Report: Manhattan by annalena Weber

CinĂŠ Roman TYMPBP | Project Report

Annalena Weber Student number 22847265 Spring term 2015 University of Reading

Contents BRIEF

DISCOVER

Image of a book 8

Semantic poetry 11

TRANSFORM

Typeface 14

Format 17

MUSIC

Experimental music-notation 19

Schönberg and Gershwin 21

Illustration of music 25

Typefaces for music 27

MAKE Rules 29 Binding 31

SPECIFICATIONS Specification, Spring Term 32

Specification, Final Display 33

brie f

Brief Ciné roman TASK Translate a film into a book. ‘However you define Chris Marker’s 1963 short La Jetée – philosophical fiction, genre exercise, treatise on cinematic time – one fact is unavoidable: it resembles few other films. In fact, La Jetée does not define itself as a film at all – its credits identify it as ‘un photo-roman.’ This means literally a ‘photo-novel,’ but usually denotes those photographed comic strips popular in magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, especially in Europe. The label ‘photo-roman’ suggests that what we are watching ought to be a static object – a book, rather than a film (when La Jetée was issued in book form, by Zone Books in 1992, it bore a new subtitle proclaiming its filmic origin: ‘ciné-roman’).’ La Jetée: Unchained Melody by Jonathan Romney, 2007, http://www. criterion.com/current/posts/485-la-jetee-unchained-melody CRITERIA There must be a significant textual element. This could include: • title sequence • subtitling • dialogue • direction • voiceover • script DELIVERABLES • Everything that is needed to explain and specify the book. • Actual size sequence of full book layout. • Approx 80 pages unless agreed otherwise in tutorials. • Actual size dummy. • Full specification, paper samples, explanation of print production techniques. Workfile. 3 ASSESSED AREAS OF PROJECT • Transformation: This will be assessed on the appropriateness and originality of the design proposals. • Making/Specifying: This will be assessed on technical skills in generating appropriate concepts either digitally or by other means, craft skills in making visuals, and the clarity of specifications.

d iscove r

Discover Image of a book In order to create a first mental image of the book we were asked to write a text about what we imagine it to be. The book is in an extreme landscape format, extreme enough, that it is difficult to handle. A bit annoying, actually. A rubberband holds it together, otherwise the pages would have turned down corners by now. Even though you just bought it this morning. Not very practical. The jacket feels synthetic, but it´s not shiny, that´s good. Modern, you think, but nice to touch. You can see from the outside that the pages are all printed black. The book has been lying around next to your armchair the whole evening now. Like a dark brick, heavy, demanding attention. Actually you still wanted to work a bit, even though you know that your mind is not up for it anymore. So you give up and pour yourself a glass of red wine. As you open the book and flip through it, it loses its heaviness instantly. You notice that there is the talk of Gershwin’s music and you remember that you bought this LP on a flee-market some years ago. You stand up and put Rhapsody in blue on. You turn the volume up high, because, of course, nobody else is home. The music makes you a bit restless and you are happy that you can hold on to your very steady and calm glass of red wine. The book keeps on annoying you. The paper is too thin, why couldn’t they use a thicker paper, when the format’s already so difficult to handle. It kind of fits the music, though, fast, loud and nervous. That’s the word, nervous. Why the hell can´t that Woody-figure stand still for just one second. It’s all about him: Woody waving his arms around like a maniac. Woody staring at beautiful women. Beautiful women staring at Woody. Woody staring at yourself from every second page. The text, that kind of fits. It is set in different tones of grey on paper printed black. The text is white, when they talk loud and clear, grey when they mutter. And, of course, they mutter all the time! There is a lot of text. They talk too much… without really saying anything… you assume. Well actually… what they say is kind of funny. He is kind of a nice figure, after all, maybe not very trustworthy, that Allen. Some of the texts are hard to read. They are covered by other layers of type, bigger type, handwritten, half-tone like in the newspapers. In other parts of the book the music, you are listening to appears. Your glass is empty now, you turn down the music and go back to your arm-chair where you sit, uncertain what to do now, your knees moving up and down in an unsteady rhythm. You should take a walk around the block, you think.

d iscove r

Discover Semantic poetry ‘The relationships aren’t really the point of the movie: It’s more about what people say during relationships – or, to put it more bluntly, it’s about how people lie by technically telling the truth. ‘Manhattan’ is one of the few movies that could survive a soundtrack of its dialogue.’ http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/manhattan-1979 This quote was the initial inspiration for the design. I developed the idea further by concentrating more on the way the protagonist speak. The speed and the melody of the dialogue are a crucial part of the film, so I wanted to include this in the design. For that purpose I studied different examples of concrete and semantic poetry.

