dyes and the airbrush.

So it was unique. There was two of us and two different techniques.

We had to really orchestrate how we were gonna do it together.

'Cause he'd be painting in oil, and that was just a real riot.

Had to wait till all of it dried so I could spray over it-- It was just-- [ Huffs ]

We finished it, they submitted it to Lucasfilm.

They said, "That's really a nice picture,

but there's no room for the billing block."

Legally, you have to have a certain percentage of body copy--

which would be all the stars, et cetera, et cetera--

centered to the title.

Well, I'd forgotten about that,

and so we were way off.

We had to figure out how to make this piece of art this big.

It's not like today where you can kind of photoshop it in.

So we came up with the idea of making it look like it's wild posted.

I wanted it to look used, like it's been around--

the poster's been around for a while.

So he tore up the edges and painted the fence behind it,

and I added Obi-Wan to the side of it...

and made it bigger and made more empty space.

I think it made it a lot better poster,

but it was a bit of a testy time for a moment--

how to do that, to get all that type in there.

It became George Lucas's most favorite poster...

until I did the Special Edition posters.

It's very unusual as a poster.

And it's still unusual as a poster,

and I think it's gonna stand out as an important part.

That's one in our collection. It's one I'm very fond of.

Because it references the whole history...

of the way posters are used.

Film posters come from a tradition of circus posters, back at the very beginning,

and it's a reference to that.

It was just a fantastic experience for both of us.

It was a great privilege to work with them, and it was kind of an excitement.

That was the first time I actually had the opportunity, I had a film big enough.

The Return of the Jedi poster was a very iconic poster.

I think you're referring to the poster I painted for Revenge of the Jedi.

We did a teaser poster, which was Revenge of the Jedi.

The poster stayed the same, but the wording changed.

It makes an image that sticks with you,

touches you, impels you,

and that it happened to be objects that you're familiar with and interested in...

just made it the more so.

The poster really wasn't done for the title.

It was done for, in essence, what was in the movie itself,

what we were trying to portray in the movie.

You are unwise to lower your defenses.

Not having seen the movie, and knowing it was Star Wars,

I couldn't do much except, "Let's feature Darth Vader,

'cause he's cool, and the sword fight."

Or the lightsaber fight.

And that's all it is. It's just a nice design and powerful.

And obviously it was portraying Darth Vader.

And, you know, it's the-the end of the entire series,

so it was really about the confrontation between Luke and Darth Vader.

It combined the two things that I really always lean on in my work--

combining two opposites again-- power and beauty-- in the same piece.

A painting of Darth Vader, you get the feeling of pure evil...

and all the things that are associated around that.

We had done some work with Darth Vader,

but at the same time, nothing that was quite that articulate.

There was a lightsaber battle between Luke and Darth.

I don't know why I painted them the colors I did.

I think 'cause I thought it was pretty.

It's usually most of my reasons for doing things.

And it never crossed my mind that people would pick on what color they were.

So it wasn't until years later--

when everything became so specific...

and everybody knew everything about every detail of Star Wars...

that they started to recognize they were painted the wrong color.

And it became one of those great Star War issues.

The iconic ones would have to be the signature pieces...

that we've done.

Certainly all the Star Wars Special Edition releases.

He did this triptych approach for the Star Wars films--

three panels that kind of describe the entire first trilogy.

That is as iconic as it gets. It's staggering.

That was really when he had the opportunity to come in...

after these films had sat in the culture for 20 years...

and take a fresh look at how you would represent them in a film poster.

One Christmas Eve night,

I get this call about 9:00 at night,

and they say, "We're coming out with the Special Edition--

three movies-- and we'd like a poster for them."

I always have my foot in my mouth, as you can see.

So I said, "You're making one poster for three movies?"

They said, "Yeah."

I said, "You're blowing a really grand opportunity to do a triptych.

Do three posters that work together as one.

It'll be really sweet, and you can open"-- Blah, blah, blah.

"Good idea. How do you see it?"

I mean, that quick.

So-- So I have to design in my head,

on the spot, on the phone to George Lucas.

The idea that they fit together as a triptych was also really fantastic,

because it just gives you this epic sense of what the Star Wars saga is about.

I didn't ever do a drawing for them. I never did a composition.

I never did anything. I just started painting the first one.

Then they picked it up and carried it away,

and now I realize the second one,

I have to match the color, the intensity and the design to the first one.

But I don't have it here!

So I had to do it from memory,

and then the same thing happened on the third one.

So that was designed on the telephone,

painted without any drawing or comp or design,

and I had to match three paintings to each other...

without seeing the other two at the same time.

To put that all together in a very poetic way, it takes some doing.

And of course, he followed that up with all the posters for the prequels.

The next three he wanted to match the first three.

So then I wound up with that design with the frame,

with the things breaking out of the frame so they look bigger and grander.

Well, they're grand, but they don't lose human scale.

They feel more human than--

I mean, some of these pictures get so big...

that you lose sight of the humanity of the thing...

and it gets lost in scale.

While they don't work as a triptych...

in the same sense that the Special Edition posters do,

it continues the style,

so you've got this very consistent set...

that spans six films over a 30-year period.

So now he has all six of them in a row,

and they look like they were all conceived at the same time.

We went with what we call "the mountain of people"...

in order to show all of the characters that are gonna be in the new series,

because they were very different.

The same characters, but different actors from what had been in the previous series,

so we wanted to expose that reality to the fans...

as the first image they see.

It's not just a question of what will that poster tell you about the film.

It's how will it match up to your expectation of what you want to see.

How will it kind of feed that excitement?

Episode I, George--

When he turned my artwork into the poster,

he said that it would be the same in every land.

Everywhere it was advertised, that image would be the one they had to use.

A lot of releases are now day-and-date--

That's one of the things that we pioneered with the Star Wars prequels.

It's in everybody's face all over the world, all at the same time.

From a marketing point of view, you want one image...

that identifies a campaign for the film.

And with Star Wars, because they're so... universal,

it made sense to have the one image...

be what the image was worldwide.

Everybody in the world is seeing my piece of art...

all at the same time, and that was unusual.

That has never happened before in history.

Indiana Jones.

We've also used a different style with him with Indiana Jones.

Sometimes we've done the pyramid, but a lot of the times,

we've just done an iconic depiction of Indiana Jones--

of him standing in a particular position with his whip, with his gun.

And that's always very effective.

When I first began working with Drew...

on all the Indiana Jones movies,

you know, the art just brought out a kind of--

a kind of "B" movie sort--

But without being a cheap "B" movie.

He gave-- He distinguished our film,

but he also showed that our film was based on...

many of the old Republic serials...

and all those old-fashioned adventure movies...

that used to be made decades ago.

And he brought-- He revitalized that kind of tonality...

with the drawings and the paintings he was doing for us.

Especially the way he would capture faces.

Especially the way he captured Indiana Jones's face.

When Drew came along and started to do the work,

it really made a big difference.

It focused attention on that character,

gave him a nobility and a heroic nature.

And frankly, made me look good.

You know. So I-- I was a happy guy.

