pen ink for hire.

Earlier this year I was invited to contribute to the Silver Screen Society. SSS is an ongoing project curated by illustrators, Adam Hanson, Brandon Schaefer and Trevor Basset. They’ve gathered teams of illustrators and designers who are contributing pieces inspired by a different film each month. I’m on April’s roster. Sharing the wealth with the likes of Jordan Gray, Richard Perez, Olimpia Zagnoli, Mitch Blunt, Anton Weflö, Chris Haley, Timo Meyer, Scott Hill and Brandon Schaefer. Quite humbling to say the least.

April’s film is The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed. It’s a 1949 British film noir set in a post-World War II Vienna Austria. When I watched this flick something stood out to me immediately. The score. Viennese folk music played by a single musician on a single instrument. No orchestration. No orchestra. Just one man, Anton Karas, and his zither. Anton would become best known for The Third Man score, and its title track peaked in 1950 at #1 in the international music charts.

So, that was my focus. Anton. And secondly, a quick, geometric drawing of the environment that Reed creates in the film. Which apparently was pretty captivating to the majority of SSS’s April roster because it looks like more than half the team has incorporated some sort of interpretation—ie, the little buildings, streets and ferris wheel from the pinnacle Orson Welles scene.

I’m really happy with how it turned out in the end. And the work from the rest of the April team is just phenomenal. Take a second to visit Silver Screen Society or see all the contributions at a glance here … and make sure to vist ‘em each Wednesday as the rest of the April roster goes live.