MARCEL DUCHAMP

see also: http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/typotranslation-linfinitif

STEFAN THEMERSON

14. Torniamo alle nostre pecore! La prima guerra mondiale. Cinque anni prima di Sarajevo, quando Mussolini aveva 26 anni, un bio-sismografo di nome Marinetti sentì la vibrazione sulla parete della pentola in ebollizione ed esplose con il suo manifesto futurista di giovane arrabbiato: “Siamo qui a glorificare la guerra: l’unica panacea del mondo! Militarismo! Patriottismo! L’arma distruttiva dell’anarchico! Le idee che uccidono! Disprezzo per le donne!” (1909). Sette anni dopo, analoga sensibilità del sistema nervoso fece andare altri artisti nella direzione opposta: la loro arte “doveva essere giovane, doveva essere nuova, doveva integrare tutte le esperienze sperimentali dei futuristi e dei cubisti”, ma soprattutto doveva essere internazionale, perché essi credevano in “un’internazionale dello spirito, e non in diverse concezioni nazionali”. Nessun “orgoglio italiano”, per loro! Essi “odiavano l’insensato e sistematico massacro della guerra moderna”. “Poiché la bancarotta delle idee ha distrutto l’idea di umanità fin nelle sue più nascoste profondità, gli istinti e i retroterra ereditari emergono ora patologicamente”.

Progetto graﬁco 4/5, febbraio 2005

15. “Poiché nessuna arte, nessuna politica o fede religiosa sembra in grado di arginare questo diluvio, rimangono solo le facezie e le pose sanguinanti! Quello che stiamo celebrando è allo stesso tempo una buffonata e un requiem di massa”. Le simpatie di Schwitters andavano a loro, e non a Marinetti. Certamente non alle conclusioni di Marinetti; per quel che riguarda le premesse di Marinetti, emotive e teoriche, non sarebbe ragionevole ripudiarle sbrigativamente. Egli ispirò Mussolini (“È Marinetti che mi ha instillato il senso dell’oceano e il potere della macchina”), ma anche Majakovskij e i poeti dell’avanguardia polacca, nessuno dei quali era “fascista”. Qualcuno di quelli che hanno conosciuto Marinetti dicono che fosse un jolly good fellow, e che il fatto che fosse ammirato dal Duce, che a sua volta era ammirato da Ezra Pound, non fosse da prendere sul serio. Beh..., non lo so. A ogni modo ha detto qualcosa sul funzionamento delle parole, sul maneggiare grammatica, sintassi e stile. Un confronto tra quanto scritto da John Milton sulla rima, in Paradiso perduto, diversi pollici a sinistra della mappa (“La rima non è un attributo necessario della poesia, ma l’invenzione di un’età barbarica, per mettere insieme versi miseri e metrica zoppa”) e quanto scritto da Marinetti, 250 anni dopo, sugli aggettivi e sulle forme verbali diverse dall’infinito. Spogliare il sostantivo di tutti gli aggettivi e isolarlo lo riporta ai suoi valori assoluti. Un aggettivo isolato, tra parentesi, darà l’atmosfera dell’intera storia. Le diverse forme verbali dovrebbero essere eliminate. L’infinito è quanto basta alla nuova lirica. Tavole sinottiche dei valori lirici ci permetteranno di seguire simultaneamente diversi flussi.

Progetto graﬁco 4/5, febbraio 2005

16. Sembra che Marinetti tratti il linguaggio non come mezzo di comunicazione, non come strumento per pensare, e neanche come espressione delle emozioni, ma come comportamento. Questo è forse vero anche per altri esperimenti di scrittura di quel tempo. Ed è affascinante osservare come lo studio del linguaggio come comportamento sia l’oggetto di quelle che oggi sono la neurolinguistica e la psicolinguistica: “Le idee, le percezioni e la metafisica di un’intera cultura sono determinate dalla struttura del linguaggio che gli è peculiare”. In altre parole: il nostro linguaggio pensa per noi. E quindi, se ci si vuole migliorare, modificando le nostre percezioni, e le nostre attitudini e il nostro comportamento, si deve cercare di modificare le nostre abitudini linguistiche, la nostra sintassi, il nostro vocabolario e il nostro stile. Questo è ciò che futuristi e dadaisti cercavano di fare negli anni venti, che i dittatori e altri politici cercavano di

see also: http://toppick.blogspot.co.uk/2005/07/semantic-poetry_ 112258624938930307.html http://www.themersonarchive.com/pageDmed.htm http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/reading-stefan-themerson/ http://www.gaberbocchus.nl/titles.html 11

discove r

STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ

see also: http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/French/MallarmeUnCoupdeDes.htm

ARTIST FROM WWW.UBU.COM ASTRONTAUTS OF INNER SPACE

BOB COBBING

HART BROUDY

d iscove r

BOB COBBING

IAN HAMILTON

IONESCO MASSIN

I hate myself when I’m doing this sort of thing. Well I don’t know But this is just, you know... isa ac

yale

This is not like that. isa ac

This is terrible.