I have to confess, when I think of Harrison Ford,

I'm often thinking of Drew Struzan's...

image of Harrison Ford...

as much as the actor himself.

I know what the actor looks like. I've seen him in almost all his movies.

But he's captured somehow in my mind...

by that rendering that Drew Struzan has done and variations on it...

and all those many, many posters and images that he's painted.

He's done a lot of video box art for us.

And he's done book covers for us and other illustrations for licensed products.

So it's wound up being a very broad involvement in everything we do...

in marketing these franchises.

It's been enormously valuable...

to the selling of the movies that I'm in.

I think you got the sense that this was being taken seriously,

but there was a true sense of fun to all the daring.

So when you look at Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones,

you get a feeling of a rush inside you,

that there's some action in this movie, that there's romance in this movie,

that there's excitement, there's mystery, there's danger--

All from a piece of paper.

That stuff made me wanna go see the movie.

It got us excited. It gave us a tone.

It gave us something, something to cling to.

While the pieces have a consistency,

they all have their own flavor...

according to the film, according to the things that we find fun in that film.

Drew's original poster for Raiders--

I know they used the Amsel image primarily,

but Drew did one of Harrison Ford and Karen Allen,

and it's one of the best poster images I've ever seen.

I believe they used it for the overseas markets.

I really do believe the first time he had the freedom to create,

to be really creative, was the Indiana Jones piece.

The Temple of Doom poster is one of the great posters.

I wasn't set as the Indiana Jones artist at that point, so--

In Temple of Doom, the second movie,

they had another artist do the painting--

I don't know his circumstance-- and they opened with his poster.

But within that first week,

they called me and they just wanted to try something else for whatever reason.

So they asked me, "Do a drawing of what you'd like to do for this film."

So I did one comp and sent it to them.

They said, "That's great. Paint it."

So there were no changes, no other ideas.

That was straight-up my idea.

No interference of any kind from anybody.

So I just painted it freely and with the confidence,

because I had designed it, that I could make it nice.

Sent it to 'em, and that's what the Temple of Doom poster became.

And that's when he developed a lot of different techniques...

for the visual effect of the poster.

And that was-- To me, that was a really big turning point in his career.

There was a whole thing with that movie--

Is it PG-13? Is it for kids? Is if for adults?

And as a kid, we all wanted to see it,

and that's really due a great deal...

to what Drew did.

You had this sort of terrifying image with fire everywhere...

and this guy with a horned helmet holding a flaming heart above his head...

with this maniacal glee in his eyes.

And in the middle of it, Harrison Ford...

giving this look backwards like, "I got this."

That was the one where they said, "Gee, we like that design.

From now on, that's Indy. That is the look."

And from then on, it was the Indy look.

Every little line, every little stroke...

is pushing the feel of the entire film.

Those strokes, those-- It's almost like war paint.

Just like three strokes here and then a white here...

and something across the brow, you know?

It's just really-- You can't do that with a computer.

You know, that whole feeling of texture that he brings into his art,

the feeling that you could almost reach out and touch it, you feel like there's--

You get a feel of the smoothness of the face of one of the heroines in Indiana Jones.

You get a feel of the gruffness of the villains.

And just the fact it's so tactile, his art.

That's because he paints. He doesn't keyboard.

It's just polished. I don't mean polished in the sense of being slick.

It might be that little pencil stroke that's still in there...

or that not quite finished highlight stroke he did with a white.

You might say, "He could have rounded that off a little.

He could have made that conform a little bit more to the line of this collar or whatever."

But he didn't. It's just perfect.

We've had to live up to Drew's art.

And I know--

When Drew did the last one-sheet for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,

and I saw that early picture--

I showed it to Janusz Kaminski, my cinematographer, and I said,

"Now you've gotta make sure that Harrison looks as good as that picture."

And by the way, Janusz made Harrison...

look as good as Drew Struzan's artwork--

with a little help from Harrison himself.

Some people accuse me of making him look younger, but everybody has opinions.

I painted him as he looked. He just happens to look okay.

He looks more than okay. He looks better than I'll ever look.

It was an ambition of mine that we acknowledge the age of the character.

We were completely recognizing that 25 years had passed...

and Harrison Ford the actor had aged,

and Indiana Jones the character had aged.

I made him look like he looked. 'Cause that's honest.

I also believe in truth in advertising.

If he was good enough to make the film, he's surely good enough to paint.

He's idealized Harrison Ford,

and in the best possible way.

It's not me. I'm just acting.

It looks like me, but it's invested...

with the nature and the character of Indiana Jones.

I've drawn him many times, on many occasions,

and there's not always reference materials for the movies...

that are appropriate for the concepts.

I get into his character when I design one of the posters.

I have his hat and whip and his coat...

and his pants and shoes and all that stuff...

because I often pose as Indy myself.

So I have authentic costuming so that it looks good.

What he says about posing for the subject is true.

A lot of people do that. Um--

But he does it especially well.

Drew has done Harrison Ford's portrait, like, a hundred times?

Like, I don't know the exact number, but it's way up there.

I've never met Harrison, as many times as I've drawn him.

This is Drew Struzan. We thought we'd-- Himself.

About time you guys met.

Nice to meet you, years later.

Nice to see you.

Glad we had the opportunity.

- You've always been so nice. - You've been very good to me.

Very good to me.

Well, not half as good as you've been to me.

- Who are you kidding? - You've done very well by me.

Nice to finally meet you.

Thanks for the good work.

Thank you for all you've done for me.

Thank you.

He's become as critical to the mix...

as John Williams,

as, uh, many of the other important collaborators...

who come together and pool their talents to make these films...

as successful as they have been.

He's one person that can just take a portrait of a person...

and turn it into something really special.

Oh. The Thing poster.

Which I think Drew did overnight, back in the day.

He did it in one night, he told me, which was insane,

'cause it's one of the great science fiction/horror poster images... ever.

[ I saw that poster, and the sense of menace and the sense of madness...

and the dimensions of that thing, with the light coming out of the head--

It completely encapsulated something that made the movie bigger.

It doesn't represent the movie. It makes it bigger.

It's such a simple image too. It's the man in the parka...

with the light shining out of the hood.

These terrifying kaleidoscopic shards kind of coming out of this guy's face.

[ Laughs ] You can't quite see what's here.

It's kind of blinding, and you don't know why.

He hasn't defined it. He's just suggested something.

And it's such a great image.

I had nothing. They called on the phone and said,

"We have a job. We need it really quick. You want to do it?"

"Sure. What is it?" "Remember the movie The Thing from the '50s?"

"Yeah." "That's it."

That was what I had to create with.

So I couldn't show an actor or a location or anything.

I couldn't show a monster. There was nothing to show.

So I had to find a way of making nothing into something.

So I did one drawing. They called and said, "Good. We need it in the morning."

You know, he could do a thing like The Thing overnight,

and it'd be completely successful.

How he does that overnight? I don't know.

You'd have to ask him.

All I thought about was, "Well, I won't get to sleep for two days."

Which is okay.

It's a knowledge that allows him to do it, you know?

You're getting a Drew Struzan--

It doesn't matter if it took him one day or 70 days.

