Quentin Tarantino‘s Kill Bill was originally planned and filmed with the intention of releasing it as one long movie. At a certain point in post-production the decision was taken to release it as two separate films, which allowed Tarantino to include more material in each one rather than be forced to make cuts to shorten the running time at the studio’s request.

The longer cut, known as The Whole Bloody Affair, has long been on many film fans’ wish-lists of ‘unreleased alternative cuts of films they’d love to see’ and until last year it had only been screened once, at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006. In March 2011 the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles (check the billboard), which is owned by Tarantino, screened TWBA and allowed fans of the film to finally catch this elusive version. A report from that screening can be read here.

The first showing coincided with Tarantino’s birthday and people on his production team decided they’d put together a secret present for him in the form of a specially commissioned poster by the team at Mondo. Ace artist Tyler Stout was given the opportunity to illustrate his take on the film and the result is one of his best posters yet, in my opinion. As with his Akira print I wanted to interview Tyler about its production. He kindly agreed to answer my questions and also sent along a series of alternative images that were changed during production.

Hi Tyler, thanks for agreeing to talk about the print. Is it right that Mondo were approached by Tarantino’s people to do a poster for the screening of the full cut?
That is correct. His assistant [Julie McLean) asked Mondo if they would help to do a poster to commemorate the event, as well as kind of a birthday present to Quentin.

The screening was a surprise for Tarantino but I’ve heard he’s a huge fan of yours. Were you specifically requested when Mondo were approached?
I know he’s a huge Mondo fan, so I think he would have loved anything they would have done for the event, but mondo approached me about it and it worked out and that was awesome.

Like most folks, I’ve yet to see the two films as one. Were you able to see the new cut before starting work on the print or were you working from viewings of the two separate films?
I haven’t seen The Whole Bloody Affair cut yet, sadly, so I was just going off of what I’d heard etc.

It must have been good knowing you had all the characters to choose from, as opposed to only doing one of the films and being limited in that way?
That was indeed awesome; two great films that feel like one film. It definitely would have been more limiting to just have one to deal with.

Is it true that you only had three weeks to put this poster together? Do you enjoy working under that kind of time pressure?
I wish we’d had three weeks to put this together! It was a bit shorter than that, but I do like working with time constraints and I seem to work best under them actually. Otherwise I’ll just keep revising and revising the poster.

Can you talk about your initial design ideas for the poster? Were there certain characters that you knew had to be given more prominence than others?
It was pretty organic, the way it kinda came together. I just gave prominence to the characters I felt strongest about and kinda went from there.

Was the composition something you arrived at quickly? Were there certain elements you knew had to sit next to each other?
The initial idea for the poster came pretty quickly after being asked to do it. Like anything, you start thinking about it and then come up with an idea and go from there,  but as for certain elements….not really.

Am I correct in thinking that you’re slightly homaging the original Enter the Dragon one sheet with the layout?
Ha! I wouldn’t say slightly, I’d say wholesale lift! It was definitely the starting and ending point of my original idea, which was referencing one of my favourite martial arts movie posters of all time. I tried to do it in an obvious way to avoid any confusion.

Are there any elements you illustrated but that didn’t make it into the final version?
There were actually quite a few things that didn’t make it. I’d drawn a bunch of Bucks but I just couldn’t find a way to make it work. We all made the call to drop him. I don’t think I had included him originally so the pieces I drew with him were all after the fact, and it can be hard to add stuff and make it look natural after the poster is more or less done.

I’d also drawn a different pose for Gogo Yubari, but in the end I felt it worked better as you see it in the final version. A lot of the changes were me not feeling someting and trying to improve it.

There were drawings of Larry Bishop and Sid Haig that didn’t make the final cut and they were kind of corner portraits that you’d sometimes see in posters with ornate borders. They didn’t get much beyond the concept stage before they were nixed.

Finally, I had a couple different versions of Elle Driver but I much preferred the version we went with.

The variant has a few alterations beyond the colour palette swap, can you talk about the changes you made and why?
We presented the original version and Quentin’s assistant had some ideas to make it better, so we did those, and in the end we kinda had two different posters with unique elements. We liked both and we hated to lose some of the pieces that were changed from the original design, so we included those on the variants, which made everybody happy.

The addition of the coffin scene is probably the most significant one, aside from the Japanese text. What made you add that image to the variant?
That was a suggestion of Quentin’s assistant. She really liked that scene and wanted to add it, so we did. As I say, we also liked it without so left it off the variant. I like it both ways, but it certainly tells a bit more of the story.

Were there any challenges with designing the variant to be printed on rice paper in terms of colours etc?
The challenges were certainly faced by my printer, but not directly by me. Rice paper is more waxy so they have to make sure the ink doesn’t rub off. I actually had a stamp made for the back of all my copies, but I could only stamp the backs of the regulars since on the variants it would just smear all over the place, never quite drying. I lost a few variants before I figured that out!

