Here are some of the sketches I did of Audrey Hepburn for a proposed figurine that The Franklin Mint wanted to make in spring of 1999. I was called into the main art director's office from my cubicle in the art department and he told me about what they wanted to produce, but that he wasn't sure at that point what film or moment from Audrey's life that they were going to bring to 3D life. He told me I'd be working on it and he'd have more info after lunch and for me to go to the Mint's library and start to get reference on her. So after lunch I went to the Library (which was one of the nicest libraries I've ever been in. They had a LOT of great reference books on all kinds of things and some I'd used for outside projects such as my original Scooby-Doo audition to help me with the backgrounds I had to draw!) So this first sketch above was a pen and ink that I whipped out trying to get a likeness on Audrey in 2D. I drew it from a shot from Breakfast At Tiffany's, which I thought would be the movie that the 'suits' would want to work designs around since it's her biggest and best film she ever made to my mind.After lunch I sat with the art director again and we talked about the approach I would take. It was to be a figurine based on the Breakfast At Tiffany's film and I had a copy of the movie on VHS which I had gotten from the library to watch and get ideas for possible 'scene' diaramas that I could come up with. There were about 10 or so scenes that I drew up and here are some of the best ones that I really liked...
Now in the midst of drawing up ideas, I was also told to come up with a static pose that could possibly be made of just Audrey standing there looking into Tiffany's window as she does in the beginning of the film. Now, the funny part is that I was told that this was the LAST THING that we wanted to do and the direction was really to make something special and unique that a Hepburn fan would love to own that they normally couldn't get from anywhere else. There was, in fact, a $20 Barbie doll version of Audrey in the SAME exact kind of pose and dress coming out relatively soon and it would be hard to compete with a much cheaper version that could actually move since it had joints. Plus, it had a lot of cool little props that you could take and play with. Mattel did a superb job with it. I drew only one version of Audrey standing in the famous pose (which is directly below) and had an overlay of acetate with a pair of glasses pasted on. They wanted to have that design add-on so you could take the sunglasses on and off of the figurine if you so desired.
This last drawing is my favorite...it's the scene at the end of the film when Holly (Audrey's character) jumps out of the taxi cab and runs into the alley to search for Cat. It's a pivotal scene in the film and the perfect closure. I kinda wish they had gone with this concept since it was so unique and I thought Hepburn fans would have love to had this as a figurine. In the end...they chose the boring standard pose that is above. Ugh...
As I sat back in the art director's office I asked him why after all that work did they just wind up doing the safe and boring design that they didn't want to do in the first place? He just looked at me and said, "What can you do?" Ah, corporate suits know how to run stuff into the ground and we're just cogs in the wheel. This was kind of the beginning when I knew The Mint was on the downturn. It really hit the skids soon after when we were doing the Speed Racer 'Mach 5' car, which is another story all together...
At any rate, enjoy these designs for what they are and what could have been!
No comments:
Post a Comment