I lived a hundred miles from the studio.

They sent a messenger up first thing in the morning, like they said.

I handed in the painting. And it was in acrylics, which dry, like, that fast.

Because there was kind of a watery effect and stuff. It was kind of wet.

So I said, "Be careful. Don't put anything on it."

They called when they got it, a hundred miles later, and said, "The painting's still wet."

That's how fast it left the studio.

So they had to wait for it to dry to put it under the glass to shoot it.

He turned it in the next day, and that's it.

I was young too. Couldn't even do it today.

I'd just fall over dead.

You really get a sense of...

not only the skill but the kind of magic at work...

when you see his Muppet movie posters.

When you wanted a poster, you went to Tony Seiniger,

and that's what Jim Henson did when he made the first Muppet movie.

Jim Henson and his in-house art director, creative director, Michael Frith,

came in to visit me, and they wanted to see some of the work we had done.

He says, "Walk around and write down the names of the posters that you like,

and we'll call in those artists and you see their portfolios...

and pick one to do your poster."

So he went around, wrote 'em all down and came back.

Tony looked at the list and goes, "Hmm. This will be easy.

They're all by the same guy."

So I got the job, straight away, from Jim Henson.

Drew and I went to New York, to Henson's creature factory.

Being the poor sucker I was,

I'd never been anywhere but L.A. in my life, so--

He was like a wide-eyed kid. It was really cute.

When you got there, there was always lots of bustling going--

puppets being built.

We sat around the table and we decided what we wanted to do...

about the kind of Gone with the Wind theme and the guys in the car.

Jim Henson, after I did one, basically said, "You are the Muppet artist."

Says, "You make them look exactly like I feel about them.

Photograph them, they look like puppets on a stick."

When I draw 'em, they look like living beings to him.

So for many years thereafter, I had constant work from Jim.

Jim really loved Drew's work.

I know that for a fact.

We went on to do, I think, about four or five more Muppet movies together.

Muppet Caper, then they did the typical thing.

"This time, let's do something different.

Let's make it new. Let's make it fresh.

I know. Let's do it photographically."

So they posed all the puppets on a stick and photographed 'em,

and they looked like puppets on a stick, so--

"Hello? Can you please draw our poster for us?"

Says, "We already have the photograph.

We already have the concept. Just draw it and make it--"

Which became almost the call word for me. "Give it your magic."

Drew has this ability to make things jump off the page...

and put so much more drama and passion into the appearance of them.

So there's no argument that anybody with a camera...

could quite do what Drew did with his posters.

Idle, just a still, it's hard to sense that same kind of life and vibrancy.

You photograph 'em, and they're balls of-- They're socks.

They're stuffed socks with buttons sewn on 'em, basically.

You know, they're done by really creative people,

so they fool us, but they're--

Yeah, they're stuffed pieces--

of sweat sock.

But interpreted through Drew Struzan,

you believe, for God's sake.

When you see his renderings...

of Kermit and Fozzie and Miss Piggy and all the other characters--

in those different groups that he's assembled for the posters--

You know, they're incredibly appealing...

and just as alive as if they were in motion and in action.

I actually just copied the photograph with my taste.

Sounds very creative, doesn't it?

Jim was a very serious guy, despite all his humor.

I always felt he was the man with 12 ideas being developed at the same time.

He was incredibly complex...

and a true, true genius.

A sweetheart, kind guy.

He couldn't have made the Muppets without actually being that guy, and he was.

He was just wonderful.

I don't know if there will ever be somebody quite like him.

No. It won't be. Too bad.

But anyway, I'm glad he gave us so much of himself for so long.

But it just wasn't long enough.

So it was really one of those grand experiences in my life.

One I recall very dearly.

Which is why I still let Kermit hang out here when he wants to.

I just like him. He's fun.

He's done so many posters and things.

Things that aren't my movies, like Steven's--

The E.T. poster I think it very iconic.

He was like George. He knew the work, so he called personally.

I went over to see him, and we did the same thing.

We played a little pinball and laid around and talked about movies.

Says, "I'm making this movie about an alien."

Actually, what he wanted was a painting...

for a trade ad to run in Daily Variety.

And they didn't have the creature yet or the kid cast,

so it was kind of a generic kid and a generic creature.

But it got me connected with him, and then when the movie came around,

I didn't get it.

So I did the second poster...

and a number of other things after that.

Did a lot of E.T. work.

Steven didn't want to use photography of E.T.,

'cause he was just bits and pieces and--

Again, kind of like the Muppets, you know.

If he's moving and talking and lit and stuff, he looks pretty cool,

but just him standing there, he looks like, you know--

ugly little Martian.

He gave E.T. a beauty that really even surpasses the movie--

in the sense that people have to go out to see the movie...

or they have to put the DVD on in their player.

But all they have to do is see a picture, and E.T. comes to life in one frame.

Not 24 frames a second.

Drew can bring E.T. to complete life simply at a glance.

I did tons of stuff for Steven on E.T. over the years.

We're the same age, so we got along well.

We communicated well. We understand well.

Like I say, we both wear jeans, T-shirts and tennis shoes.

Still do.

When you think of the Back to the Future movies,

you can't imagine the movie without it.

I think of Back to the Future and say, "Hey. Remember that poster?"

I think everybody remembers that poster.

It's a single image, but it says everything you need to know about the movie.

It made you say, okay, this is a comedy.

It's about time travel, but it's a comedy, which is new,

and yet, it's not goofy.

I find that to be fascinating that he created such a clean concept...

for such a movie that is wonderfully cluttered...

with all kinds of things shaking.

Just feels like you're catching a second...

and it's gonna move on.

But it's not necessarily a frame from a film.

It's something much different.

Just a piece of a dream, you know?

Spielberg saw it, and he said--

My recollection is at least--

He said, "We gotta give this to Drew.

Drew will know how to make this into what it ought to be."

You can't just brush by stuff like this--

no pun intended-- when it jumps out at you.

I think it's worth it to look at it and say...

what is it about this on a bottom-line level...

made people go, "That looks cool. I wanna go see that"?

Because it worked so well with the first movie,

when we went back to do the sequel, it was obvious--

What do we gotta do? We gotta put Doc Brown in the poster as well...

and reprise the exact concept of the image.

We set up a photo shoot with Michael J. Fox.

I had lights and cameras-- just like this-- and I was directing.

I remember vaguely sitting for Drew...

and knowing I was sitting for Drew and how pumped I was.

I said, "Michael, please move to the left a little bit. Chris, do that"-- You know.

So, it's like-- I was nervous.

What am I doing directing movie stars?

And then of course, the worst thing happened,

right in the middle of me telling them what to do.

Michael throws up his hands and says, "Hold everything."

Of course, my heart dropped. "Oh, great. I've pissed off the movie star.

I'm really in shit creek."

W-Walks over, walks straight up to me and goes,

"Are you the Drew?"

"I'm Drew." He says, "I'm your greatest fan!"

It was all the stuff that I loved.

It was really-- It was all the light...

and the texture of the jeans.

Those ugly '80s Guess jeans never looked so good as in that painting.

