“Back to the Future”: 25 years of Paradox
Recently, Collide took a road trip to Florence, AL. Why Florence, you ask?
Well, allow me to elaborate… 2010 marks the 25th anniversary of the 1985 hit film “Back to the Future”, and the reunion was held at the George Lindsey Film Festival on the campus of the University of North Alabama which is in Florence. Kevin, being the #1 fan of this time traveling flick, decided that we must attend .
There was a great lineup of talent for the discussion panel including, Bob Gale (screenwriter/producer), James Tolkan (Principal Strickland) and Claudia Wells (The original Jennifer). Originally, Leah Thompson was scheduled to be there, but at the last minute had an offer to film a TV pilot. We’re very happy for her but disheartened that “Lorraine Baines-McFly” would not be attending for our gawking pleasure.
Through a strange paradox of happenstance, we sadly missed several of the additional autograph sessions and other panels but it was indeed, our “density” (I mean… “destiny”) so it seemed, to encounter the entire lot of stars at some point. We began by having dinner in the same restaurant as the whole bunch who were apparently staying at our hotel. We took an elevator ride with Claudia Wells, and Kevin ran into Bob Gale (or so he claims : ), I was in the restroom) at the campus library while visiting the display of movie props the university had acquired for the event. If this wasn’t enough stargazing, we then took off to visit the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Alabama (more on this in next week’s entry). As our friend “destiny” would have it, up pulled another car and out walked Claudia Wells, with Bob Gale and James Tolkan to follow. We were all in the quite small house at the same time, although with different tour guides. For the icing on the cake, when we went outside, Mr. Tolkan was there enjoying the lovely day. We had a very nice conversation with one of the friendliest men I’ve ever met (He didn’t call us “slackers” or anything) and went on our way. We thought “destiny” was finished with us at this point because who else could we meet, right? We decided on dinner at a restaurant we had been eyeing all weekend and thought for sure that anywhere we were our cast of friends would follow. When we entered the restaurant, the hostess seated us, handed us our menus and proceeded to say, I kid you not, “Destiny will be right with you”. I couldn’t help but chuckle. God has such a great sense of humor!
Obviously the prior two paragraphs really have nothing to do with design, we just wanted to share our fun weekend with you all. So to keep this on a “working” level, we have done some interesting research on a great illustrator and probably the most well known poster designer in the history of Hollywood, Drew Struzan. Drew did the illustrations for all three Back to the Future films as well as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, the list is endless. And if you don’t know the name, you’ll immediately recognize the phenomenal poster art. We are attaching a couple of links to some interesting articles (although several years old) and sites from and about Drew. He talks about the lack of illustration, human elements, and daring in poster design these days, and how something has been lost with all of the shiny images and computer based art. Agree with him or not, this is a very interesting perspective and nostalgic look at Hollywood design from years gone by. On the flip side, we have included a link to some great minimalist revamp posters by Jamie Bolton. If you’re familiar with the films they represent, these posters are a great exercise in conceptual thinking and do an incredible job conveying their message with very few visual elements.
We hope you all enjoyed this brush with Hollywood,
Until next time,
-Becky Tucker
Director of Trajectory
