Red Riding Hood Cosplay: Are You Afraid?

 

With all the attention to cinematic loveliness focused on some of the more popular fairy tale characters this year and last I'm not surprised to see people getting even more creative with their cosplay (short for "costume play") and photography.

Even though the examples here are clearly inspired by Catherine Hardwicke's recent Red Riding Hood movie adaptation, that doesn't take away from the final images. I really like the titled photo as a mock-book cover.

The title "Are You Afraid?" makes it clear the idea was to show a wary Red Riding Hood. Perhaps the apples are to represent temptation?

The cosplayer is GarnetTilAlexandros and the photographer is Мокрушина Оксана✪[MAD.CREATIVE.CHARACTER] aka mokrushina.

You can see even more photos from the cosplay shoot HERE.

Source: HERE

"Only Make Believe" Pageant of the Masters 2011 Fashion Shoot

 

A few days ago I posted about 2011's Pageant of the Masters: Only Make Believe art/performance and thought you'd like to see this related photoshoot.

The life sized paintings are fantastic backdrops for the creatively minded and, in this case, perfect for a fashion shoot.

I like that the model was required to pose in such a way as to become part of the picture rather than just in front of the work, which would have cheapened the idea. While the fashion and photos are beautifully done, somehow they feel a little... conservative, as if there's a more creative way they could have used these gorgeous 'settings'.

Check out the knight in the photo. Her name is Katie Moore and I'm guessing she was one of the official performers.

 I'm surprised this sort of shoot, incorporating the Pageant of the Masters paintings and sculptures, hasn't appeared in a print magazine yet. Maybe, until 2011 the themes were too traditional to play around with. Or maybe it's just that no one had had the idea until this year.

I'd love to see all the beautiful artistry and hard work by volunteers have more 'lasting tributes' (for example, by being professionally shot for magazines or books and available for purchase).

The Only Make Believe theme would have been a wonderful setting for some scenes in a film too. Consider all the backstage areas, the hubbub in the make-up and costume rooms, the construction and incorporation of the two dimensional and the human/three dimensional aspects as well as the "performing artwork" in front of crowds at night. How much fun would that be to write into a film? [Is anyone in Hollywood listening? ;) ]

Photographer: David Jakle
Fashion Director: Julie French
Model: Laurel Stovall; LA Models
Hair and Makeup: Jeffrey Paul; Exclusive Artist
Hair and Makeup assistant; Nong Tumsutipong
Photo assistant: John Teichert
Fashion assistant: Crystal Janke
Knight in St. George and the Dragon: Katie Moore

You can see a few more photos - and all the fashion information - HERE. There's more information about the Pageant itself HERE, which is part of the annual Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts, and the official website for the event is HERE.

Snow White by Jasmin Darnell

Snow White by Jasmin Darnell a.k.a. yasahime

After my little rant about bad illustrations in my previous post I simply had to put up something beautiful. I found this lovely illustration quite a while ago and it immediately came to mind as a gorgeous contrast and an example of how the illustrations mentioned could have been handled, inspiring kids and grown ups everywhere to go find beautiful fairy tale books of their own to read. This illustration isn't even considered complete, according to the artist's notes!

This Kiwi artist is only just getting going in her career and I wish her the best of luck in her plans to illustrate anthologies of children's literature. I'd love to see what she comes up with. While we wait for that to happen ;), she has a small Etsy shop HERE and a gallery on deviantArt HERE.

And speaking of beautiful illustration, here are just a few of my favorite illustrated collections of fairy tales (as one might suspect, I have many!), other than my Lang and multiple Dover collections, which I adore (H.J. Ford is one of my favorite illustrators of all time). These covers are in no particular order and are really just the first few I pulled off my (currently very mixed-up) shelves:

This I like because there are so many world tales in the book & the illustrations are like complete story murals all by themselves.

What are some of your favorite illustrated fairy tale volumes?