It was a thrill beyond just being involved in the movies--

to be a subject of those works.

And of course, I got to do it three times, so it was really, really grand.

Drew actually did a version of Part Three that was just Marty and Doc.

And we all looked at it and we said, "You know what?

Uh-- One has one character.

Part Two has two characters.

Let's put Mary Steenburgen in the third one,

and put her in there, because it's perfect."

It's one of those experiences that you would hope your whole life would be full of.

But I had one or two of 'em now and again.

That was one of the sweet ones.

And a neat series of posters.

Obviously, those posters are iconic,

and to be identified with that,

and to be the subject of those posters is--

I mean, I still can't believe it.

It just-- Pow. It's in there as much as the movie is,

quite honestly, and that's what great poster art will do for you.

It really becomes part of that film's history, its iconography.

To this day-- This-- I go like this, and people get all tripped out.

Oh, I love the Big Trouble in Little China poster.

It's so awesome. His image of Jack Burton in that is wonderful.

So much more evocative of Kurt Russell than a picture of Kurt Russell would be.

I had done, I don't know, maybe eight dozen...

different compositions and drawings, and they did the typical thing.

You know, "We like this, this and this." Put 'em together.

And the composition came out of all the choices the people made.

And I just made it work as best I could.

To get me in a theater, to get me excited about seeing that movie--

It's so much more effective than if it had just been a photograph of Kurt Russell...

- or a picture of his face. - As a matter of fact, it is me.

[ Laughs ] I was younger then.

Kurt was never posed like that.

That's me in the water. That's a friend down the street that's the girl posing there.

None of that was in the movie. That's-- It's all faked.

I recall that I didn't particularly like it that much.

I'm always surprised that people do.

Maybe it's just the subject matter, which is what most people concentrate on anyway.

'Cause the subject is fun, you know. But I thought it was a bit busy, for my taste.

You couldn't get a more cluttered concept.

I mean, cluttered in the best way. I mean, really busy.

Things going on, and people running at you.

In the middle of it, Kurt Russell being a bad-ass.

Yeah, Big Trouble is such a great poster.

Fuck. Does he have the original art to that?

- I don't know, actually. - Ooh.

I'll dig around some.

We should find out and drive over there and beat the guy up and take-- and take it.

[ Men Laughing ]

The Goonies too, with that perspective.

That trippy perspective of looking down this chain of-- of kids.

I didn't come up with the concept.

An art director did at lunch one day.

He did a little sketch on a napkin, literally,

gave me the napkin, and said, "This is what we want."

So-- It was difficult...

in a design sense...

to have-- whatever it was-- seven kids or something going down in perspective...

but hanging off of each other.

I was in my 20s at the time, but it's still like,

"I wanna be, like, hanging onto somebody's ankle in that picture!"

I remember all the neighborhood kids dangling out the bedroom window,

and trying to take that photograph, that's what I remember.

- It's hard to get seven kids-- the guy at the top...

to hold on to seven kids all hanging on to him.

That was really hard.

He did a piece for Blade Runner that's one of the best things I've ever seen.

Drew's posters for Blade Runner--

that re-release of Blade Runner--

I know that he did it for the original release of the film, and it wasn't used.

And the fact that they would return to Drew's work for that...

is some kind of a testament.

It's fantastic the way it captures the tone of that movie.

Drew's Blade Runner for the reissue is the movie.

It's just soaked in mood.

There's not anything in there that I saw that I would say,

"Hmm. Mm-mmm. I don't know.

That doesn't look like-- Mmm, that's not gonna cut it."

It's got texture to it. It's more visceral.

To me, portraiture is something that just-- It happens or it doesn't.

And... that's Harrison.

It makes me look good. That's a good thing.

I think it's the best art on Blade Runner, period.

My memory went back first to my son. It was really cool.

We got to work together on a project.

I was working at an advertising agency. And that was the job we were workin' on.

And I guess all the cards came together...

in the few times that we've, you know,

had the opportunity to work together.

Renny Harlan, the director, knew exactly what he wanted.

He says, "I want my poster to look like Indiana Jones."

My son goes,

"I think I can get the guy that did that to do it for you."

It was nice after years of watching him do it, you know,

growing up watching him do it,

and then going to school and gettin' a job and growin' up.

And then one day you call your dad with a job.

"Hey, I got a job. Wanna work on it?"

I did three drawings. Renny picked the one he wanted.

I painted it. He loved it.

He wrote a personal letter back to me, and he says,

"I think this is the best poster of all time."

He loved what he got. He knew what he wanted, and he got it.

That was probably some of the nicest,

most beautiful likenesses in a movie poster...

that I've ever seen him do.

TheStar Wars films, E.T., Back to the Future--

it's like an honor roll...

of big hit, widely acclaimed, popular movies.

Plus Police Academy.

I remember Police Academy as I remember most of my work:

The painting I spent weeks standing in front of.

And I love the work I was able to do for it.

Police Academy 3 is one of my favorite posters.

It's a perfect image for a comedy--

and with all the actors looking wonderful.

And it's a perfect joke.

You know exactly what the movie's gonna be about when you see the poster,

and you can read what it's about from across the street, so it's the perfect poster.

Police Academy 4 was the same way, with the balloon and everything.

It was just fun to do. I loved drawing the characters.

I was lucky enough to be drawn by him several times.

And I couldn't pick a favorite.

I'm just feeling grateful that he was able to do it with me...

and for me and about me.

Maybe I love 'em so much 'cause there was no pain in the ass.

There was no art director making me change it,

no movie studio bugging me about it.

I just-- I remember being happy doing the work.

If we do do another Police Academy,

Drew, you gotta do the poster.

That's just a request and a beg. You've gotta do the poster.

I think Drew's work often surpasses even the films...

that he was depicting.

In a lot of cases, Drew's posters, they're better than the movie.

How do we make people think that this isn't a turkey?

Well, you hire the best guy on the planet to do your poster.

Oh, yeah, sometimes that poster has almost captured the filmmaker's intention...

better than the filmmaker managed to do with the film.

And it's better if I not name those films.

I won't say which films, though. You know what I'm saying?

We will cite no examples by name because, you know--

Why be-- Why be rude?

Masters of the Universe. Okay. I wanna see this movie.

- Why be ungracious here? - This movie, I wanna see.

I'm not a fan of the movie Masters of the Universe,

but damn if Drew didn't draw you into that concept.

I'm still waiting to see this movie.

If somebody took the trouble of painting it that good, it must be worth it.

I probably never will see this movie. That ain't the movie that the studio made.

He may not care equally about each film or each actor that he's depicting,

but it always looks that way.

Part of Drew getting into the business by himself...

was learning the business side of it.

The business part of it, I had to learn as I went along.

Because it's never taught in school.

So if you do go to art school,

at least in my experience, they don't really tell you how to run a business.

You learn, you know.

Eventually, you get wise to what's going on.

As I went along, I learned what was necessary to do,

and what part of it was the parameters of understanding a poster,

what it was for, how to accomplish it,

how to work with the studios and the art directors and the people.

So then he started to do it himself, you know,

and learn that what he'd been running away from all his life, he ended up doing.

