This spring, we held another mailer design contest to let our artistic members show off their holiday spirit on this year’s wintertime envelopes. We received hundreds of great submissions – our fans did not disappoint!
Ultimately, it came down to four winners, whose designs are now going to mailboxes all across the USA. Get to know the DVD Netflix members that designed this year’s cheery holiday envelopes.
Kyle’s turkeys are ready for movie night!
Kyle Gatzemeyer
DVD Netflix member since 2007
From Topeka, KS
Favorite movie: The Prestige because it's a great film and you could watch it a dozen times and never get tired of it.
Favorite movie snack: Reese's Pieces.
Favorite movie quote: "Milk was a bad choice!" from Anchorman because it makes me laugh every time I hear it.
Favorite actor/actress: Hugh Jackman and Emily Blunt.
“I remember drawing ever since I was a little kid. I always loved it and stuck with it to this day.”
His favorite artistic medium is pencil and ink. Kyle’s day job? He’s a lab technician!
The last DVD he rented is definitely one that he’d recommend to other folks, so add A Quiet Place to your queue.
Rick’s snowmen got a new DVD delivery!
Rick Byrne
DVD Netflix member since 2004
From Corte Madera, CA
Favorite movie: Casablanca. It has some great themes: romance, action, a distant locale, a lovable rogue, and resistance to the Nazis.
Favorite movie snack: I actually prefer not to eat during movies – no idea why.
Favorite movie quote: “There's definitely a very slim chance we'll survive” from Ghostbusters.
Favorite actor/actress: Stanley Tucci is an incredibly versatile actor from the comedy of Shall We Dance to portraying a shrewd detective in Fortitude.
“I drew a lot as a kid but never imagined I could get a job doing it. I hadn’t done it in years and then I had to take an additional class in my final year of school. The art teacher was very encouraging and when he saw my excitement at the fact that there weren’t any preset answers he said ‘Well, you know you can get a job doing this.’ It was one of those conversations that changed the path of my life.”
Day job? Rick is lucky enough to be a designer by day, too! He loves doing digital artwork, in particular with Adobe’s Illustrator program. He uses it for all his logos, which you can see here.
He recommends renting Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, saying it’s an “absolutely hilarious teen struggle movie portrayed through gaming memes.”
Rick was also featured in the My DVD Story series we did as part of our 20th anniversary celebrations this year! Check out his video:
Matt’s mailer and happy marshmallows are having a blast.
Matt Wills
DVD Netflix member since 2004
From San Bruno, CA
Favorite movie: There are so many and it really depends on my mood at any given time. E.T., West Side Story, Moulin Rouge, When Harry Met Sally, anything Pixar and Jurassic Park are just a few to give you a sample of my eclectic tastes.
Favorite movie snack: Gotta be popcorn with salt and butter. Second would be my wife's Chex Mix that she makes during the holidays. We mow through that in our house!
Favorite movie quote: Again, way too many to choose from here! “We're going to need a bigger boat.” “We all go a little mad sometimes.” “Soylent Green is PEOPLE! PEOPLE!!!”
Favorite actor/actress: There are just some actresses that are so good that I would watch them read a telephone book: Dame Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Dame Maggie Smith, Sissy Spacek, Glenn Close, Sally Field.
“I’ve always been a doodler (just take a look at some of my notebooks through school!), but never really thought I could make a profession out of it, so I kept it in my back pocket and let it come out through building and painting sets for school and designing program covers for events. I did a minor in Art in college to keep it active but majored in Marketing. I enjoyed keeping both sides of my brain balanced, but do admit I really enjoyed exploring my creative side.”
Matt also said, “I love drawing, but also watercolors. I am doing a lot more watercolors now and find it very relaxing. I actually have been asked to do watercolors of friend and family members homes as gifts and it's amazing to see them framed up in their homes.
