Where the Wild Things Are part 2

In this post I'm going to talk more about the film adaptation than the book as they do vary in the depth of the story and I think the film is more of an adult fantasy film than a child's film. 

I love the beasts within the story. In the book the illustrations are beautiful. The beasts have a real human cross over. Some of them have human feet but are then covered in fur where as others have horns and chicken clawed feet. They are totally brought to life in the movie and its so worth a watch! It will open up your imagination and heart. 

Plastic dolls of the beasts.
Courtesy of Doobybrain.com

The main difference in the film is the depth that Jonze takes the beats personalities. 

They are very reflective of human emotions and when you watch it you will so be able to relate to most the situations and emotions! 

They are vast, feathered, horned, clawed, beaked and definitely wild — irrational and dangerous, even when showing affection.

You've got Carol, who is an impulsive wild thing,

KW is a loner,

Douglas is a peace keeper,

Judith is a pushover,

Ira is an aggressive and suspicious girlfriend,

Alexander is ignored, belittled and mistreated

and Bull is a quiet intimidating but hulk of a beast.

The film has many positive quotes through out it and this is one of them. We should never stop dreaming, hoping and imagining. This is something that we sometimes loose sight of when we grow up but we should never stop and this film really hit this home for me so I decided to right the craziest ideas and hopes down and I am going to do something about every single one of them!

My favourite quote from the movie.

I also think that the story is empowering to children and is the opposite of a nightmare or Brothers Grimm story as it is enabling children's imagination in a positive way as Max overpowers the beasts are scared of him and he is brave and no harm is done. 

I would like my designs to reflect this mismash of emotions and contrasts in behaviour and also aesthetics. I want something colourful but dark, warm and protective, textured and smooth, big but also small. I wonder if this is possible?!

My favourite image from the entire movie when all the animals and max are at one with each other.

Where the Wild Things Are

Naturally after the Secret Garden Party I had to revisit Where The Wild Things Are as it brings together all of my ideas and memories from the summer. 

 

This has a real nostalgic pull on my heart strings as I was read this book as a child and me and my brother would play at being max and the beasts! It has since been developed into a feature length film by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers that I am also a huge fan of. 

The front cover of the book. 

The basic outline of the story is of A young boy named Max has an active imagination, and he throws tantrums if others don't go along with what he wants. Following an incident with Claire (his sister) and her friends and his Mother paying more attention to her boyfriend than to him - max throws a tantrum and is sent to his bedroom by his mother. He runs away from home wearing his wolf costume at the time. Max not only runs away physically, but runs toward a world in his imagination. This world, an ocean away, is inhabited by large wild beasts, including one named Carol who is much like Max himself in temperament. Instead of eating Max like they normally would, the wild things befriend Max as he is not scared of them and he proclaims himself a king who can magically solve all their problems. He gets caught up in all of the beasts separate issues but also manages to make them have fun and gets them to dance by declaring that the wild rumpus has begun. He eventually misses home and realises that he can't save the beasts from being upset and angry. He realises that sometimes people do things they don't mean and that people are complicated so he decides to leave the beasts and go home. When he gets home he finds his mum has left his dinner by his bed and its still hot so she does still love him.  

I love this story as it is simply about childhood innocence and how children aren't adults and do confuse their emotions and don't yet understand how other people feel or why they do things. 

Im going to do a few posts about this as I'm fascinated by the story and the imagery involved in the book and film.

p.s. Im thinking of using the front cover as the colour palette for a autumn/winter collection what does every one think? Maybe too bright or too green?

Not so secret garden party part 3

Ok so this is my last post about this festival now!
The had a whole range of entertainment at the party including a paint throwing sub-party where people bought bags of powder paint and were able to throw them and cover people in gorgeous paints, this is very similar to the Indian festival of 'Holi". 


By far my favourite section was the adult toys section! This isn't as rude as it first sounds it was pure and innocent fun. They set up adult sized playgrounds which made you remember your childhood innocence and you couldn't help but get carried away and become as free and easy as a child. I loved this section of the festival as it was just amazing to watch everybody's transformation and seeing people have fun by improvising and using their imaginations. 
The quote in the image below summarises this for me. 

Image Nick Caro.   King Stag with tribal twist.

The theme really fitted in with my research and I was fascinated with the realisation on how we prepare our children for adult life as soon as we can and then as soon as we become adults with responsibilities we want to escape them all and become children again. We love nothing more than to dress up and swing around in playgrounds! We don't get to do this in the real world as society would think we were a bit strange so this weekend enables those wishes so we can become like children once again. 

 Everybody just let themselves go and didn't think about the stress of reality. I would totally recommend this festival to anyone who wants to just get away from it all for a weekend. You can be anyone you want to be and everyone is so open minded, anything goes its incredible! Just leave all of your sensible and rationale self at home as you wont need it for this weekend.

Not so secret garden party part 2

This festival was so amazing that I thought I would spread it out over a couple of posts to keep your attention! 

Everyone dressed up as their animal alter-ego inspired by "Where the Wild Things Are" and it was really interesting to walk around and observe everybody in their costumes as you could see peoples personalities by what they were dressed up as.

 Fancy dress is fascinating like that, for example when you go out and its fancy dress you can pretty much predict which one of your friends will be the most outrageous and which one will be the most boring! At the festival you had every type of costume and personality. There were alot of the alpha males dressed as stags (a couple even had a clash of antlers) and then the naughty deviant latex bunnies and then the shy mice contrasted with the minxy minnie mice! 

Danny North

http://i.imgur.com/zgkSt.jpg

This image sums up the weekend for me you can see all the animal alter egos. The king stags there and so is the minnie mouse minx!

I love the way this image is styled and would like to use it in my work for a shoot at the end of this project. I almost get the feel of a rabbit caught in headlights when I look at it with the outline and bright light. Maybe thats what it looks like to be a rabbit caught in headlights?!

Not so secret garden party part 1

I went to the Secret Garden Party this summer it was pretty much my highlight of the summer. Its my favourite festival of the entire year as its just so unique and majestic,  to sum it up in four words is a garden-party-gone-crazy! 

Its set in the 10 acre grounds of a Georgian Manor and it includes a river and a lake which you can do whatever you like in! It's one of the most beautiful and magical festivals in all the land, its ethos is all about creativity, colour and mystery. Its a escape from reality, with surprises and new experiences everywhere you look!

Images courtersy Danny North
Latex Bunnies and Horned Hairy Goats!

This year the theme was "Where The Wild Things Are" and everyone went full out with it! The costumes were amazing there was every type of creature and beast you could imagine from latex clad bunnies to hairy, horned goat-esque men! 

I love the two images at the top of this post as they show just how far everyone took the dressing up, it was amazing to walk around and see all these different characters. 

I love the look of the latex and the feel of it, its very tactile. I would like to use it at some point but I think I want to go for more organic textures like knit and fur with this project. 

This quote on the image is from "Where the Wild Things Are" and i think it reflects the attitude of the festival. Basically its a safe place for adults to be what they want to be for just one weekend and its all about being happy and not letting in any sadness or your adult stresses! The festival is the sadness shield and it will keep out all the sadness.

Ill post some more info about the festival later so check back to se some more amazing pics from the weekend!