I just don't find a whole lot of interest, 'cause it's a diversion, I suppose,

to what I really want to think about.

'Cause you're so focused on that creative part of it.

You know, how do you-- You just can't split your brain that way.

Which side of the brain is that? The left side?

The left brain thing, you know what I mean?

It's you're-- we're all on this other side of the brain, working,

and you're all focused over here, and you're not watching all...

the so-called real world-- the so-called real world over here.

You're obsessed and compelled and driven, and all this is all fallin' apart.

Because you're into the work, you don't know how to keep track of that.

If he had to do all those other things,

he could have never done-- he could have never accomplished what he accomplished.

People kinda consider artists kinda dummies in a funny way.

You know, "They don't know. They're just art guys."

And it makes you vulnerable to the people that want to prey on that,

'cause they can see how they can exploit that.

Well, there's a shady side in all businesses.

Whenever there's money to be made, there's gonna be a shady side of it.

That just goes hand in hand.

Drew got taken advantage of in the early part of his career.

We didn't have a lot of guidance from wise elders.

But we did find some individuals who were more than happy to take advantage of our naïveté.

He went into supposedly a partnership-- turned out to be not a partnership--

with a couple of guys, a father-son team,

who basically ripped him off for eight years.

And they were collecting the money and sending the invoices to me and to the studios,

and basically keeping most of the money for themselves.

In fact, Drew told me that the best year he ever had with them, he made $50,000.

Well, we were paying $50,000 per campaign.

Drew and I were just incredibly naïve about all of that business side of life,

and we tended to trust way too much.

It turns out that one of the partners, the son,

had taken about 100 pieces of Drew's original artwork.

They didn't return 'em. Or at least I thought they never returned 'em.

This guy always had a story. "Oh, yeah, well, you know, the client's still got it."

Or "The printer's got it. And by the way, here's three more things to do."

So he kept him busy all the time. Meanwhile, he's collecting all this artwork.

Well, it turned out that they did return them. I just never got them back.

They end up with nothing. You turn around, and it's all gone, this thing you thought you had.

The artwork, it'll come and it'll go, and Drew will create another piece,

because he's always got that going.

But faith in humanity--

um, learning to protect yourself by being cold to people you'd rather be warm to--

I think that's very hard.

And I think that that's how people do such a big disservice.

But the great thing is when their money is gone, it's gone,

but your talent is never gone, so you'll be able to refresh and renew.

Yeah. It's constant. People who you wouldn't think that it happens to, it happens to.

Why? Because they're obsessed and dedicated and compelled, and they're over here, focused.

And they're trusting this person to handle all that stuff.

I stick no matter what.

I stick to my principles and my character and my ideals,

and I stay with people and wish the best and hope the best in them,

until they cross a line of abuse...

that goes beyond what I can forgive.

And he did that,

and I just said, "Okay. Partnership's over. I can't do it anymore. I quit."

At that point in our lives, we thought we were facing the loss...

of everything we had worked for thus far.

Our home, you know.

I mean, really, it was sheer desperation.

We knew we had one really good contact that had never much liked...

dealing with this other guy anyway.

I said, "Don't worry. I'll take care of you.

I'll make sure you get enough work so you'll not ever have to worry about this again."

Thank God for him, because that gave us the work...

and the confidence that we needed to move forward.

And everything blossomed, honestly.

Years later, these pieces end up at Christie's in New York for auction.

- All at once. - All at once, and Drew inquired about the source.

He calls up Christie's and he says, "Hey, wait. Those are mine."

'Cause this guy had kept all the work, and now he was gonna sell it.

So Drew put a cease and desist on it.

And consequently, he was slapped with a lawsuit.

- I was slapped with a lawsuit. - Yeah.

And of course, it was our friendly friend...

coming back to haunt us 18 years later...

and suing us for everything we had accumulated...

or ever would accumulate, from the point that we left him, forward.

- Drew sued him back. - And the minute I stood up,

it just shocked him so badly, that the best thing in the world...

ever happened to the world, and to him.

- The guy had a heart attack and died. - Scared him so much, he died.

So, you know, a dead man can't sue ya,

and once the court took a look at what was goin' on, they just gave all the paintings back,

'cause they realized they were never his, they were always mine.

So 20 years later, I got everything back.

He got back 100 pieces of original Struzan art.

It's an iconic pose for Han Solo.

We don't get a lot of these, actually.

I think maybe because it's you that it's--

It has a little tinge of Indiana Jones in it, which is the pose,

where he's kind of a serious, ready to go, iconic, tough guy look.

- Yeah, well, he's the same guy in alternate universes. - Yeah.

Well, it's the-- holding the gun the way he's holding it...

and standing with his legs spread apart, sort of-- kind of ready to go.

- You know, it's-- - You use a word I really feature in a lot of my work--

- "Iconic." - Yeah.

And I really like the simplified, iconic figures...

that emphasize their heroism or their beauty...

or whatever main characteristic they have.

- I like the Chewbacca in this one too. He's very-- - Yeah. Looks handsome.

- Yeah. He's also got a very good, handsome look. - Yes, he does.

You can even make Wookiees look good.

He's got a wet nose. That's all you need.

Each job came from a different place, a different person,

a different movie, a different circumstance, a different concept,

a different idea, a different setting.

So I got to be creative every time I got a new job.

He can work in any kind of medium that he wants to.

It doesn't matter if it's watercolor or just a pencil drawing...

or if it's oil paint or a mixture of things...

or things that aren't supposed to go together.

It doesn't really matter.

It's the end product is all that counts.

He knows every trick in the book.

Pushing a brush instead of pulling it.

You ever see a house painter paint like that?

No, he always has it like that. Do it that way, you get a whole different look.

Maybe not good for a house, but cool for a painting.

It's a very über-realistic style,

but as a result, it's rather stunning to look at.

Drew kind of stands alone in terms of his ability to capture likenesses.

His illustrated stuff is so good,

there's been times that I've mistaken it for a photograph.

It looks absolutely photo-real, but if you get right close to it, it's not at all.

It's not real. And it's not photographic.

You can't buy that camera that will take that picture.

If I use the tools I have, all those tools we've been taking about,

I can bring more understanding,

more emotion, more personal understanding and feeling to it...

than just a photograph.

A picture of Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood...

would be fine.

But the image that Drew Struzan creates...

just heightens it somehow.

So his version of Rambo, his version of Hellboy,

his version of even Tom Hanks in The Green Mile--

Those are all idealized renderings.

And that's, I think, why they have such impact,

why they're so much more effective than a photo would be.

There's a power. And there's a--

There's a direct contact between that character and the audience.

They recognize the virility of the character in those portraits.

You know, there's always that iconic moment,

that iconic look that the character can have,

and Drew knows what to use.

With Drew, Drew works from photography, but he can take, like, seven heads...

that are from totally different scenes, completely different angles,

and he can compose them into this amazing composition.

And he can put in, you know, storytelling devices...

where there's action or romance or some sort of magic,

and he can take all of these elements...

and make them feel like they're cohesive and they all belong together.

You get the whole movie in looking at that one image.