I'm not an artist by trade, but have been fortunate to find a job where I have expanded my creative side at Torani Syrups for the past 20 years. I now manage our in-house Creative Services and have designed everything from packaging to point of sale materials and everything in between. I'm also one of our the core team members on our Community team which has been amazing to do arts and crafts with the Boys and Girls club each year and help put on an amazing Halloween for our team members. Somehow, it involves me in my garage building sets or props and it gets bigger and bigger each year!
We just rented Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (the Mr. Rogers documentary) and it was pretty amazing. I remember watching the show as a kid and it brought it all back. Such a simple, positive message that's appropriate for this day and age. I also really liked A Quiet Place, Baby Driver, and The Night Manager. It has also been really fun watching movies that I grew up with with our son, who laughs at the state of special effects ‘back then.’ Short Circuit and SpaceCamp are just a few of the most recent ones.”
Pierre Bernard Jr.
DVD Netflix member since 2010
From Van Nuys, CA
Favorite movie: My favorite movie is Back to the Future and the sequels. I love sci-fi, especially when it involves time travel and when done right you actually feel like there’s real science going on. Plus Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd play so well together, it never gets old. I am so glad they never tried to make a remake, there’s no way they could recapture that magic.
Favorite movie snack: My favorite movie snack is Traders Joe’s Movie Theater Popcorn. It’s the closest thing to actual movie popcorn in taste. I usually keep 3-5 bags always on hand at home.
Favorite movie quote: “I’m also just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her” from Notting Hill. If a woman ever said that to me, I’d marry her on the spot (assuming of course she’s an anime and sci-fi fan too)! My second favorite is “Here’s Johnny!” from The Shining.
Favorite actor/actress: There are four people who always come to mind immediately when ask this question (I have been asked this many times). The original cast of Stargate SG1: Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Judge. I met them and they are fantastic on and off camera. I still have a huge crush on Amanda, I think she’s an incredible actress and person. She’s long overdue for a big feature movie.
“Art is my everything. My parents saw that very early in me and made it a point to always make paper and crayons available to me. I still have some of my coloring books and 64 colors Crayola crayon sets from when I was young, plus a lot of the art works I created back then.”
Pierre also said, “Currently my favorite art medium is pen and ink, before that it was colored pencils. I love the fact that you can’t erase ink so every line place on the paper must be intentional. If I make a mistake, I usually start over. Some of the recent art am most happy about creating are what I call the ‘Meme Portraits.’ It an ongoing series of pen and ink portraits of friends, celebrities, and anyone I find would make an interesting subject. You can see them and a lot more of my artworks on my website, www.totallygraphic.com, and on my social media, Instagram and Facebook.
I am an artist by trade. My career started with me doing professional comic book lettering back in college for almost all the major comic companies, later I went into doing storyboards and comp presentations for advertising companies. I did graphic design for Prudential Securities and finally started working at NBC studio, occasionally being called in to do illustrations on Late Night with David Letterman. NBC then offered me a regular position on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, which grew into my doing on-air comedy on the show as well. It recently ended, and these days I am trying to figure out what’s next. While doing so, I like to host cosplay drawing events, this is another huge passion of mine. My website, www.cosplaylifedrawing.com, has a ton of pictures from past events.
The last DVDs I rented and would recommend: Avengers: Infinity War and As Above, So Below. I saw the last Avengers movie in the theatre and am still in shock from the ending. I felt it was totally worth a rewatch to see if I missed anything. As Above, So Below is one of those horror movies like Cabin in the Woods – strange but great!
I love anime, sci-fi, suspense, horror and some documentaries. Streaming is fun, especially when there’s a series I want to binge watch. But the act of physically loading a DVD into a player and watching it at home is what movie viewing is all about in my mind. It feels like am watching a theatre movie at home, whereas streaming feels like am just watching TV. That’s why I have both streaming and DVD services in my Netflix account.
Check out the awesome pen-and-ink illustration Pierre did of the 20th anniversary mug that we sent him!