Once Upon A Time "The Book" Available For Pre-Order (& Some Notes On Henry's Book)

You may have noticed in a previous post I mentioned there was a fairy tale collection book coming from ABC's Once Upon A Time creators. That book is now available for pre-order.

It's available both through ABC.com or Amazon.com, though the ABC site's release date says 12/20 while Amazon says 12/27. (Interesting note - the ABC link has cafepress as part of its HTML address - very odd.)

Although the Amazon website makes mention of an ebook, the ABC site implies a print book with shipping dates. Perhaps there's an ebook version as well and it's the only version with the pilot script? Not sure.

 Here's the blurb:

This eBook features a special enhancement: the full pilot episode's script from the hit ABC show, Once Upon A Time. This beautifully illustrated collection of 30 tales from far and wide includes... Snow White, Hansel and Grethel, Cinderella, The Frog Prince, Rumpelstiltskin, The Bremen Town Musicians, The Elves, Little Red Cap, The Fisherman and His Wife, The Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, Rapunzel. . . and many more.

"Once upon a time . . ." Four simple words that, after more than two centuries, still have the ability to transport readers to lands of mystery, intrigue, and betrayal, life and death, love and abandon. Timeless are the tales of the Brothers Grimm who, in an effort to preserve native folklore, unwittingly crafted a cornerstone of Western literature.

With this book of fairy tales, beautifully illustrated by artist Kevin Tong, reacquaint yourself with the stories and characters you know and love. Run through the forest with Little Red Cap. Attend the ball with Cinderella. Eat an apple with Snow White. From witches to fairies, evil queens to kindly kings, frog princes and sleeping beauties, the Grimm tales are classics that are truly meant to be shared with young and old alike.

With a foreword written by the creators of ABC's show Once Upon a Time, we see that these classic tales continue to endure and inspire more storytelling. The series brings some of these classic characters to life in a bold reimagination of the fairy tale world. 
We invite you to reacquaint yourself with these magical stories and be transported once again with Once Upon a Time.

While I'm not very impressed with how the cover looks (first impression is of quick and cheap digital-for-web-only work) I'm hoping it will look much better in print. The illustrations are supposed to be lovely and include the poster artwork being released by Mondo and created by artist Kevin Tong (as shown in this post HERE). As you can see from his website, Kevin Tong has done some incredible and beautiful graphic/poster/print and illustration work so I have my fingers crossed for good things. :)

I'm sure you're just as curious as I am as to which version of the text they've used for each story - a Grimm/Dover version or their own based on one of the Grimm volumes. You can download a preview of the Rumpelstiltskin story/text HERE right now to see (scroll down for the PDF link).



Since we're on the subject of books and the ABC show, I'm going to add an aside here about the fairy tale book Henry is obsessed with in Once:

 

What the heck is going on with that??! There's a fantastic opportunity for a gorgeous (or at least classic looking) fairy tale book and all the key pictures/'illustrations' are digital frame captures/stills that have been put through a poster filter. These, quite frankly, look nasty.

Especially when, in turning a page on screen to get TO that image we flip past gorgeous Arthur Rackham prints.

(Sacrilege! Travesty! Yes, I'm being dramatic but I have quite a gut reaction to this key prop!) 

Why, oh why have they done it this way? There are so many incredibly talented artists (ie. hundreds in LA alone) who could easily draw and render beautiful and appropriate book illustrations representing the show and characters, let alone create a beautifully bound volume that every kid with an imagination would be drawn to opening. It's so badly done I actually cringe every time the book comes on screen. :/ For such a key item for the whole series I think it's worth a revisit and a bigger budget. (Plus think of the marketing potential!)

Back to the subject of Once merchandise, there's a lot more now available, t-shirts, mugs and more. My favorite would have to be the Snow White "wanted" poster. I wish there were more pieces like this, using items from the show itself, or perhaps with the Storybrooke sign/logo on it instead of just the series title.