He never arranged anything on the page unless it had a reason for it.

There's always priorities in movies that people don't know about,

like if you're doing a portrait, what size it can be.

And then, if there's a second person,

they have a percentage of a relationship to that first one,

and they have to be higher or lower or full face--

All the way down the line.

So there's a lot of necessity...

and contractual agreements and stuff that you have to conform art to.

You have to have a conversation in your head, a special vision for seeing that.

And to take all those demands and parameters and contracts...

and then turn them into a piece of art that looks like I just did what I wanted,

'cause it would be pretty--

This is really the job.

I love that combination. The drawing and that layering of airbrush...

and the photo-realism, then that abstract-- the splatter and texture thing.

I love that, you know? But it's not just that one thing.

You're not just only dripping shit all over the place, you know?

But it's a merging of all those elements.

He has a very distinct way of working...

with the color and with his line.

Powerful, clean, sharp drawing.

Artists have said, "How do you get it so sharp? How do you get your line so sharp?"

Says, "Well, you'll never get it sharp like that." You know.

Use a pencil, the longer the line gets,

the flatter the point gets, and it doesn't stay sharp.

If you draw on the side of it, it stays sharp forever.

'Cause you're drawing on the round, so you're just on that apex of the circle.

And I do it like this. I do it like that. I do it like that.

And I do it like this. And I do--

It's whatever kind of line I want, I can create.

It looks effortless, but it's completely the opposite.

He has a very studied, incredibly mannered,

incredibly precise style.

He has a definite style, but the style doesn't get in the way...

of the subject that he's painting.

I can make it scarier.

I can make it more serious. I can make it funny.

Just in the design or the composition or the color...

or choice of gestures that the people in the--

You know, all those things add up to a feeling.

I just pick those things...

and make that feeling.

I really like what he's done for Frank Darabont's films.

Green Mile being one of the standouts to me.

He's gotten an opportunity to paint on a broader canvas, if you will,

because each one of those films has a different signature.

So it's been a chance for him to express a lot of different elements of his style.

You know, The Mist was completely different from Shawshank Redemption.

As we were prepping this movie, the main character, played by Tom Jane,

was, in fact, written by Stephen King as an artist--

a fellow who's done all that kind of illustrative art,

has done movie posters, etcetera, etcetera.

And I thought, "Well, let's see. Who do I know who's a really great poster artist?"

- [ Clicks Tongue ] "Drew!" - Being a fan of my work,

Frank decorated the whole set with my artwork.

So Drew was very kind in letting us borrow a whole number of things for that set,

for that opening shot.

And we proposed that Tom Jane was fundamentally Drew Struzan.

'Cause if the character's gonna be a poster artist, make him a great one, why not?

He told Thomas Jane to come over to my house, to my studio,

and have me show him how I paint, so that he could look authentic in the film.

I've learned a few tricks, so I didn't look like a complete idiot...

when I portrayed, basically, Drew.

Obviously, I'm taken with the fact that there's this wonderful actor in my studio,

and I'm showing him how to do something.

And I remember trying to imitate him with my brush,

and him just going, "Oh, no, no, no.

You're touching the canvas all wrong. You can't do that.

Other artists will laugh if they see you do that."

He was stupid, like everybody else.

"Is this how you draw?"

"No, I hold it differently." And he says, "Oh, well, go like"--

"No. Push it. Pull it." You know.

It was really funny, you know?

It was almost like learning how to play baseball when I played Mickey Mantle.

It was, like, really hard.

I showed him how to paint with the airbrush...

and how to draw with the pencil and how to hold it,

and he picked it up immediately.

He said, "Don't put it down and move,

but already be moving as you put the brush down."

I had to show him how to use a pencil and a brush.

He wouldn't let me leave until I just got it just... perfect.

I had utter confidence that he was gonna look real professional, 'cause he--

he picks up on it faster than most art students.

At the premiere of the film, one of the first persons I see is Drew.

And I had a big smile on my face, and Drew just comes up and goes,

"No. No, no, you, uh-- That wasn't right."

It's like, "Oh, my God."

He absolutely ignored everything I showed him, and he did it all wrong.

"No. No, no, that wasn't-- That wasn't it."

Yeah, he had it down when he was in the studio.

I play Mickey Mantle, you know. And I really-- I had months to practice,

and I really nailed that.

You know, I played a guy with a South African accent,

and I really worked on that for a long time.

But I play Drew Struzan, working in the studio, for literally, like, 30 seconds,

and I-I-- I couldn't. I couldn't do it.

[ Thunderclap ]

I was so nervous at meeting Drew.

And, you know, Drew is on the outside the way I am on the inside.

So for Drew it must have been a shock, there's this fucking caveman coming to his house.

[ Chortling ]

Pow. Pow. Pow. You know, this--

This bull in a china shop, entering the--

I'm saying "fucking" this and "fucking" that...

and "shit" and "piss" and, you know--

And he was like-- [ Mutters ]

I don't know if he was shocked or amused or whatever it was.

But it was out of nervousness. I was really crapping my pants.

One day I got his number from-- actually from Steven Spielberg's office.

I called up and I said, "You have Drew Struzan's number?"

So they gave it to me, and I called Drew out of the blue...

to ask him about the Shawshank art that I wanted done.

And I found out he lived, you know, 15 minutes from here, and went over and met him,

and, you know, totally-- totally hit it off.

On the first Hellboy, I talked to Drew, and he said, "What do you want?"

I said, "Whatever you want."

I said, "I'm not gonna tell you."

And I said, "I'll look at your sketches, and then I'll tell you which one I like,

but I'm not gonna direct what you do."

Drew is very collaborative. He'll, you know--

When we did the-- "We" did--

he did the Shawshank art,

there was definitely some conversation with him...

about what the elements should be in the image.

You know, "Well, let's grapple for what it is about the movie...

that we really, you know-- that people really seem to dig."

On the first Hellboy poster, he captured the character,

you know, the same way he would capture Indiana Jones.

He took images that had been sort of becoming iconic anyway...

over the decade that it had been, you know, released,

and he just nailed that sort of iconic quality to the wall.

It's like, "Oh, gosh!"

And he said, "What do you think?" And I was just, you know,

crying on the inside,

and I couldn't say anything.

He loved it. Everybody loved it. But they didn't use it.

Some of the stuff that Guillermo del Toro and I...

have had Drew do in recent years...

have wound up being, um, considered specialty posters.

To me that artwork is-- is special.

So when it's not treated special, it's kind of, you know, bothersome.

They didn't use the poster. I used it as a limited edition for the fans.

You know, I just felt it was a horrible waste of a great, great image.

When he finished Pan's Labyrinth-- He'd worked on it,

spent all his money and all his soul and all his heart on this masterpiece.

They refused to pay for Drew to do the poster, so I said,

"Okay, I'll pay for the poster out of my own pocket."

He goes, "I know the studio will never use what you paint."

'Cause it had gone that far. He just knew they weren't gonna do it.

Drew said to me, "What do you want?"

I said, "I just imagine the faun embracing the girl."

I painted it, and he loved it. He bought it. Hangs in his house.