Listen, you shouldn’t ask me for advice.

When it comes to relationships,

I’m the winner

of the August Strindberg Award. ***

yale

emily

and emily enter their dark apartment, discussing the evening

Well, I don’t think

17 is too young.

Besides that...

she’s a bright girl. yale

Well uh you’ll get no argument from me.

I think she’s terrific. He he could do a lot worse. He has done a lot worse. emily

I just think he’s wasting his life.

He writes that crap for television...

Yale, have you ever thought any more about having kids ?

Oh, my God. Kids. Listen, I’ve gotta get this book finished. yale

It’s never gonna get done I’ve gotta get the money to get this magazine started, huh?

Kids...

t rans f orm

Transform Typeface HISTORY Eleisha Pechy designed Windsor EF around 1900 for the British type foundry Stephenson Blake. Typefaces like Windsor were used extensively at the turn of the century in advertising on both sides of the Atlantic. Ed Benguiat (Tiffany, Bookman, Panache, Edwardian Script, Benguiat and Benguiat Gothic) used to have his breakfast at a diner in New Jersey. Woody Allen, who was also dining there one day, asked him what a good typeface was. Benguiat had an affinity for Windsor and suggested it to him that morning. He has used it in every film since. IN MANHATTAN I used Windsor Light Condensed BT like Woody Allen would use it in the credits of his films: in white on black in big sizes between 15 and 35pt. For specifications I used Windsor EF light in 9 on 12 pt in smallcaps.

Windsor Light Condensed BT, 27 pt on 33 pt Windsor EF Light, 9 pt on 12 pt poster to go alongside book

adored

Windsor EF Light Condensed He idolised it Make that...

Uh, no.

he... he

all out of proportion.

romanticised it all out of proportion.

poster to go alongside book 15

format 1

format 2

format 3 format 4

t ransf orm

Transform Format Initial thoughts: • The format of the book should be of the same proportion as the format of the movie. • By binding the sheets on the short edge, the book has the shape of a skyscraper. An attribute to the movie’s main protagonist: New York. • Because the book should be difficult to handle – just like the characters in the movie – the format should be as big as possible I changed the format several times: • Format 1 93 mm x 221 mm • Format 2 118 mm x 280 mm • Format 3 (submission: Spring Term) 161 mm x 384 mm • Format 4 (submission: Final Display) 161 mm x 404 mm

t r ansformâ&#x20AC;&#x192; music

m u s ic t ransf orm

Transform Experimental music-notations George Gershwin’s music plays a big role in the movie. Nobody speaks when the music plays, which is a very rare phenomenon in the rest of the movie. Rather than trying to re-create the sheet music of the soundtrack I wanted to translate the rhythm and melody visually. To find an appropriate style I drew inspiration from different examples of experimental musical notation.

services

service ace

foot fault return

out

too short

second bounce

placement

drop shot

put away

smash

smash in the net

smash out

lob / lob out / lob in

volley / half volley

rush to the net / hurries back

passing shot

m u s ic t ransf orm

Transform Schönberg and Gershwin I discovered many different composers whose work would visually fit the style of Manhattan. But the fact that none of them had any direct connection to Allen, Gershwin or the movie bothered me. So I looked for musical notations that Gershwin created himself and came across his friend, composer Arnold Schoenberg. Schönberg, inventor of the twelve-tone technique, famously played tennis with his partner George Gershwin. Based on a transcription of the events in a tennis-match Schönberg created a new system of music notation. see also: http://www.brainpickings.org/2011/09/01/arnold-schoenbergtennis-notation-gershwi/

musical notation by Schönberg

A street near Mary´s apartment. It´s a bit later that night I sa ac and M ary are walking her dog. George Gershwin: Someone to watch over me

All-night luncheonette, where M ary , Waffles in her arm, and I sa ac , stand by the counter they wait for some just-grilles hamburgers to be put into takeout containers by the man behind the counter. M ary is laughing

I sa ac

M ary

So, are you serious with Yale or what?

Serious?

well, he’s married. Uh,

don‘t know.

