So! Here are my final outcomes.

Memento (2000)

I’ve explained the rationale behind this one enough. I chose it for the tote bag because the quote is particularly meaningful to me. We all reflect and refract each other to remember who we are.

 

Kill Bill (2003)

I refined earlier ideas, focusing more on representing every aspect of the quote and keeping it in line with the movie. I melded a lioness’s head and a robot’s body to depict rationality. The hybrid holds a gun to display mercilessness and bloodlust. I should have edited the lioness-bot to be more obviously trampling the field of flowers (positive imagery for mercy, compassion and forgiveness), but there you go. The wedding arch is present because the film is about a bride going on a roaring rampage of revenge.

Serenity (2005)

I superimposed an image of a globe onto an apple. I coiled a snake around it and then had it use a sword to chop off its own head. Since the movie contained talk of sin and references to Christianity, I thought it appropriate to use biblical imagery of the serpent in Genesis that tempted Eve. It’s cutting off its own head because the movie was making the point that for the world to be without sin, it has to be empty of people. So you’d have to kill yourself to get rid of it completely.

 

Daydream Nation (2010)

I have to explain this one! I changed the quote because that other one was too specific to Cabin in the Woods and required a lot of context.

Daydream Nation is about a seventeen-year-old girl named Caroline Wexler who moves from the city to a small town and thinks to herself: “Don’t we all wanna be somebody different sometimes? Someone smarter and sexier and bolder than we really are?” So she starts a sexual affair with her English teacher. However, when he shows her the manuscript of the novel he’s writing, which portrays her as the perfect love interest who saves the male protagonist from his depression, she gets angry. She tells him the only reason he describes her as this flawless, ethereal thing is that all they do is flirt and have sex, and she’s not here to save him. She’s the main character of her own life, with her own experiences and qualities that he doesn’t know about and shouldn’t act like he knows about.

I placed an image of a small town going up in flames within the frame of a book to show that this is happening in one story. The cat represents the aloof, dispassionate, fiercely independent, sometimes catty Caroline Wexler. I tried including a beeper, but it wouldn’t be as recognisable as a phone off the hook. Not answering the SOS call, because she’s the main character of her own life.

 

And here they all are, with the tote bag.

 

Reflection

I was excited when I got the brief, because I do love films. I knew quite a few with very witty and intelligent dialogue but narrowed the quotes down to these four because they would be fun to depict. Choosing elements to represent aspects of each quote was tricky, though. Especially trying to keep them looking vintage, which I decided to forgo for some. I learnt Photoshop techniques and design principles that will definitely come in handy in future. The silkscreen printing process was really cool! I liked the entire process of slathering the silkscreen with layers of emulsion and sticking the transparencies on. And washing the emulsion off! The printing was hard to get right because I kept using too much ink and the prints kept turning out overly dark. I’m glad I managed to use the right amount for my tote bag. Overall, this was a fun project that I learnt a lot from.