And they never used it.

I really scratched my head, and I don't understand it.

So when I did Hellboy II, it was the same way.

He says, "I know. They ain't gonna use it, but I want you to do it."

I love the idea of a massive robot and a red poster,

and Hellboy this big-- that's the movie.

The tragedy is that all the posters that he's painted for me have not been used,

except in limited editions that I forced down the studio's throat.

'Cause the film industry is in this very weird state right now.

It's in this weird flux in a lot of ways, and one of the things that I've noticed,

particularly as it pertains to Drew,

is how much they've gone to this sort of...

photoshopped kind of approach with their poster art.

In a lot of ways, what Drew has done is becoming a lost art.

A whole generation of people making their living by doing hand paintings--

I-I don't see it-- I don't see it happening.

There's nobody that does it anymore.

I mean, there's some guys that-- Yes, there's illustrators,

but that as a main, major force--

contributing force in advertising and such--

It's-- It's essentially dead.

These days, movie posters are basically, um,

"Hey, this guy's in it. And he's kind of angry about it."

That's a movie poster, right?

Or if you're lucky, you get, "This guy's in it, and he's angry about it.

And she's in it too, and doesn't she look great?" And that's-- that's it.

Two big heads. Two big heads-- look at any movie poster, it's two big heads.

It's a picture of this actor and a picture of that actor.

They're photoshopped, you know, and they put the title on, and that's the poster.

The other approach, of course, is the hip young cast standing in a line, like it's a Gap ad.

You know, giving the camera saucy looks.

And it's like, "Okay, that's all--

There's another movie I don't wanna see now."

And that's a weekend thing. You get a weekend boner, and then it's forgotten forever.

This guy was, you know--

This guy was creating a love affair that lasted a lifetime.

The other shit is a one-night stand.

You've got these computer jockeys...

slapping these posters together on their Macs,

and that's what the studio wants.

Why should there be painted posters when you can make everything on a computer?

Who the heck needs artists? This is just art.

They have their reasons. And they have their marketing and their research.

They test everything. They test it to the lowest common denominator,

and they ask questions, I'm sure, based on people's perception of the art...

that has nothing to do with the art.

They probably say, "Does it make you wanna eat more popcorn?"

Or whatever dumb-ass questions they ask that have to do with the bottom line.

"Which one makes you wanna buy popcorn more?" And you're like, "Well, neither."

And they're like, "See-- no difference!"

They don't reach out to people's imaginations.

They're just reaching out for their wallets.

That's the difference. The difference is money.

It's all become a big economic crunch, especially in the entertainment industry.

The first thing they try to do is save money in the marketing area.

It's just expediency, and it's boring, and it's really a shame.

Let me put it like this. I had always--

Whenever they made changes, I made the changes to the original art.

When the computer came in, they realized they could push a couple buttons...

and make changes and move things.

Yeah, I look at the Photoshop today, and I go--

You know, it can just change it at a click of a button.

I hate when the technology becomes the thing, rather than the tool.

And that, I'm afraid, is, at least for now, what's happened.

I'm not a big fan of photos for movie ads.

I like to see a painting. It has more quality.

I love handmade stuff.

I love it when it isn't perfect.

You know what I mean? That it's not totally cleaned up.

The poster art that is photographic--

all you're getting is essentially a still frame of the movie,

so it's a lesser representation of what the movie is going to be.

I think people do appreciate it. Whether they know it or not,

there's an appreciation of that kind of thing, that something is handmade.

Do something by hand, you got an original. Do it digitally, you don't have an original.

There's one painting, the original.

There's only one original.

But a digital file, in order to be physical, has to be printed,

and there can be thousands of 'em.

But if I do a painting, I got a painting.

When they see an original, they go, "There's-- I had no idea"--

the difference and the life that's in the original compared to reproduction.

Well, you know, his art is done with paint. It's not done, you know, with pixels.

And it's wonderful that he's maintained that kind of integrity,

and I have a bond with him, because I still shoot on 35 millimeter film,

and I still project on 35 millimeter film,

and I'm still cutting on 35 millimeter film.

And so in a sense, we're both Luddite in that sense.

There was a time, it was art. They trusted artists.

They trusted people with the training, the experience and the accomplishment to say,

"You do this. You do it well."

Now people just go, "Well, I have an opinion. Why not do that?"

It's a process with a lot of people involved.

And so things kinda usually get shepherded to the middle.

Asking a studio about movie posters and Drew's art is like asking the pope about condoms.

It gets so confusing, and I get so many separate people telling me,

'cause they think they have the power, that I have to call an end to it and say,

"You know, tell me who I'm supposed to listen to."

You have to please so many people,

and other people are in charge and paying for that work.

It was like painting in the middle of Dodger Stadium,

with everybody having an opinion.

It's a guy that is driving a school full of screaming kids.

At one point, he says, "You know what? Fuck you.

I'm gonna stop the bus. I'm gonna get out."

It was just too much. Like I say, maybe the reason it was too much...

is I'm older and tireder and just don't want to do it anymore.

So-- Didn't draw any other conclusion than, "Well, that's it. That's enough."

And just quit. Retired is a gentler word.

Well, I groan every time I hear that he's going to retire.

Oh, he retired? Oh, he looks like he's about 15. I don't know-- How old is he?

First of all, I feel old, if he's retired.

Great artists never retire.

They always want to work. Now, he might want to sit back and do a little fishing.

And I think he'd like to maybe sleep late.

Maybe enjoy his grandchildren, or something to that effect.

But a guy like Drew won't be like my friend who works for the town of Oyster Bay...

and at 65 retires and goes to Florida...

and never drives a cement mixer again.

Um, I don't think that that's the way it is with artists.

If I don't paint, I don't know what to do.

I mean, I can go on vacation for two weeks, to get the business out of my guts,

but I take my drawing board and pastels and draw every day.

That's how I express myself. That's how I fulfill my reason for being.

You know, I don't stop.

I don't have to answer to people anymore.

So-- It's kinda nice.

- I wish it for everybody. - [ Both Chuckling ]

I'm gonna do everything within my power to keep him from being retired all the time.

'Cause that would be a crime.

Like all of us, when we're--

when we have decided we've had enough of that...

and wanna leave room in our lives for something else,

we make room for somebody new.

Maybe I'll be an actor after this.

"There was that boring guy. We need a real boring guy in our film. I want him."

That's how it works.

He really just has moved on.

But it's a loss for us.

You know, it's not a loss for him. He's still an artist. He's painting.

You know, he's painting every day. He's creating beautiful stuff.

But for our medium, it is a loss that we don't have him.

- Well, it's the end of an era. - It'll be interesting to see what he does.

But obviously that means the quality of the film advertising...

is going to drop a few notches.

I just think maybe he'll maybe do some stuff he's always wanted to do.

And then all of a sudden it will be, "Wow, Drew. Why didn't you do that 20 years ago?"

And he'll probably turn around and say, "Well, I was busy doing a poster."

I guess he's retiring to paint his own imagery that he wants to paint now,

as opposed to doing work for other people.

And that's incredible. I'm looking forward to see what that will be.

