.060
in which I make non-fandom icons that probably no one will use. lol. but anyway, this month's theme at 20inspirations was "epitome" and I thought it'd be a nice challenge to make an icon for each and every one of my favorite films. That...didn't happen as I feel like I'm about to get sick (stop playing with photoshop until 5 in the morning and go to sleep Ayn!) haha. so here's the 20 I managed to make:
icon:daynawashere, theme, open/texture, texture, theme
theme, empty, wallpaper:takethewords/texture, texture, ending/texture
icon:darlingbones, theme, theme, closure, theme
engulf, angst, raw, theme, death/icon:darlingbones
I thought I'd let the films themselves (and their soundtracks) inspire me which is why I used mostly the words as prompts. And since it's impossible not to explain these, I'll um...explain. lol WARNING! Rambling below...
1. Chungking Express - aka losers in love: The Woman in a Blonde Wig with her cool anonymity, Cop 223 with his cans of expired pineapples, wondering when love will expire, Cop 663 in his loneliness talking to stuffed animals (and other inanimate objects) and finally Faye, dreaming of California and a man too preoccupied to really notice her. it's hard not to go color crazy with Wong Kar Wai so I did just that.
2. In the Mood for Love - so I'm basically in love with everything Wong Kar Wai but this film is just everything I want to make when I grow up. I tried to replicate his love for obscurity with excessive blending lol (except for the white light blobs all textures are from the caps themselves) and I chose the caps with bars to signify how they're trapped and their inability to truly express how they feel for each other.
3. The New World - this initially started out as a simple blend to show Malick's philosophy of openness with nature and our spirituality but i ended up playing with it and just loved how this one looked like an illustration. In other news, I should really icon this movie more. It's probably the most gorgeous thing ever committed on film. (okay, it's tied with In the Mood for Love and The Fall. and Alain Delon)
4. Pride & Prejudice - again, it started out as a simple blend from a cap from their first dance--which I thought showed both their pride and prejudice very well. Then I messed around with it. Sometimes I think I should be kept away from textures.
5. The Fall - I wanted to capture her innocence and his, well, non-innocence and the story that bonded them together. Um, I'm not sure if I succeeded and this is one of the icons I'm not 100% happy with but I didn't know what else to do with it. so...um, concrit please?
6. La Belle et La Bete [Beauty and the Beast] - I wanted to show a fairy tale, basically and all it's elements: a story, a rose, a transformation--or in this case, the beginning of. (Nobody likes it when the beast turns into a prince. Really, why do they always make the Beast so adorable?)
7. L'Eclisse [The Eclipse] - the first icon I made and probably my favorite because i think it captures everything about the film perfectly: the empty gazes, empty passion and empty street corners where the lovers eventually--spoiler!--fail to meet. I've written more about this film here if anyone's curious about it.
8. Vertigo - I initially picked the caps planning to do a circular version of takethewords's twin peaks wallpaper. Then I stumbled on this texture and it was just...perfect. I know, lazy right?
9. There Will Be Blood - I feel like this icon took me bloody forever. I found the cap easily enough which I think illustrates Plainview's sense of isolation perfectly. At first I wanted to put a quote (I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people) but nothing seemed to work so I left it alone. Then I found the bloody circle texture but on a black background it just seemed so plain so I left it again for days. Finally I found the cross texture thing which ties in nicely with its religious themes and thank god I did because I wouldn't be posting this now if I didn't. lol.
10. The 400 Blows - I sometimes forget how much I love this film. And then I watch it again for some reason or other and it always amazes me how wonderful it is and weirdly enough, puts me in a good mood considering it doesn't really end happily. Here our hapless hero has managed to run away and see the ocean but he's trapped with nowhere to go. (freeze frame, roll credits! but his story does continue in 3.5 more films.) I put the border to make it as claustrophobic as I can in contrast with the freedom of the ocean behind him.
11. Batman Returns - I've been dying to use this line in a graphic for like, forever. (it's one of my favorites from a poem by Margaret Atwood whose title is too long to put here and I'm too lazy to google anyway. had something to do with Sekhmet the goddess of war i think) so yeah, i think it fits Catwoman to a t. (or in this case, it fits like a skintight leather catsuit)
12. Bright Star - Fanny as muse. Yeah, I have nothing to say really except that I didn't mean to make it so pink(!) and that it's really hard not to fall in love with someone who wears (not to mention makes) a collar like that. also, obligatory rant on how this could have lost best costume design in the Oscars. I feel like it should have won for Paul Schneider's plaid jumpsuit alone. Also obligatory rant on how Abbie Cornish got seriously snubbed by everyone. (favorite performance of that year yo!) I just have many feelings about this film okay?
13. Stage Beauty - speaking of favorite performances, this is definitely a mediocre film that is forever in my heart because of a wonderful performance...namely the woefully underrated Billy Crudup (never mind all the brouhaha with Claire Danes) seriously, all you have to do is watch this scene and you'll see but really he's fantastic in everything. And he makes a very pretty (and believable) lady. this is an attempt to capture the duality of his nature--as man trapped in a woman's body (or was it the other way around?)
14. Lost in Translation - there's a wonderful sense of closure in this scene even though you're dying to know what happens next, if they ever meet again and what the hell did he whisper in her ear? But it's somehow enough to know that these two unlikely people met and connected in the most unlikely of places.
15. Rusalka - there are some films you just instantly fall in love with and this is one of those. A twisty modern retelling of The Little Mermaid (the sad one, not the Disney version) and it's just impossible not to fall in love with its (and by that I mean its main character Alisa's) charms. I thought it fitting to keep the sea ever moving on while she's frozen and smiling, her infectious spirit still unbroken.
16. The Hours - I was actually listening to Howl to get some inspiration (for another film, The Company of Wolves) which got me listening to their new single What the Water Gave Me with all its shout outs to Virginia Woolf so I just had to quote it in a Virginia Woolf icon.
17. Howl's Moving Castle - From one of my favorite moments when Howl goes all emo (I see not point in living if I can't be beautiful!) just because his hair was the wrong color--which I think sums up his vanity perfectly. This is me experimenting with gif-ing again. All it's missing really is oozing green slime but I'll need actual magic to pull that off.
18. Reconstruction - because how else would you icon a film about falling in love and your life literally falling apart because of it?
19. Monty Python's Life of Brian - everything's so serious so I thought I'd sneak in some Monty Python in this set. lol. Confession: My favorite Python film is actually ...Holy Grail but it was evading me how to epitomize it. This was just waaaaay easier *whistles*
20. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - the way I planned it was to have Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and the skull (alas Poor Yorrick) but then I just had to sneak Iain Glen there somewhat like the sneaky stan I am because he's now my favorite screen!Hamlet ever (and I've seen Olivier, Gibson, Branagh and Tennant versions. Not their fault, I usually can't take Hamlet and his overdramatic [debatably] teenage angst--but in a comedy where he shines as the troll he really is, well it's love apparently.) Anyway, I feel like this should be funnier but since it's a play where basically everyone dies it should be about death.
phew! well that took me hours to write. and now the sun is up and I really need to sleep but i just have to say that this will be my last icon post in a while since I need to concentrate on composing now. Hopefully I'll be free by the end of October or who knows? I'll schedule it in like the addict I am. XD