I guess

I guess I should straighten my life out, huh? I mean

Donny, my analyst, always tells me... I sa ac

You call your analyst Donny?

first attempts to represent music 23

t ransform music

/ // \ / / \\\ / //// /// /// / /// // / / // / // // / \ // // / \ / // \ \ \\ \ \ // / // // \ // / // \ // // \ \ \ / I’d like to hear about your book.

> >> >> > > < > > > < << << < < < < << < > >> > >> << > > >> << > > > > > > << > > > > >> > >< < > > << < < < > > << >> > > > < I’d like to hear about your book.

I... I... I really would.

I’m quite a good editor.

Isaac picks up the takeout bag. Someone to watch over me begins again

Yeah? Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about... See, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist and I wanna expand it into a novel.

I sa ac

Yeah? Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about... See, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist and I wanna expand it into a novel.

I sa ac

I could talk about my book all night.

Isn’t it beautiful, Ike?

• • • • • • •• • • • • • ••• • • • • • • • • •• • • •• • • • • • • • • • • • •

M ary

• • • •

• • M ary

• •

•

• • • •• • • • • ••

•

I’d like to hear about

I... I... I really would.

• •

your book.

I’d like to hear about

your book.

I’m quite a good editor. Isaac picks up the takeout bag. Someone to watch over me begins again

Yeah? Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about... See, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist and I wanna expand it into a novel.

I sa ac

I could talk about my book all night. 59th street bridge. It is almost dawn. M ary and I sa ac are sitting on a bench, looking out over the water

M ary

I... I... I really would.

Isaac picks up the takeout bag. Someone to watch over me begins again

Isn’t it beautiful, Ike?

rythmic setting of different glyphs

I’m quite a good editor. Isaac picks up the takeout bag. Someone to watch over me begins again

Yeah? Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about... See, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist and I wanna expand it into a novel.

I sa ac

I could talk about my book all night. 59th street bridge. It is almost dawn. M ary and I sa ac are sitting on a bench, looking out over the water

Isn’t it beautiful, Ike?

I’m quite a good editor.

M ary

|| | | | | || | | | | | |||| | | | | | | | | || || | || | | | | | || | | | |||| | | | | | | || | | | | | | || | | | | | || | | | | | | || | | ||| |

• •

) ( ))) ( (((( ( )) )) ) ) (( (( ( ) (( (( ( ) ( ) ) ) )) (( ( )( )) ) (( ( (( ) (( (( ) ) ) ( I’d like to hear about your book.

I... I... I really would.

59th street bridge. It is almost dawn. M ary and I sa ac are sitting on a bench, looking out over the water

(

((

M ary

I... I... I really would.

M ary

( ((

Yeah? Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about... See, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist and I wanna expand it into a novel.

I sa ac

I could talk about my book all night. 59th street bridge. It is almost dawn. M ary and I sa ac are sitting on a bench, looking out over the water

M ary

Isn’t it beautiful, Ike?

♪

M ary

I’d like to hear about

I... I... I really would.

your book.

I’m quite a good editor. Isaac picks up the takeout bag. Someone to watch over me begins again

Yeah? Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about... See, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist and I wanna expand it into a novel.

I sa ac

I could talk about my book all night. 59th street bridge. It is almost dawn. M ary and I sa ac are sitting on a bench, looking out over the water

M ary

Isn’t it beautiful, Ike?

m u s ic t rans f orm

Transform Illustration of music Schoenberg’s tennis notation was much too playful for some of Gershwin’s songs, so I tried to illustrate the music in a rhythmic and less aggressive way. I also tried some very simple versions with just the title of the song and a musical note in the same type-size on both sides. I finally decided for this version, mainly because it was an opportunity to introduce blanc space in the book.

George Gershwin

Rhapsody in Blue

M ary

I’d like to hear about

I... I... I really would.

your book.

♪ Rhapsody in Blue ♪

M ary

I’d like to hear about

I... I... I really would.

your book.

I’m quite a good editor.

Isaac picks up the takeout bag. Someone to watch over me begins again

Yeah? Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about... See, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist and I wanna expand it into a novel.

I sa ac

I could talk about my book all night. 59th street bridge. It is almost dawn. M ary and I sa ac are sitting on a bench, looking out over the water

M ary

Isn’t it beautiful, Ike?

Yeah? Well, my book is about decaying values. It’s about... See, years ago I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist and I wanna expand it into a novel.

I sa ac

I could talk about my book all night. 59th street bridge. It is almost dawn. M ary and I sa ac are sitting on a bench, looking out over the water

M ary

Isn’t it beautiful, Ike?

rythmic setting of different glyphs 25

to tell me that, you know.

no.. I’ve been making good money off it mary

isa ac

for years,

till I quit my job to write this book.

