That's so cool he responded! I always have massive respect for people like him that above all are enthusiastic about creativity and want to share that! Mad props 👏
The compositing and retouching was most likely done by Raphaële Retouching which was based in Houston. This was the leading retouching studio and was a pioneer -if not THE pioneer -in digital retouching. Her heyday was in the 1980s and 1990s. Among the projects she worked on were numerous movie posters like Spike Lee’s movies, the BudLight Girls posters and ads, and hundreds more. Raphaële and her partner developed a sophisticated system using red, green, and blue lasers to scan each layer of film and wrote their own software. Once the digital work was done, lasers were again used to output the finished image to 8x10 or 11x14 inch Ektachrome film. Raphaële retired in 1999 or 2000 and passed away three or four years ago.
That was so interesting! Movie poster images like this are so iconic and memorable. Yet we rarely stop and look at the background detail or question the way they were created etc. Will now ! Cheers Azriel
Amazing sleuthing man! This has also been an iconic image for me over the years (decades). I was surprised to hear that they paid top $ back in 89 to assemble this poster digitally. Such a thing would have been beyond state of the art at the time. The one thing that was not addressed is something I even noticed back in '90. All the actual turtle head shapes, in the poster, look virtually identical. As we know, each Henson Turtle head was quite unique. Were these early prototypes? Where the bandana's properly colored or processed in post? Did Chip have control over posing the eyes, was that also heavily post processed? That Rafael scar definitely appears to be a photoshop addition. It is so iconic. Before your video and article, I actually had a theory that the poster might have been made with miniature heads, in camera, using an in camera mini backdrop of the rear city scape...a little like a diorama- all on a single 4x5 neg.
Love this comment. I like the idea of them being early prototype heads! I think a big part of the reason they look so "off" from the final designs is that they were shot with a wide fish eye type lense and that definitely distorts their appearance. I started looking into this as I felt it was necessary, I just ordered a statute that is a life size replica of this poster, more specifically the turtles creeping out of the man hole. It was created by a company called collect PCS. I'm going to get the highest quality print of this poster possible to display above it!
I'm a native NY-er, so I was curious as to which street the poster was shot on. Could never quite pin it down, so you're explanation clears that up lol.Thanks.
Many thanks for the research and the amazing story! I remember the time I was in art school (in french speaking Belgium) and was able to get American Photographer magazine, there was an issue about the famous french photographer Guy Bourdin, and there was Bourdin's portrait taken by...Chip Simmons! (shame on me I did not keep all my magazine through the years)
Whoa, I never knew who did that, and I was thinking about this randomly recently, too. I figured it was just the heads and a hand on some kind of small studio set or table, but it's super awesome to hear the real story of how it came together. I probably spent hours staring at this thing when I was 10. Also, sad that the industry just tossed him out that way. I remember seeing tons of his work. This move is still one of my favorites, and it holds up shockingly well (especially if you can find the version that doesn't needlessly edit the origin tale). Thank you for doing this great work!
@@AzrielKnight Yeah! At some point they decided that Tang Shen and Hamato Yoshi being killed by the Shredder wasn't kid friendly? Something like that. Completely wrecks Splinter's story. Like he's just suddenly in the sewers.
Its amazing how many 'classic' movies I have assiduously avoided watching, TMNT, ET, Sound of Music, Grease, Dirty Dancing, the list goes on and on ... maybe I wasn't one of the cool kids as I was staying up past midnight to watch 'The Seven Samurai' on its only terrestrial TV showing.
This has been one of my favorite movie posters. But I’ll be honest, For years, I always thought the poster was a painting. I also never noticed that that the Empire State Building was at an angle.
I always felt that the positioning of the hand made no sense. Who's hand is it? Raph and Leo are the only likely options, but in any case we would have see some forearm, and Donnie's head couldn't be in the way.
maybe i'm high but.. supposedly these are the movie heads, but they look wrong. Their distinctive facial features are not there. is it just because they aren't currently being animatronicalized, and I've never seen their 'neutral' faces before?
Hi! Huge fan of the movie here, I like to think these are early versions of the heads before the design was final. And I also believe they seem a bit off and look strange because they were shot with a fish eye lens! Lots of conditions could alter their appearance. But lots of mysteries have been solved with this video.
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