For this fairly involved retouching masterpiece, I wanted to step back and take a look at exactly what went into the job.
First, let's take a quick look at some of the superficial changes other than the actors. My personal favorite small touch was changing James Van Der Beek's name to Josh Van Der Lite. I may have to call Josh by that name forever now. I also had fun changing all the team blue into maroon. Of all the things that are easy to do with Photoshop, that isn't one of them. It's tricky, annoying and imprecise. If you look closely, you can see it's pretty sloppy in a few places. But, once I was able to do that, it made perfect sense to change the movie's title. I even found the exact typeface they used so I was able to easily replicate it.
Now, on to the stars of the show.
I thought choosing a new Van der Beek would be tough, but it wasn't. Josh hadn't been in any previous posters, and who else would look that awesome suddenly sporting that ridiculous hair. I needed to find a shot of Josh facing straight ahead, with a small grin. Thankfully, Joe takes so many bar pictures after the games, I was able to find the perfect one easily.
Choosing a replacement for Amy Smart was easy too. Emily had specifically requested being in this poster because she loves the movie, and she photographs really well. Now I just needed the right photo. I had a lot of pics to choose from, but to match the angle of the head and the eyes, I actually had to find the right picture and flip it horizontally. I also decided to keep the original hair because Emily's actual hair didn't match up. Plus, hair is just a real bitch to clip in Photoshop. Ultimately, the retouched looks of Josh and Emily really work, which makes the whole poster feel right.
Replacing Paul Walker was another fairly easy call. I remembered seeing a photo of Sam on Facebook where was flashing his "I may be a Jew from Florida, but I'm tough" look, which I always like. And Walker's look reminded me of it very much. I barely had to change anything after that. The hat fit right on top and we were good to go.
When I needed to find a new "Billy Bob," I immediately thought of Joe. There's just something inherently funny about taking a guy who's all jacked up and in great shape and making him a big fatty. A little stretching of the face and smudging of the chin, and presto...Joe gains 200 pounds.
Ali Larter's new look was a tougher choice. Since she's small and in the back, it would be hard to recognize her replacement. So I looked back at all the other work and realized I hadn't put Amy in anything yet. And since she has a big smile, she was perfect for the back row because she'd stand out anyway. I still find it funny, though, that I can do all this wild retouching, yet I can't remove the red-eye from these shots. Nice.
Once again, choosing a teammate to put in for Tweeder was a slam dunk. Troy is the closest thing our team has to a cowboy already, so he fit pretty naturally under the black hat. Hell, he even told me he wanted to be Tweeder, so I obliged. I had a little trouble making his head look right on Scott Caan's neck, but I did the best I could. It works, but it's one of the few paces I wish I could have done better. Yee-hah!
Now, I know what you're gonna say. Friday is the only African-American guy on the team this season, so he was my only choice for Wendel. Well, yeah, I guess that's true. I considered turning Cohen into a black dude, but my skills aren't that good and I knew it would backfire. Plus, Cohen was only at one game this season, so screw him. Now the tricky part was finding a brooding shot of Friday. The damn guy smiles too much. Every photo looked like it was Christmas morning at the Mathews house. Luckily, I found one random photo where he was looking away and probably didn't even know he was being photographed. Bingo. And the fact that the top of his head was cropped off didn't matter, because Wendel wears a baseball cap. That made everything much easier.
So, there you have it...a guided tour through the way I killed the last 2 hours of my day on Wednesday.
Charlie Tweeder: Hey you wanna see the new Tweeder end zone dance?
[Tweeder dances]
Charlie Tweeder: You know what it's called?
Mox: What?
Charlie Tweeder: The new Tweeder end zone dance.
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