Saturday, May 19, 2012

A Christmas Carol - Sketch


I am working on a poster for Pioneer Theatre Company to promote their production of  A Christmas Carol - The Musical. I was not aware that there was a musical version of the famous Charles Dickens tale so I was immediately intrigued. There is a version of this production on DVD that stars Kelsey Grammer as Scrooge and, Jane Krakowski, Jesse L Martin, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jason Alexander. I was impressed with the lively musical numbers (by Disney's Little Mermaid song smith Alan Menken (music) and lyricist Lynn Ahrens) and it's faithfulness to the story. I submitted several sketch versions to the client and this was the one we agreed on. The challenge was to give a feeling that this is a musical production rather than the normal dramatic version, so I added musical notations to the swirls of snow to achieve this effect.  I'll post the finished version when I wrap it all up.

5 comments:

The Art of Kim Kincaid said...

Really nice, Greg. Have you thought of incorporating the specter of Christmas future as one of those vaporous swirls and weaving it through the figures in the hat to soften the strong cylinder shape? Just a thought. You are the pro here. Can't wait to see this in color. It will be stunning.

Unknown said...

Kim, I had that discussion with the client, and in fact my first concept had the ghosts instead of the other singing figures. But the client felt that the emphasis needed to be on the musical aspects in order to separate it from all the non musical productions of A Christmas Carol that are put on every year. Rather than lose my original concept (which they loved) I opted to swap out the ghosts. The swirls of music are a nod to the ghostly aspects. As you know often we make adjustments (compromises?) in order to make the client happy and I had to do that a bit here. I am still very happy with the concept, so it's all good.

LuTi said...

Happy Christmas! ;)
(it is coming......almost)

:)

The Art of Kim Kincaid said...

Ah, yes...compromise. Well, it will be wonderful, I have no doubt. This might be the first time I attend a musical because of the awesome poster. (Have you ever watched the DVD, "Scrooge" with Albert Finney? Fantastic music and overall, superb production).

Unknown said...

Thanks Kim, I'm flattered. The production is really good and I am sure PTC will do a nice job of it. I'm looking forward to it. Have not seen the Albert Finney version, but will have to check it out this year.