Tracing the blueprint of F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent shock-fest, Nosferatu, Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre follows the ever-popular Count Dracula as he tries to sink his fangs into the members of a small German village. Obscure and decadent, prog legends Popol Vuh created an uncanny musical backdrop matching the entrancing quality of Murnau’s cinematography. Not content on simply remastering the score for the 2015 reissue, Waxwork commissioned Jessica Seamans of Landland to work on the first officially approved Nosferatu the Vampyre soundtrack artwork since the original 1978 release.
Speaking on how she got the commission, Jessica explains, “Waxwork emailed me out of the blue! It was the end of 2014 when they contacted me, and I had never really worked on anything big or remotely high-profile at that point. I was excited when I got the email, but more than anything I was terrified and intimidated and had no idea how I was going to pull it off.”
It was her love for Nosferatu the Vampyre that first helped Jessica put paint to paper and turn her anxiety into art. “I was a huge fan [of the film],” she notes. “This is part of what was so intimidating to me about working on this—it was already one of my favorite movies ever. I was so familiar with it that it was easy for me to enter into the visual world of it inside my head while I was working, and so I think it's truly just the movie run through my particular filter. It's so gorgeous to look at and so fully realized as a work of art. I really wanted to capture the mood of the movie, the intense, sad, bleak loneliness of it."
“Waxwork gave me a ton of freedom and in fact really wanted me to get as weird as I wanted to with it. I originally submitted several ideas, and they picked the ones that wound up being the final art, but other than that there wasn't a ton of art direction.”
“I know my rough drawings were very loose," Seamans continues, "so most of the details in the final thing were improvised as I went, and everyone seemed pretty okay with that. I know there are always a lot of different forces at work with these things. I just really lucked out as far as who needed to sign off on what I was doing, and I don't remember getting a ton of pushback. I did have a little spot on my wall where I taped pictures from magazines that sort of suited the mood of what I wanted to do to keep me on track as I worked, but other than that it was really just me and the movie. And the soundtrack playing on repeat, of course.”
Beauty and dread: the conflict between them is at the center of Nosferatu the Vampyre, and is an evident theme throughout Jessica’s artwork. It showcases a great use of open space, mixed with crowded, intricately drawn sections in which characters look sharp-edged and macabre. The color choice creates a cold and unwelcoming environment, but one you can’t help but feel attracted to. Delving into her creative process, Jessica explains, “It's a mix of pencil, watercolor, and gouache on watercolor paper, and then I did make a few digital edits once it was all scanned in.”
"The majority of what I do is design for things that I will screen-print, and so the way that I build the images typically is a lot different than something that will be offset print—for a screen print I'm usually drawing things in distinct layers, one drawing for each color of the print, and the original drawings are just solid-black ink. So, getting to do actual paintings, where I get to put everything all on one layer and use colored medium, is pretty out of the ordinary for me, although I'd honestly prefer it."
"I was also using gouache for the first time. Previously, I had only ever painted in watercolor, and beyond that, it was the first time I had done three separate images for one final product. And on top of all that, because each panel took so long to complete, by the time I was getting close to finished with each, I would feel like I had learned so much and improved so vastly that I would have a strong urge to start over and use all my new skills from the very beginning. I admit that I may have been going a little insane in the process!"
She continues, “[Timewise] it was a while, probably six months or longer—not of constant work, but I had to complete other shorter projects at the same time. Had I been able to work on it straight through, it probably would have been about a month of solid work days, but to be honest, I like having some gaps where I'm thinking about other stuff, as it helps me to sit with things or come back to a piece with fresh eyes. I can get a little tunnel-visioned if I'm working on one thing straight for too long. Waxwork has always been awesome to work with [in this regard]. I so desperately wanted to do justice to the film, I got in a little over my head with the design and attempted things that were a real challenge for me. Also, the original art is really large.”
Sold out on Waxwork’s official site, it’s safe to say the release was a success for the label. Looking at the finished product, Jessica reflects, “I'm probably as happy as I can be with it! It's always hard for me to be done with something, and I'm sort of built to forever focus on the parts that I would change if I could, so I can see the things I would do differently now, but as time has passed, I think I've grown happier with it. It was certainly a labor of love.”
Mirroring both the film and score, Nosferatu the Vampyre’s vinyl artwork creates a true feeling of uneasiness and dread, while also exploring so many elements of beauty at the same time. Rich, heavy and deep, there is a quality to Jessica’s work that seeps into your bones.
Peace to Jessica Seamans of Landland for helping out with this piece. Although the Nosferatu the Vampyre vinyl score is sold out, keep in touch with Waxwork Records online, as a re-press could be in the cards in the near future. Check out Seaman’s other works on Landland and The Vacvvm.
---------
As a special treat for Daily Dead readers, Seamans provided us with behind-the-scenes photos from the making of her artwork for the Nosferatu the Vampyre vinyl soundtrack:
Photos from Waxwork Records:
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