Once you’d submitted the poster were you given any directions by the Mondo guys for things to add or remove?
Again, most of them were from Quentin’s assistant and she had some suggestions that she thought he would appreciate. I know she wanted us to make a reference to Bruce Lee’s Game of Death instead of Enter the Dragon, but it was too late in the process to make that switch, plus Game of Death’s poster isn’t as iconic.

Were there ever any alternate colourways?
I think pretty early on Rob Jones [at Mondo] mentioned the rice paper type paper and we focused on that being the variant. There was a single one-off version on metal that was done especially for Quentin to take home as a birthday present.

 

 

Were you given any feedback from Tarantino yourself?
Just that he was happy with the poster. He seems like a pretty easy going guy to deal with and doesn’t complain to Mondo much.

Are there other Tarantino films you’d like to do a poster for?
Sure, all of them.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that you get to do a poster for Django Unchained.
That would be pretty sweet.

Finally, can you give us even a tiny hint as to what we might see from you in the coming months?
I think I’m working on something for the movie Drive, and possibly something involving aliens from outer space and the duality of man. I’ve probably given too much away.

Thanks so much Tyler. As always, I hugely appreciate the time you give to these interviews.
Thank you sir!

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Check out Tyler’s website here.
The Mondo website is here and I’d advise following them on Twitter here.

The other posters I’ve collected by Tyler can be viewed here.
My interview with Tyler on the creation of his Akira print is here.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Quentin Tarantino’s incredible debut feature, Reservoir Dogs. Often cited as one of the greatest independent films ever made, the depiction of the events leading up to, and the aftermath of, a botched diamond heist remains as powerful today as it was a quarter of a century ago. Back in 2012, Tarantino celebrated the 20th anniversary of the film by screening a 35mm print of the film at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, which he owns.

Held in late October, the screening was apparently attended by a ‘raucous and electrified crowd’. As the credits rolled, folks from the incomparable limited-edition geek culture outfit Mondo were there to unveil a special screen print created especially for the event. The print was designed and illustrated by Tyler Stout, the celebrated artist who had worked on the Mondo-released print for Tarantino’s event screening of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (also at the New Beverley).

As is typical for Tyler’s work, the print came in both regular and variant versions and when Mondo put the remaining posters onto their online store they both sold out within seconds.

Whilst adding the regular version to the Film on Paper collection I wanted to interview the man himself about the creation of the print as I’ve done previously with his designs for Avengers, Akira, Kill Bill and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The interview can be read in full below:

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Tyler, thanks for agreeing to talk about this excellent print. Am I right in thinking that Tarantino himself made a request for you to work on it?
I believe his people did. Its been a while so my memory is pretty spotty on the specifics, but it came after Kill Bill so we had a good relationship with his people.

Did you ever deal with him directly?
Nope, alas.

Is Reservoir Dogs one of your favourites of the director’s films?
For some reason early Tarantino films just have a special place in my heart. From Reservoir Dogs through to Jackie Brown, all captured an era of my life that I remember fondly; working at a video store, hanging with my high school friends.

How long were you given to work on the design before the screening date?
I recall it was no more than a month.

Were you given any specific directions before starting?
Nope, none at all. Make it fun, basically.

Can you talk about your initial design ideas for the print? Was the composition and landscape format something you arrived at quickly?
Interestingly enough, the poster started out as portrait instead of landscape, but it just wasn’t working, so I switched it to landscape to see if it would work better and luckily it did. As with a lot of my prints, I just start drawing elements I know I’ll want to include on the print, and sometimes leave the layout to kinda come together later. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

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Having been lucky enough to acquire one of Tyler Stout’s fantastic Akira screen prints I wanted to hear a bit more from the man himself about the creation of the poster. Tyler was kind enough to not only answer my questions but also send through a handful of images showing the evolution of the poster.

Tyler, Akira was the first Mondo Mystery Movie and was shown on your birthday at your request. Can you talk about why you chose it and what the film means to you?
It’s just one of those movies that I’ve loved since I was a kid. I remember seeing the dubbed version on TV many, many years ago and then seeking it out on VHS, then DVD etc. I had two Akira shirts in high school and I wore them until they fell apart. It just had such a unique voice and vision and at the time it was the greatest animated film I had ever seen. It’s still up there with the best of them.

The poster is one of my very favourite designs by you and you can really tell that a lot of love went into it. Having chosen the film did you feel the pressure to come up with something extra special?
Well…I felt pressure from myself, doing something that lived up to the greatness of the film and my own expectations, sure, but not from Mondo, they’re not very pressure-oriented. When you’re working with something as great as Akira you really have to try hard to screw it up, plus I stuck close to the illustrations by the creator Katsuhiro Otomo. In the end it felt more like I was the designer, just working with somone else’s artwork. All compliments are due to Mr. Otomo, not myself.

How long before the event were you given a choice of film? Did you set to work straight away?
I can’t really remember, probably 3 or 4 months, but I only started it about 2 weeks before the event due to procrastination on my part and other jobs.

