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Some books make really bad movies — take Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. While others, such as There Will Be Blood, havemade really, really great movies. Luckily, the students at New World School of the Arts have good taste in both lit and flicks.
At the end of October, NWSA and Centro Cultural Español opened “The Film Poster” at the New World Gallery. The exhibit showcases 50 cutting-edge works of graphic designers from Mexico and the United States. Students were asked to design posters for books that been adapted for the screen, with the hope of reinterpreting the story once again.
Led by New World School of the Arts design faculty, Rosario
Martinez-Canas, and through workshops with world-renowned Cuban graphic
designer Rene Ascuy, 17 students participated, creating the yet another interpretation
of the narrative.
Martinez-Canas describes the process: “The topic of the workshop
was the Film Poster. One of the requirements of the workshop was that
students had to select three books that were made into films. The
reasoning behind this requirement was that the graphic design solution
students arrived at in their search to resolve their film posters would
ultimately becomes the third interpretation of each story.”
In the end,
the students selected 1984 written by George Orwell and directed by Michael Radford; Fight Club written by Chuck Palahniuk and directed by David Fincher; and Memoirs of a Geisha written by Arthur Golden and directed by Rob Marshall.
There was also a simultaneous show in Puebla, Mexico, called
the 11th International Biennial of the Poster, where eight NWSA students also exhibited their posters. The shows in the U.S. and Mexico are duplicates of each other, with the 50 film
posters evolving from the workshops with Ascuy.
According to Martinez-Canas, “The
workshop tested essential aspects of the design such as creativity,
syntheses, and typography as symbol.” Overall, the experience with Ascuy
proved to be an incredible opportunity: “Working with Rene Ascuy
challenged the students to use the metaphor as an effective tool of
communication,” says Martinez-Canas.
Micah
Milner, a senior at New World School of the Arts and chosen for both
shows, found the opportunity to be a chance to work internationally and
witness the “inherent depth in all of the posters.” Milner’s poster
portrayed an interpretation of Fight Club, a favorite movie and book of his which presents societal and political issues used to influence his design idea.
The
poster is one of the more provocative of the group. A urinal
(photographed at Churchill‘s) with a tainted Starbucks logo for the
drain is meant to parallel the abandoned house in the movie. It also
expresses Palahniuk’s feelings concerning “corporate greed, business
conglomerates that are too big to fail, and government growing larger
and spending more at an exponential rate,” which Milner attempts to poke
fun at in his poster.
Milner also found the interaction with Ascuy
rewarding saying, “I loved the fresh approach that Rene Ascuy brought to
the table, and he had a very concise idea for what he wanted in the
poster. Working with deconstructing ideas into their rawest most
poignant form and using symbols to do it.”
Other film posters include intersecting black and white hands to portray an interpretation of Fight Club and origami in a bird cage for Memoirs of a Geisha.
“The Film Poster” is free and open to the public until Friday, December 17 at the New World Gallery (25 NE Second St. Miami). Visitnwsa.mdc.edu.
