Mr. Gravillis, you’ve spent almost two decades designing artwork for film and TV, working with everyone from Spike Lee to Luca Guadagnino to Steven Spielberg. What’s it like when you’re walking down the street and you see a poster you designed?
Oh, man, I say this all the time: it really never gets old, and when it does, I'll probably leave the business.
Somehow I never realized that there even was a movie poster business…
It’s funny you should say that because I think a lot of people feel that way! When you see a movie poster when you’re driving down the street, I think people assume the studio does it. But there’s a whole niche industry behind it. For me personally, I’ve always loved film and music. So on top of being a designer, it was important for me to connect into those things that I was passionate about. I worked in the music industry for several years, collaborating with Def Jam… And then around 2004, music started going, you know, with Napster and Limewire and iTunes, the budgets were going terribly. So I moved to LA, started hitting up the studios to see if we could get into the film industry.
What was the first movie poster you remember that sparked your interest in this career?
Well, I've always loved the visual side of storytelling, but it was the movie poster for Alien — the original, 1979 version — that first intrigued me. It’s so iconic to me, I still have it up in our studio. It’s become a mantra for me as a designer, to make work that feels intriguing like that. With a movie trailer, you can really tell a story but with a poster, you’ve only got one image to get people interested, to get people intrigued by it. It’s a gateway for the rest of the film. The Alien poster has everything I think makes a successful poster: it’s memorable, it’s a bit subversive, it feels different from what you’d think it should be.
“Things have changed in the industry. I don’t think you can even sell a film with just a star like you used to do.”
I love that poster too — but it’s very minimal in terms of concrete information about the film; who’s in it, the ins and outs of the story…
I love those types of posters! I think our agency, Gravillis Inc., is sort of known for doing that type of thing, if that makes sense. A lot of times we get asked to make something iconic that isn’t star filled, that doesn’t focus on the actors faces. I mean, we do some stuff that just sells the stars too, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the reasons why we get picked is because it's about coming up with stuff that doesn't feel as typical. I think as well, things have changed in the industry. I don't think you can even sell a film with just a star like you used to do. Back in the day, it was all about: “We’re just going to use this actor’s face and we're going to be good.” But I think today’s audience has become more savvy, you need more interesting things to sort of rope people in. It isn’t a slam dunk anymore to just have the film’s star on the poster.
Does that mean there aren’t as many rules to follow when you’re making a film poster these days? For example, your artwork for Django Unchained doesn’t even have the film’s name on it.
We still have to follow the rules to a certain degree! We’re still collaborating with the studio and the filmmaker. Getting away with stuff like that for the main poster is really tricky. We worked on The Revenant a while back, and you know, Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the biggest stars on the planet, and we had this idea to have him on the poster with this goat mask covering his face… The studio was like, “Absolutely no way.” (Laughs) But that being said, we can often find a way to feature the actors in a different way, like we did for Challengers this past year.
I guess it’s a lot riskier to not show the actors faces on a film poster.
Sure, but one thing that's changed in the industry that has helped is that with the advent of social media, there’s more opportunity to use artwork like that. If we want to do something super artsy, maybe that's not going to be what we put in the movie poster, but it can be part of the social media campaign. There's more options for that now than there's ever been, you know? And I think studios get that, and they understand that so there’s a bit more freedom in that sense.
How many different versions of a poster do you typically make before the studio settles on the one?
It depends on the project! But sometimes you can get up to 300, 400 versions for a big film, there’s a mix of different changes and revisions. But for us, we often love the first round of options! Round one, for me, that’s where my own creativity shines through. Round one is ours. After that, it becomes a dance.
Is that frustrating?
I wouldn’t call it frustrating… It’s challenging for sure. But at the same time, it is simply part of the job to get through that, and get your client to a place where they're happy. It’s just what I do for a living. I always make this joke that sometimes I’m jealous of accountants…. You can’t argue with an accountant! If you’ve got eight dollars in your account, there’s no argument about it. You know what I mean? But there’s always a subjectivity to art making. I can show you a poster that we’ve won awards for, it’s revered, it feels cool, and I show it to my mum and she’s like, “Hmmm… I don’t get it.” (Laughs) And she’s not wrong, because that’s the thing about creativity. It’s so open.
You’ve been working closely with Spike Lee since 2015, designing the posters for films like BlackKklansman, Da 5 Bloods, and Chi-Raq. What kind of dynamic do you have when you work together? Is he a hard client to please?
Oh, he really cares. He’s like a posterphile. If you go to 40 Acres where his office is in Brooklyn, it’s like a gallery, he’s got old posters, foreign posters, he’s all about it. He’s very involved. And ever since that first poster we worked on, right off the bat, he came to our studio, he sits with you directly, and he has his notepad, and he makes a ton of notes, writes everything down during our meetings. When we show him the sketches, he’s not shy about it, he knows what he likes and he’ll let you know. But it always feels very personal with Spike. It’s almost like working with a musician on an album cover.
In what ways?
Making an album cover is much more intimate. We did all The Roots’ album covers from 1998 all the way through to the most recent record. We’ve done many of Common’s. We’ve worked with Erykah Badu. And that has all been so personal, with Erykah we just sat down at her house and listened to the album together. We talked about it. You’re dealing with the artist directly, and there’s a different expectation. With a film, there's the economics of it, there's so many more people involved in terms of marketing, distribution, studio… But for music, the album cover could just be really personal to the artist, and no one else has to get it. Do you know what I'm saying?
There are fewer rules you have to follow.
Right, I mean, anything could be an album cover. Back in the day, there used to be more structure, they were closer to movies in their approach. It was done by the record label. There’s a ton of freedom in it. Movie posters are incredibly scrutinized, a marketing team works with three different agencies and spends all this time figuring out the image, second guessing it, so much money is going into it because the second it’s done, it goes out everywhere. They have to leave no stone unturned, which is why it takes so long to get it right.
When do you usually feel like you’ve got it right?
(Laughs) We love it on round one! I think people tend to be inclined to say no, especially in round one, but that’s where the design is really ours. Like I said before, that’s where our creativity is coming through. That’s where the work is the most free.