{"id":338,"date":"2008-12-20T13:49:25","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T19:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=338"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:58:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:58:21","slug":"mummys-got-a-brand-new-wrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=338","title":{"rendered":"MUMMY’s got a brand new wrap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among several interesting tidbits tossed on the table during Tuesday night’s Champaign Movie Makers<\/strong> meeting, C-U Blogfidential<\/strong> learned from THE TRANSIENT<\/strong> director Chris Lukeman<\/strong> that Amazon.com<\/strong> now offers for sale his prior full-length effort, THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS VS. A MUMMY<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0“Groovy,” said your humble editor,\u00a0and upon further Internet inspection\u00a0he discovered that Lukeman landed the retail opportunity with help from a CD\/DVD distributor called Sonic Wave International<\/strong> that has roots in\u00a0Bloomington<\/strong>, Arlington Heights<\/strong>, or\u00a0Oak Park<\/strong>, IL<\/strong>, depending on where one looks.<\/p>\n

A graphics-heavy Web site for Sonic Wave<\/a> features a product line dominated by rock, metal, rap, and rhythm-and-blues albums, with a tiny DVD selection consisting mostly\u00a0of hip-hop and\u00a0Indian (!) music videos and concerts, so the addition of MUMMY<\/strong> to their catalog is curious. Also worth a raise of the eyebrow is the inference that some or all of these releases are “manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media”\u00a0as is stated on the Amazon page for MUMMY<\/strong><\/a>. We’re crossing our fingers that Lukeman could justify signing with Sonic Wave, exposure being the most likely benefit for both the movie and the Illini Film & Video<\/strong> student club.<\/p>\n

Of course, convincing consumers to spring for this MUMMY<\/strong> is a different story, so I question Sonic Wave’s decision to jack the price so high – $17.99 on Amazon for a DVD-R? Seriously?\u00a0– while saddling it with even more questionable cover design. Calling it “design” is actually being too kind. Are you ready to witness the horror?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Above left is the appalling new image that will greet consumers. I would really like to know what possessed their\u00a0artist to combine such\u00a0bland typography\u00a0with stock images of a real mummy and real pyramids. It looks slapdash in the worst bargain-bin way and completely ignores the charm of the movie. Above right is the appealing original image by Nancy Parman<\/strong> and Marty Sweeney<\/strong>. While certainly no great shakes in its overall technique, the concept and composition are solid enough that Sonic Wave could have requested a refined\u00a0illustration from Lukeman or spent a little time improving upon it themselves using production stills as a guide.<\/p>\n

I can speak about this particular aspect of movie promotion from experience. A little-known fact is that I’ve created a handful of video covers over the years, including ones\u00a0for the student ghost film TRIAD<\/strong> by UIUC\/IFV alumnus Chris Folkens<\/strong> and\u00a0two Synapse Films<\/strong> releases, BACCHANALES SEXUALES<\/strong> and NIGHT TRAIN<\/strong>. My token VHS job, for the Salt City Home Video<\/strong> release FATAL EXAM<\/strong>, involved logo design\u00a0and a watercolor\/gouache illustration of a skull-headed, scythe-wielding\u00a0Death hovering over co-eds in a classroom which, in classic exploitation fashion, never actually appears in the movie.<\/p>\n

Regardless, my work on FATAL EXAM<\/strong>\u00a0hits\u00a0a vibe closest to\u00a0Parman and Sweeney’s\u00a0MUMMY<\/strong> packaging, which I find amusing in its nod to the oversized VHS box art of indie horror labels\u00a0from the Eighties. In comparison, there is no joy in Sonic Wave’s effort. How sad.<\/p>\n

~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please, please, please don’t judge this UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS VS. A MUMMY DVD by its cover…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,20],"tags":[115,132,131],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-film","category-videos-du-c-u","tag-chris-lukeman","tag-sonic-wave-international","tag-the-university-of-illinois-vs-a-mummy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}