Brownie point awards from the Charlito Program

More weird stuff for the Charlito Program -- original promos for Star Wars, including several Kenner commercials. As these are 16mm clips which have never been projected, the quality if undoubtedly high. Not quite on the level of a 35mm print, but better than most of what you're seeing on youtube which was saved off a TV.

I had a couple of Cast & Crew T-shirts which I wore for Star Wars promotion. Whenever I had official business, I'd don one of these so you'd know I was with STAR WARS. When one got dirty, I'd wear another. So in spite of my wanting to say, "Yes, this was THE shirt worn at the Grauman's footprint ceremony," I'd probably have to correct myself and say there was a 33 1/3% chance this was the T-shirt I wore at the ceremony.

My collecting is limited to music. I'd love to own a horn played on by Miles Davis or Ornette Coleman. I suppose my getting a thrill out of putting my lips to the mouthpiece Miles used to perform Sketches of Spain would be the same as someone wanting the T-shit I wore at Graumans during the footprint ceremony. I can't understand it, but that's because I don't think of myself in the same way as I think of Miles. I'm just a dweeb who happened to work on a movie you like.

Steve York has been making so many fanboi waves I figured I'd give him (and you) the chance to get this used, vintage T-shirt which has a 33 1/3 chance of being the one worn at Graumans. It's now officially added to the Brownie Point awards.

Thinking of trophy articles from "celebrities," in my very weird collection of artifacts, I have to confess to owning a pair of socks which Jean-Luc Goddard wore... AND some cigarette butts.Think they're Gauloise... OK, the skinny is I hosted Jean-Luc at USC during my student days of film programming. Jean-Luc left a pair of sock in the hotel room which I bagged, along with the contents of his ashtray. Though I find it hard to understand someone wanting MY T-shirt, I wanted Jean-Luc's socks. To us, Jean-Luc was a god. He was BREATHLESS!!! Bumpy, who went to UCLA, thinks I sound rather perverted... but there you have it, folks.

Graumans T-shirt and Jean-Luc's socks.

Andy Vajna had leather jackets and these bags made up for the producer's group swag. This will be a Brownie point award. It was never used but crummy photo makes one side look faded. Not.

Judge Death candle, another Brownie point award.

Dino had this original framed King Kong in his office. Its original, in Polish. I always liked it. We had it up in our house in LA and when we first moved East. This is a Brownie point.

Here's the gold record I got commemorating the sale of the first 500K records. You can see in the next two pics the "plaque" and record became unglued and need to be remounted. This will be a Brownie point award. While some part of me, out of sheer laziness,wants to say, well, I'll just let the winner remount this. In another way, I sure would like to have a decent pic of it, which would best be done when it's removed from glass.

Flash Gordon Storyboards by Mentor Huebner

FLASH GORDON storyboards - there was question as to who the artist was on the Flash Gordon Storyboards. Dino had given these to me years and years ago, saying, in that off-hand way he has, "Here, take these, you like them, these are from Mentor," so I always assumed they were his. Someone here pointed out the boards I was uploading may not be done by Mentor, and provided a link to a Flash Gordon site and Mentor's site indicating which work he did on Flash Gordon. I wondered if Dino was wrong, and let it go... Then I found 4 more boards -- the originals of these are very large, and in the bottom corner they have Mentor's signature. These are first generation production copies -- which means in the process of copying, their lines have been altered. Reduced, the charcoal marks become even thicker and rougher, but in their original scale, the work looks different. The first 2 of are one board, but was too large to fit on the scanner so are two jpgs. The 3rd is his signature and the 4 is a fax copy which was sent from the set to the office, reduced down to an 8x11.

I have 4 more frames of the same scene in the larger format. When you look at them side by side, it's apparent that they're the same. Reducing the large work or scanning it on line art setting vs magazine setting will give you a different look. Line art scanning setting increases the width of lines, so the work appears different. Xeroxing -- dark fine line becomes thicker and darker, but very fine lines disappear. The work ends up looking different. Took me awhile to figure it out on the scanner. You'd think scanning drawn artwork the setting to use is line art, but no, it isn't. A more accurate representation is either photograph or magazine scanner settings.

Flash Gordon Storyboards, Artist Unknown - Mentor Huebner or Bill Stallion?

Dino gave these to me, saying they were by Mentor Huebner. With the exception of the double sepia faxes, these are the final, original drawings which would have been used by everyone, from the art department to production office. This is the sequence thus far uploaded. Dan Short brought up a question of whether they were Mentor's or not. What do you think? Are they Mentor's? ... Not that it matters because I think this is a great sequence, but I'd hate to have presented these as Mentor's if they are not. Think by looking at this body of work you can tell me whether you see the same hand at work, and if its Mentor's, or some other artist's work.

John Scoleri adds: "Glen Mullaly (via Graham Hill and IMDB) identified Bill Stallion as the possible culprit, and after comparing to some of his work, it seems pretty conclusive to me."