Pan’s Labyrinth

I simply adore this film, and despite its fantasy genre, this film reveals a lot about the reality of the real world. Despite the negative connotations of the quotes I choose, I hope that they will teach us to enjoy every moment of our life.

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1. “Among men, there was only talk of fear of death and pain, but never of the promise of immortality.”

This is a very long quote. Hence, I broke it down by highlighting the key words, which are “men”, “fear”, “death”, “pain”, “never” and “immortality”. I decided to not prioritise the word “men” as it is not the main part of the quote.  Hence, I started to research on “fear” and “death” first.

For “fear”, I thought of my own personal experiences. Whenever I experience fear, or anxiety, such as when I am in an uncomfortable situation, I will always feel dizzy and light-headed, which causes me to feel nauseous. Therefore, I decided to use an image of a optical illusion for this as such optical illusions often cause dizziness.

 

For “death”, I decided to use conventional symbols such as the human skull (the word “men” is also illustrated here) and chrysanthemums (white ones, or black ones to symbolise wilting flowers). This is so that viewers can easily understand what the images mean.

 

For “immortality”, I researched on symbols that represent eternal life. The phoenix, the ouroboros, and the peacock all represent eternal life. I decided to use the peacock as it is an ancient christian symbol of eternal life. ( I am a christian myself) I decided to use peacock feathers to make it less direct.

For “pain”, I wanted to represent it using tears, to represent emotional pain. This is because in my opinion, emotional hurt is worse than the physical ones.’

Below are the sketches I have thought out for the quote:

I chose option 2 as I find it the most appealing.

I decided to not use the tears as it is too direct. Furthermore, who will notice the small teardrop? It is better if I use something a bit more indirect and eye-catching.

Hence, I decided to use a cross instead.

I decided to use a cross as it commonly represent the pain and suffering of Christ in a Christianity.

Here is my first draft:

 

I decided that I want to place even more focus on the “pain” in the quote. As you can see above, the broken skull and the crucifix were used to represent ‘pain’. However, the broken skull is not very obvious and hence I decided to add in another motif of pain. Initially, I wanted to add in flames, to represent physical pain. However, this will make the design look too chaotic. Hence, I decided on another idea (which I will mention in another post where my final submission will be placed).

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2. “Life is not like in your fairy tales, the world is a cruel place.”

For this quote, I focus on the key words “Life”, “not”, ‘fairy tales”, “world” and “cruel”. I came up with several ideas that I sketched out on a piece of paper:

The first one is suppose to be mythical creatures being squished by their real-life counterparts. This idea is rejected, however, as there is too much things happening in the design, and hence it will be too chaotic. Thus, I decided to try and use the other two ideas.

The first idea I tried out was idea 2. The fish in a fish bowl and in a frying pan was an idea suggested by Shirley. I decided to improvise on the idea by using a rabbit instead. This is because there is a scene where a bunch of dead rabbits/ hares are found in a civilian’s bag ( implying that he killed them).

This is the same civilian who was shot by Captain Vidal, the antagonist in the film. In this scene, the civilian is not as pure as he seemed to be as he killed the rabbits, which are often associated with innocence due to their cute demeanour ( and also because they are mainly herbivores) . This scene shows the cruelty of the world, and hence implies that not everyone is a innocent as they seem; everyone has a tinge of evil in them.

Because of this scene and the significance of it in relation to the quote, I decided to use a rabbit for my design idea.

Below is the design I came up with:

On the left, a live rabbit and gerbera daisies are placed. Gerbera daisies are flowers that represent innocence, purity and cheerfulness. Hence, together with the live rabbit, they represent the innocence in fairytales. The rabbit is been blurred out on purpose (using the blurring effect in photoshop) to represent the transient state of fairytales.

On the right, paint splatters are used to represent blood, which symbolise the cruelty of the real world. The knife is used to emphasise on that idea as well. I also photoshopped a skinned rabbit to make the scene on the right side even more gruesome to highlight the intensity of pain and hurt. The colours on the right and left side are inverted to show sharp contrast and hence the sharp difference between fantasy and reality.

This design is not chosen in the end as it is too two- dimensional compared to my chosen idea. Furthermore, there is a lack of definite focus due to the blurry effect of the rabbit.

Hence, for my finalised idea, I used number 3.

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Dallas Buyers Club

I actually watched this because Jared Leto acted in it, and I was quite into him because of the Suicide Squad trailer. It is a really good film, with many takeaways, regardless of our beliefs ( e.g. pro-LGBT or not).

