Credit Where Credit Is Due
The striking similarity between the 1996 NBC "Dark Skies" key art and the current ABC ad campaign for "The Path to 9/11" has really struck a nerve. It's amusing to some, to others it's further evidence of a corrupt movie process, and to one person it was very personal.
DARK SKIES | NBC | SONY | Bryce Zabel & Brent Friedman | 1996-1997
Art by Alicia Fernandez | Blue Sky Creative
Winner, ProMax Gold Medallion Award
My first reaction upon seeing the ads for "The Path to 9/11" was, "Huh?" Exactly ten years ago this month (September 21, 1996), I was launching an NBC series called "Dark Skies" that was darkly paranoid and floated what my writing/producing partner Brent Friedman and I liked to call the Unified Field Theory of Conspiracies: that President Kennedy had been killed because he was going to tell the truth about UFOs in his second term.
I remember that I loved the graphic imagery of this key art the instant I laid eyes on it. It captured the paranoid essence of our series perfectly.
During the rush of production, I never got to know the talented woman who actually did this work. Thanks to the connectivity of blogging, however, she saw the earlier post and wrote me today which allows me to properly credit her work!
The original concept is by Alicia Fernandez of Blue Sky Creative. She actually won the ProMax Gold Medallion Award that year. ProMax is the industry organization that deals with promotion activities. If you want to see the full-size version of the art, just click on the photo above.
It was great work, Alicia. Let me know when ABC sends you a residual check!
- To read more about the "Dark Skies" series, including downloads for the pilot script about JFK's assassination and the episode script which deals with the New York power black-out, the death of Dorothy Kilgallen, Jack Ruby and Dan Rather all in one fell-swoop, please CLICK HERE.