Now I’m very, very nervous about it, you know, but... mary

Listen d’you wanna...?

stops to speak, when Isaay takes out his money to pay

Oh,

you don’t have to pay

isa ac

Oh, that’s OK. mary

No, no. I’m serious! Wanna walk by the river?

isa ac

You know what time it is now? What do you mean? mary

isa ac

Well, if I don’t get at least 16

hours, I’m a basket case.

representation of music

‘Someone to watch over me’ e

I read in a psychoanalytic quarterly. You don’t need a male.

m u s ic t rans f orm

Two mothers are fine.

Transform Typefaces for music

isa ac

Really?

I tried different – mostly jazzy – fonts for the titles of Gershwin’s music: Broadway, Narcissus, Bodega. I also tried out the decorative face Windsor Sword. But every typeface I tried contrasted in a negative way with the very expressive running text in Windsor. So I decided to use only Windsor throughout the whole book, with one exception: a musical note (to go along the music title) of Adobe Sonata.

Because I feel

very few people survive one mother. mary

Hm, well listen,

I gotta get my dog.

Wanna wait?

I gotta walk it. Are you in rush?

isa ac

Oh, no, sure.

What kind of dog you got? mary

The worst.

It’s a dachshund.

You know, it’s a penis substitute for me. isa ac

Oh,

I would have thought then

in your case a Great Dane. ***

A street near mary ´s apartment. It´s a bit later that night isa ac and mary are walking her dog. e

‘Someone to watch over me’ e

grid

make

Make Rules PAGE • The page is divided into 33 lines, > of which 30 lines form the text-panel • One line should equal roughly one second • The film is 96 minutes long > so the book should have around 192 pages. As sometimes time can feel very slow or quick, I don’t want the page to represent exactly 30 seconds. If a scene feels quick it should take less space than a scene that feels longer. TEXT AND TYPEFACE • Windsor EF light condensed • 27 point on 33 pt • loud, clear voice = big type-size • mumbling, shy, light voice = small type-size VARIATION OF POSITION ON THE LINE • saying immediately what you think = b eginning of line • thinking about what you want to say = e nd of line > position follows the flow of a dialogue or monologue VARIATION OF INTERLINEAR SPACING • pauses in a monologue or dialogue are represented by bigger leading EXCEPTIONS I did not follow these rules very strictly. Much of the final page design was based on my personal emotional interpretation. But they helped me as a starting point and basis.

screw binding

soft-cover

make

Make Binding As I wanted the visual of the book to be as close to how it would look like if it was produced industrially, I first thought of screw-binding. But this type of binding would have made the handling of the book much more difficult and it runs the risk of looking cheap. Therefore I decided on a glued hard-cover for the submission in the spring-term. However, this style of production did not resemble my initial idea of a hard-to-handle, floppy book. Additionally the book was very delicate to open because the perfect-binding was not strong enough to hold the pages together properly. So for the Final Display I chose japanese binding to make the book more stable and to ensure that it will survive the number of people looking at it in the Final Display. Japanese binding looks very elegant and often feels too designed. As this is not the style of book I have in mind I covered the thread with the softcover,which is going around the spine.

m ak e sp ecification s

Make Specifications, spring term FORMAT • height 161 mm • width 384 mm • pages: 127 BINDING • hard-cover • case binding • cloth on the spine and 15 mm on each front and back cover PRINT • The book should not cost more than 20 pounds, selling price • silkscreen (black paper, white ink): if this price is achievable by • Offset: (white paper, black ink): if silkscreen is too expensive PAPER paper inner pages,end paper • Offset: Olin, 90 gsm • silkscreen: Sirio black black, 80 gsm PAPER COVER • cardstock for cover: 1mm thickness • cloath: Fedrigoni, leather cloath, black, D18 • cover and backcover: Offset: Acroprint, milk, 80 gsm HEAD AND TAILBAND head&tail-band Gürth&Wolf GmbH, Art. 55608, 12.5mm, No: 000

s p e c if ic a t ions make

Make Specifications, Final Display FORMAT • height 161 mm • width 404 mm • pages: 127 BINDING • japanese binding • softcover, cloath goes around the spine PRINT • The book should not cost more than 20 pounds, selling price • silkscreen (black paper, white ink): if this price is achievable by • Offset: (white paper, black ink): if silkscreen is too expensive PAPER paper inner pages, end paper • Offset: Olin, 90 gsm • silkscreen: Sirio black black, 80 gsm PAPER COVER cover and backcover: white ink on black cloath: Fedrigoni, leather cloth, black, D18