I can't wait to see what Drew's doing. I would love to see his fine art.

He's gonna put together this trove of "post-retirement work."

It's gonna be amazing stuff.

And I hope people start to...

see the other work that he does that he's passionate about.

The stuff that Drew has done that isn't commission work is jaw-dropping.

It's, you know, phenomenal, phenomenal art.

Most of them were done when I was still illustrating,

so I was painting while I was illustrating.

If I had a day off,

I practiced my hobby, which was the same thing I did for a job-- I painted.

And these are the result of that.

To sum it up, I would call it art for art's sake.

It's not for advertising movies. It's not to explain some philosophy.

This exists for itself, in itself, 'cause it has a value as itself.

And you have to look at it with those eyes and with that heart...

to really understand what it's trying to give you and say to you.

I willfully try to paint open-endedly,

which is to say I'm not telling you what to think.

I'm setting up a circumstance that asks you questions.

They'll turn out to be your own questions,

and they'll turn out to be your own answers.

Sometimes I paint part of it, and I leave it for six months.

And one day I walk in and I go, "Ha-ha, I know why I like that."

I do it, and I don't like it. I change it again.

I've changed this. I had her with no hair, black background.

This was orange once.

This was red, which you can still see.

She used to have a gun in her hand.

[ Laughs ] I just kept changing it.

"Oh, it's too illustrative. Oh, it's not open-ended enough. Oh, it's"--

It has to grow to have that kind of depth.

And because it's not just an illustration of an existing thing,

it's an invention.

It's like writing a novel or writing music or dance.

You do the basic thing, and then it changes and develops.

It has its own organic, creative nature.

So painting is the same way.

When it sings and dances, then I know it's done.

It's still the same Drew. Yeah, he's just learning...

to focus on painting what he wants to, which was a difficult adjustment for him.

Yeah, it's pretty much whatever I want, but it's not whenever I want.

Life seems to be full of things to do.

- He's still trying to learn how to relax. - [ Chattering ]

It's nice to relax a little bit...

and spend time with our family.

We have our grandson that we take care of every day now.

And he's-- He's just-- It's delightful to be able to do that.

That's my grandson.

He's the center of my life at the moment.

He and Dylan, my mother-in-law, have fun playing with Nico every day.

And I think he paints on the side, and he paints what he loves now.

But then he takes time to go outside...

and take Nico to Griffith Park for pony rides and to the zoo,

and maybe that influences his paintings too.

Opened up a whole new vista,

new opportunities and whole new lives.

I feel like I'm starting over again.

And I like being young again.

The best part of this one is--

I mean, it's a great composition and everything,

but I like the fact that the rings around the flare...

almost look like paint, oil paint.

The rest of it's very articulate, and it's much, much finer detail than oil paint.

But this sort of has an oil painting kind of ring around it...

that is textural, as opposed to the rest of the stuff, which is not textural.

And I think that's a brilliant move of mixed media.

Oh, thank you.

Well, George, as a guy that appreciates art and painting,

he understands a lot of the qualities that make it so wonderful.

Between the movies and his mind and heart, this is what comes out of it for me.

- I enjoyed doing it. Darth Maul-- what a character. - Yeah.

What a marvelous design, the whole concept. We want more Darth Maul.

Drew Struzan is awesome. He is the pinnacle of what I think of when I think of...

film posters, film marketing, and also just the kind of artwork...

that I wanna have in my own home.

Movie poster art is one of my passions.

And Drew is a big reason that I have such love for it.

- I love Drew. - Drew is the last real poster artist for the movies.

I enjoyed his work on movie posters. I think it's really fine art.

I've about three or four of the those posters.

I have them hanging up in my room. My mother just rolls her eyes.

In a way, his art creates instant nostalgia...

for something that you've never been introduced to before.

Every time I looked up one of his posters, I'm like, "That's my favorite poster!

That's my favorite poster. No, that's my favorite poster."

Only Drew can do what Drew does.

I think you can tell he puts his heart and soul into creating it.

When Drew arrives at the show, I think he's gonna be a little surprised,

because he's gonna be like, "Oh, I don't know if anybody really wants to come see me."

Meanwhile, the Convention Center is gonna tilt as everybody heads for his signing.

Any illustrator in this room...

is going to acknowledge what Drew has done...

as an artist and also to the industry.

He draws faster and more accurate and realistic than anybody else I've ever seen.

You just sit there and just go through his books,

and just kind of, like, break down his compositions,

his use of color and all that stuff,

and kind of art-gasm all over it, you know?

People flew here to do the show to get Drew's book.

People realize, "Here's an artist that's going into retirement.

This could be my only opportunity to get him to sign something."

And when I'm sitting next to a booth selling his brand-new book...

that they only have 500 copies of, and it sells out in one day,

then you know Drew has some impact.

We're selling stacks of books.

So, yeah, this is a huge release for us.

Drew rules. The dark side loves him.

Drew, you cannot leave the industry. Gotham needs you.

- Drew's the man. - Drew's the man!

- How great is this artwork? - [ Fans Cheering, Applauding ]

- Drew Struzan, ladies and gentlemen. - [ Cheering ]

When I heard he was doing this Walking Dead piece,

I was just, like, so ecstatic.

I love this. This is beautiful.

Drew Struzan doing zombies? Oh, my God! That's cool.

[ Fans Chattering ]

Wow, yours is a lot of work. You wanna see mine?

- Yeah, but yours is so much more graceful.

- I'm such a huge, huge fan.

- Oh, thank you. - It's really an honor.

There is a lost art in Hollywood,

and that's the movie poster.

And this man, who is one of our special guests at Comic-Con this year,

has kept it alive for the last 30 years or so-- Mr. Drew Struzan.

[ Applause, Cheering ]

And before we get started with the interview portion of this program,

we have a special presentation for Drew that he's unaware of.

For all the joy you've brought all of us in this room...

with all your iconic images over the years,

I'm here on behalf of Comic-Con to present you with the Comic-Con Inkpot Award...

for achievement in illustration.

[ Audience Cheering, Whistling ]

[ No Audible Dialogue ]

I'm speechless.

This is really hard for me. I'm a guy that sits alone in my studio all the time.

And I see more people now than I've seen in years.

This is amazing.

I thank you so much. You're so generous just to show up,

and to be here to see little old me.

It just-- It's beyond words. It's--

[ Cheering ]

- I am his biggest fan. - [ Laughing ]

- I just wanna say thank you. - Thank you.

I had no idea that people, literally around the world,

were lookin' at my stuff and remembering it and collecting it and enjoying it.

An artist's dream was coming true.

It was neat to paint it, and that's self-satisfying.

The real reward is that other people see it,

look at it, enjoy it, and it does all those marvelous things for them,

'cause that really is the purpose of art.

And when I became attuned to the fact that it was working,

that it was really helping people and making the world a better place,

then I really was, again, honored.

Finally, I feel like I had some value.

You know, that-- That what I was working at and dedicating my life to...

really was doing some nice things for people.

Something peaceful, something beneficial.

Damn. I couldn't do anymore. I mean, I think--

I think I'm a success now.