Anyways, here is a quote I picked from the film:

3. “I prefer to die with my boots on.”

Identity. That is the first word I thought of when I read this quote. To die with my boots on means to die being myself (based on the context of the quote, which is said by an aids patient who decided to obtain safer drugs than those provided to him at the hospital). And that is my interpretation for this quote.

I first break down the quote by highlighting the keywords: ‘die’ and ‘boots on’. Next, I find icons and symbols associated with Identity.

I thought of using thumbprints at first:

And perhaps to make it even more personal, I thought of using cross-shaped thumbprint.

However, I tried grouping them, and it did not end up well.

From afar, they do not look like thumbprints at all. Furthermore, since it is possible that this design will be used for silk screening, it is not ideal for it to have too many details. Since I am planning to group images of “identity” together, it is better not to use thumbprints.

Hence, I decided to use identity cards instead.

As for ideas, below is a sketch page I did for the possible designs I came up with:

I ended up choosing design number 2.

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Princess Mononoke

This is one of my top favourite Studio Ghibli film! I really love it because the story plot is good, and the animation is beautiful, and the music also, and I really love the combination between man and nature.

4. “To see with eyes unclouded by hate.”

I really like this quote as it tells us to look at things with an open mindset. In a world where discrimination is so prevalent, this quote reminds me to be unbiased and understand things from multiple perspectives.

For this quote, I choose the keywords ‘see with eyes’, ‘unclouded’ and ‘hate’.

Initially, I thought of using windows to represent the eyes, since, as the commonly used metaphor states, ‘ the eyes are the windows to your soul’. However, I thought that this representation is too generic.

Hence, to make it more interesting, and to make it more personal, I decided to use a biblical quote instead. It is from Matthew 6:22 ” The Eye is the lamp of the body.”

Therefore, I decided to use a lamp to represent the eyes.

I edited the lamp to this:

 

I decided to decorate the lamp with flowers:

For the word ‘hate’, I initially thought of using the Nazi symbol, as even till today, this symbol is considered as one that is of hatred and cruelty.

Below are some designs I came up with:

Design 1

Well this one is horrendous. I tried to shape the Nazi symbols into neat Japanese cloud patterns. I then tried to arrange accordingly, and uses the skulls to try and salvage the design. It looks plain, and static.

Design 2

This design is way better. There is a greater focus and compared to the previous one, this one is less cluttered. I use the suit to hint that the quote is from a guy. 

Sadly, this design is still quite messy and need some edits; the nazi symbols stands out too much. So I tried to put a darker background instead:

It looks better. But the Nazi symbols make the clouds look very static. It will be better if the clouds look turbulent since they should represent ‘hate’. Furthermore, it will be nicer if I change the suit to something else so that the hint will be more subtle.

Hence, I decided to change my design, which will be shown on the final post.

 

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 Silk screening Process

I really look forward to doing silkscreening because this is when you can see your design ‘comes alive’. I took such a long time to decide on which design to print, especially because I find all of them appealing in their own ways. I finally decided on which one to print, of course.

We printed 2 copies of our design on transparency, and coated our silkscreen with blue emulsion.

^ My friend applying the emulsion, while I nervously wait for my turn to try.

 

After we let it dry, we placed the transparency on the silkscreen and place it in a really cool machine which will expose our transparency and silkscreen with UV rays. Here is a picture of the super awesome machine:

Emulsion on parts where light is blocked will remain water-soluble, and we washed off these parts with running water.

Next we did some printing!

First Batch

I did not wash off all the blue emulsion before letting the silkscreen dry. As a result, many of the details are gone.

I ended up removing the blue emulsion and redid the photo-emulsion screen printing process.

Here is my silkscreen after I redid the whole process:

Second Batch

I tried to place some coins under the board this time, since it is assumed that doing so will prevent the print from staining.

It did not work for me though. There was blotches of ink all over.

 

 

Blotches everywhere.

 

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I decided to stick to my own “no coin” method.

 

Third batch

Yes, this batch is good. Though not all the details from the design appear, the main shapes and elements can be seen clearly.

I tried to print on tissue paper before I do it on my tote bag, because I want to make sure that my final print will be good.

Is this a tissue paper tote bag or a mini banner?

Our future plastic ( tissue paper ) bag design probably?

 

I finally printed the design on my tote bag:

Well, I guess it failed.There is too much ink there. The print looks so creepy. 

I reprinted it again and it finally turned out well. I am glad it only took me 2 tries on the tote bag to get a good print.

 

Final silkscreen piece and the 4 final designs will be on the “Forrest Gump- Final”