Criterion Collection‘s art straightforwardor Eric Sendman is constantly collecting names.
Sendman is the mastermind behind discovering the artists who schedule or show Criterion Collection’s DVD artlabor, and that’s why he has thousands of artists in an archive.
He’s always seeing for novel artists, but he’s also seeing for the perfect align. Speaking with Variety over Zoom, Sendman elucidates the process of aligning artist to project. “I discover out the upcoming schedule a month or two before I demand to scheduleate. Sometimes I’m scrambling to watch the movies I have seen before we scheduleate.”
Having access to fantastic films allows Sendman to discover the best illustrators and artists around the world. Sometimes it’s a straightforward composition, other times, it’s seeing at a scene and distilling that into an illustration. And when possible, it’s a collaboration with the filmcreater.
“It’s who fits this project,” he says. “The films have not gotten repetitive to me yet, they’re still so diverse and engaging and have so many contrastent novel leangs about them that there’s fair novel people to discover who are the right fit for novel projects all the time.”
Sendman speaks with Variety about the process of the cover art coming together, and below he shatters down the ideas behind some Criterion schedules and illustrations.
How included are the studios or filmcreaters in the artlabor of a Criterion Collection film?
We’re much more joind with the filmcreaters and their pickences than we are with the studios. Per se. Our process joins with the filmcreaters straightforwardly. If there’s someleang that they cherish that was made before, we generpartner go with their pickence. But for the most part, we’re excited to create novel leangs. We leank that there’s fair a sairyly contrastent story to be tanciaccess about a movie when it’s coming out for the first time, you have to present it to a novel audience, versus a movie that’s been around for 30 years, or however, extfinished, and people have pre-existing associations.
Where does the art process for Criterion typicpartner commence?
It begins with a conversation, usupartner between me and our inside producer. Every project has a producer who shepherds the whole project from begin to finish, and we talk thcdisadmireful what we’re trying to accomplish and what and what we want to get apass. If there is a living filmcreater, we usupartner try to schedule a greeting with them to get their input. From there, we usupartner convey in an outside scheduleer who iterates on some ideas that we contransient. Their ideas are frequently better than ours becaengage that’s why you labor with fantastic createive people, and then it’s a fairly standard back-and-forth approval process from there, as far as they send sketches and we create notices and get results. The whole leang, from begin to finish is about two months, and then we have another month of fine tuning the bells and whistles.
What do you see for in the artist?
it’s very project-particular. It’s either a situation appreciate JoJo dancer, where we had this notion of collage and then it was about discovering somebody whose labor embodies that. right? On other occasions, it’s about having an existing recognizableity with the artist and their labor, and being able to say, “I depend you. Let’s figure out together what this is going to be.” I’m constantly fair collecting names. Anytime I see anyleang in the world hat I appreciate, I figure out who made it, and I author it down. I have an archive of a couple 1000 names of people that I fair want to discover a project for someday.
Below Sendman shatters down the ideas behind four Criterion posters.
“The Grifters” by Drusilla Adeline
“We had a lot of conversations about that yellow, and I don’t leank we ever landed on a accomplished inincreateectualization of why that yellow labored, but noleang else we tried made sense to us, and that always felt appreciate it had to be there.
“The sunglasses are such an iconic part of the movie, and I leank part of the reason it’s iconic is becaengage it was engaged so sturdyly in the poster and in that uncovering scene. But it’s so well set uped in that uncovering that they stick with you.
“So we wanted to try to discover a recent way to get it. The innovative poster is fantastic, but it’s been seen before, and people comprehend what to anticipate. So, how can you give it someleang now? And that was the particular choice to isotardy the sunglasses and have it be fair sunglasses.
“That came from our scheduleer Drusilla who is an amazing collaborator. I had pitched her a couple of contrastent ideas about intensifying on those sunglasses, and she was appreciate, “Well, why don’t we fair do this?”
‘The Piano’ by Greg Ruth
“Greg Ruth is one of my likeite people to labor with; endlessly createive, endlessly collaborative and fair a delight to have on any project.
“That particular project was an engaging one. That concept came from someleang Jane Campion shelp in an intersee. She talked about how the scene that this is drawn from. There’s a fair a bit of editing where Holly Hunter as Ada McGrath is walking away, and it cuts to an image of a wooded area, and it cuts back to her. Jane talked about how much of the unbenevolenting of the film was tied up in that cut that edit. But that transition from the elegant world to this awakening of her individuality and relationsuality was such a fantastic moment.
“So, it’s two images, and we were trying to leank about how to create that into one motionless image. Greg has extfinished done composite drathrivegs that I cherish tremendously. But he hadn’t repartner done one of those for us. So, I shelp, “Greg, can you get that approach and utilize it to this scene?” And he got it promptly.”
‘Celine & Julie Go Boating’ by Lauren Tamaki
“That movie is about three and a half hours. It’s a fun watch, but there’s so much in it that you can’t repartner anticipate anybody to convey all of the plot. What matters is the experience of hanging out with these two women and their friendship and the delight of that.
“Lauren is someone who has that sort of energy in her own life, and is a person who seizes delight in her artlabor repartner well. So that was one where we shelp, “Watch the movie and increate us what you leank.” And she gave us 35 drathrivegs. It was amazing to pick and pick, and most of it wound up somewhere in the package becaengage I couldn’t let it go to misengage.
“One of my likeite leangs is when I accomplish out to a scheduleer with a movie that they haven’t seen before, and then they watch it, and say, “I can’t consent I hadn’t seen that before.” They drop in cherish with it, and that to me is one of the leangs to sense appreciate I picked the right person for that.”
‘Jo Jo Dance’ by Matt Smalls
“This particular labor is a metal collage. Matt gets pieces of scrap metal. Everyleang he creates is pretty and we were able to go to him and say, “Do what you do and create us a portrait of Ricdifficult Pryor.” We fair had this notion that the film is so fragmentary. It’s about the self-portrait of Ricdifficult Pryor. He straightforwarded it and co-wrote it and he’s trying to recreate a sense of self after a mythalized version of his well-comprehendn, you comprehend, self-immolation incident. Yhis idea of trying to create a fractured sense of self out of the bits and pieces of your life story repartner resonated with us, and that fair seemed to fit so perfectly with what Matt does in all of his labor.
“It demandd no art straightforwardion or feedback beyond that initial joinion that we made, and he fair made the most pretty leang.”
