Book Statement

The concept for my book is a short silent film style story. I took inspiration from Chaplin films and photographed my own short story. I got people together and dressed them up into different characters suitable for the theme. I also attempted to make small settings appropriate for the story. I used the words from actual intertitles, from three specific films, combined to create a general story open to interpretation.

I manipulated the images in Photoshop removing and replacing objects that would reveal a modern setting. I made the images look more dated and like film, and then preceded to bring them into InDesign. In InDesign I organized the photos and combined them with the text pages I created in Illustrator. I found a border suitable for the project and traced it in illustrator before bringing it into InDesign.

In InDesign I used the fonts Eccentric Std, Apple Chancery, Copperplate Gothic Light and Garamond. The fonts were very similar to the fonts I viewed in the film “The Kid”, which were likely designed by hand. The title page and final pages are designed after the intertitles from that film. I also incorporated a light gradient to lighten up the black background and make it seem like projected light.

I decided to construct my book in the form of an oversized film reel. I printed the images on the wide format printer in long strips and put them together by hand and onto the reel. I felt that my images had a humorous and mocking feel and so a more absurd form of binding would be appropriate.