Can you talk about your initial design ideas for the poster? Were there certain scenes and characters that you knew had to be given more prominence than others?
The explosion always figured prominently in my vision, since the movie is kinda post-nuclear Tokyo, plus the bike is a big part of what I associate with Akira.

Yeah, Kaneda’s bike is almost given it’s own pedestal at the bottom – I’m guessing that’s an element of the film that means a lot to you?
Well, I’m sure it’s what a lot of people associate with Akira and its just such a strong, unique element. It plays a big part in the film as well.

As I understand it, from reading previous interviews with you, you’ll often create the elements separately and then work to combine them into the final design. Are there any elements you illustrated but that didn’t make it into the final version?
Not really, whilst I do draw them in pieces, they’re drawn more like a puzzle so that hopefully each piece clicks into its perfect place if I do my job right. In this case it pretty much worked out. There were probably a few things that didn’t look right so I switched them out, but nothing comes to mind. Again, visually, all the work was done by Katsuhiro Otomo in creating the world, so it took the stress off me to come up with a completely new creation.

How quickly did you arrive at the final layout? Were there certain elements you knew had to sit next to each other?
I had an idea but things change during execution so I’m usually not sure what the final piece will truly look like until I send it off to the printer. As for elements, I knew the bike had to have special placement.

Were there any elements that were altered before the poster was printed?
The boys face in the middle had some problems and I went back to that quite a few times. I kept revising the eyes and the nose. Plus, the colour scheme for the whole design took some figuring out.

Am I correct in thinking this poster has the highest number of print colours you’ve worked with for Mondo? What was it like to work with that many?
Yes, I believe so. It was fun and I tried to make all the colors count. I pride myself on working with as few colors as possible, or at least I used to, just for financial printing reasons. Now Mondo has given me the freedom to use as many colors as I want (within reason) so it’s definitely fun. The thing is, unless you really use them all you feel a bit wasteful, so I tried to get the most bang for my buck.

Once you’d submitted the poster were you given any directions by the Mondo guys for things to add or remove?
Not that i can think of. Justin [Ishmael] is a big Akira fan as well so I’m sure we talked about it, but I can’t remember anything major. I actually sent it to the printers the day before I left for Austin, so only 3 days before the event. It was down to the wire; the posters arrived by plane about 10 minutes before the movie started. It was nuts!

The screening also marked the first time you visited the Mondo crew in Austin. What was that experience like?
It was a lot of fun. I’ve talked to them on the phone so much over the years that I feel like I know them but seeing them in person was a pleasure and they went out of the their way to make it a very special event, which was pretty cool. It lived up to my expectations and I even got a Bigfoot costume out of the deal!

Finally, I know you’re often asked this, but what other films would you love to design a poster for if you were given another situation like this, where the choice was yours?
That’s a hard one. Since Justin envisioned these posters as ‘at the event only’, with none to be sold afterwards, we had to come up with a movie that people wouldn’t be devastated to miss (I’ve since found out there are more Akira fans than i realized). We talked about Jaws, Escape From New York and many others, but figured it would be kinda unfair to do such a big movie and not let people have a shot to pick it up. Sooo… I dunno, maybe Vampire Hunter D or Ninja Scroll or My Neighbour Totoro if we’re talking anime. If we’re talking live-action then maybe Deep Rising or Night of the Comet or Night of the Creeps.

Thanks so much for answering these questions for me, it’s very much appreciated.
Sure, I’m happy to help out.

Check out Tyler’s own website here.
A big thanks to the Mondo crew, without whom this poster (and interview) would not have happened.

Here are the other posters I have which were done by Tyler.

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How long were you given to work on the design?
I can’t really say for sure. I’m certain they gave me at least a month’s heads-up, probably more like three months heads-up. Not that it does much good as I’m a last minute man.

Can you talk about your initial design ideas for the poster?
We were required to submit a thumbnail sketch of our design ideas early on in the process. As you can see I stuck pretty close to mine and just had to tweak a few colors and voila. Done. It was in my head the entire time.

Were there certain elements or characters you knew had to sit next to each other?
My posters are the very definition of happy accidents. Looking at this one, I think I deliberately made Captain America and Iron Man/Tony Stark smaller and less central to the piece because I’d already done posters for their individual films, so those two characters had already had their day to shine. Having seen the film, I realise now that maybe Hawkeye isn’t as main of a character as Cap or Stark (who’s a huge part of the film), but thats life. I let personal bias get in the way.

What about the idea of having each character with a portrait and an alternative pose?
I like drawing faces up close and I like kinda showing them in action. I just like repeating things for some reason. It gives it the feeling of movement, for me anyway.

One small note of interest is that, due to a lack of time, I used the city portion of a discarded design for a Drive poster as the background for this print. Later we ended up doing a letterpress of that same Drive design. This is known in the TStout industry as ‘double-dipping’.