Since I was involved with the launch of the Apple Pencil and iPad Pro in 2015, this seemed like an easy fit. During the process for Blade Runner, Warner Bros told me that Apple was interested in being involved with the campaign, so I pitched them the idea of creating the piece on the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. Blade Runner 2049 was digital all the way. James Jean: mother! and The Shape of Water began as pencil sketches but ended up becoming a painting and a charcoal drawing respectively.
Jeff Hamada: Did each of these start as a pencil sketch and finish digital? Or were any of them digital all the way? Jeff Hamada: You mentioned he had a different idea for the mother! poster originally, what was that? Can you walk through some of the initial ideas/sketches you had for visualizing each film, and how each became the final product?
Guillermo also contributed a quote to another book of mine as well. I had created paintings for these art shows that Darren had put together for The Fountain and Noah, so we have a little bit of history. James Jean: Ha! That quote was in the original US version of the book also. Jeff Hamada: I saw that Darren Aronofsky was quoted on the French edition of your book, Rebus.
I pretty much had full creative freedom, but they did want me to incorporate the teal/red color palette from their campaign. Using analysis of his previous films and the themes from the original Blade Runner, I sort of created my own predictive script of the sequel.
So, I tried my best to form an understanding of the movie not only from all the existing marketing material and interviews given at the time, but from Denis’ previous work as well. they did want to screen the movie for me, but I was going to be in Japan at the time so it didn’t work out. James Jean: Yes, it was pretty difficult. Was it difficult to work blind like that? Jeff Hamada: Yeah pretty tough! I know you got the script for mother! and actually screened The Shape of Water, but Blade Runner was the only one where you weren’t given much information. Also, it’s hard to top Aronofsky, Del Toro, and Villeneuve, all in one season. The reason why I probably won’t do any more posters this year is because I’m busy working on my next solo show at Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Tokyo. James Jean: Yeah, I really liked The Lobster so I’m very keen to see the Sacred Deer when it comes out. What’s next? I’d love to see you do a poster for The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Jeff Hamada: You kinda jokingly called this a trilogy but something tells me there will be more.
contacted me about Blade Runner 2049 a little later on, which is still kind of amazing because I was harboring this fantasy of doing a poster for them ever since the movie was announced. Darren called me directly and Guillermo slid into my dm’s, and both were working on films that were intensely personal and meaningful. One factor might be the rise in popularity of alternative collectible movie posters these past 10 years or so. There must have been a confluence of factors that lead them to think of me, a mentalist’s string of subliminal hints that influenced these visionary directors to choose me to interpret possibly the most significant films of this year. In fact, I had not done any official movie posters before. What’s interesting is that each request happened independently of one another and around the same time – it wasn’t as if I was hired because the director saw a previous poster I had done. James Jean: I’m not sure how I got so lucky. Jeff Hamada: How did you suddenly become Hollywood’s go-to artist for film posters?