 You can see and order all the goodies, at quite decent prices (at the moment anyway- collectible conscious people will be stocking up!) HERE.

The Princess Bride @LACMA Live Read Event

 From G1988:

We've produced another poster for the ongoing Film Independent @ LACMA Live Read Series w/ Jason Reitman and this is the best yet. Matt Owen has done it again, getting even more love from Entertainment Weekly this time, as Reitman has recast the classic movie "The Princess Bride," and this new generation of actors will perform a table read of the script live and in person on December 15th. The tickets sold out in about 15 seconds flat, but there will be a stand-by line that night, and this time, WE'LL BE SELLING THESE POSTERS THERE! There were only 100 made, and they are beautiful. Past live read events have included The Breakfast Club (where Jennifer Garner, Aaron Paul & James Van Der Beek took roles) and The Apartment (where Pierce Brosnan, Natalie Portman & Steve Carrel joined). Jason keeps the cast a mystery until the last minute, but he has announced Patton Oswalt (in the Vizzini/Wallace Shawn role) and G1988 homie Nick Kroll (in the Count Rugen/Christopher Guest role), so this one will not be a let down.

We will be outside the auditorium before and after the read, so even if you don't have tickets, you can purchase a poster if you like.

 You may be aware that there was a cast reunion of The Princess Bride recently which included much ad-libbing and fun photos (yep, the Princess Bride cast are Princess Bride geek fans too! lol). The only sad thing from the reunion seemed to be that André René Roussimoff a.k.a. André the Giant couldn't be there with them (he died in 1993).

The Princess Bride cast then...

 

And now...

 Click the image above for a larger view. You can also see additional contemporary single portraits of cast members from the reunion event HERE.

This G1988/LACMA live read event on December 15th, follows on from that - finding a new generation of actors who can wear the shoes of Princess Buttercup, Wesley and all our other favorites.

This sounds like a lot of fun. And what gorgeous posters. (Only 100 made? I do not want to guess how much they will be selling for!) Here's hoping someone will tape the event and release some of it for us this week.

Pageant of the Masters 2011: Only Make Believe

I didn't know about this at the time but apparently this year's Pageant of the Masters theme, from the Festival of the Arts in Laguna Beach, CA was Fantasy. Specifically, "Only Make Believe."

[If you don't know what Pageant of the Masters is, it's essentially where they take live people and turn them into famous works of art, on stage for a sit down show/performance. Each actor is made up to blend into the painting - which is also reproduced person-sized, complete with prop pieces to help the actors blend in - and they must hold their pose for 90 seconds at a time while the story of the painting is told to the strains of a live orchestra. Neat stuff!]

This would have been wonderful to see in person. Apart from a simply awe-inspiring show and feat of art this year they apparently had Edmund Dulac's Cinderella With Fairy Godmother* AND Cinderella Sitting In The Ashes (please see note at end of post), along with Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Arabian Nights and many more (the videos show the most variety of pieces.)

 Here's a video with some of the behind-the-scenes work put into the Cinderella paintings/ performances, though this is from 2007. (I'm a little confused - did they duplicate this one for the 2011 show? See my additional note at the end of the post):

From fairies to superheros, here's another to give us a preview (now, a post-view!) of what people could expect to see:

Luckily there are a few photos from around the web to give us some closer and more specific glimpses, though why I can't find some decent ones of the Cinderella pieces is (frustratingly) beyond me.

And because I couldn't get enough glimpses myself (and thought perhaps you couldn't either) this news spot video shows some different works again:

There's so much work that goes into duplicating these paintings and making a 90 minute show. It's quite phenomenal. While I'm sad to have missed this year's works of Rackham, Dulac and many more, the Pageant of the Master's is definitely on my to-do list before I leave LA (whichever year that will be).

Pageant of the Masters happens every year in Laguna Beach, near Los Angeles. Next year's theme (2012) is "Genius".

 

*I've found a weird anomaly of a Dulac Pageant of the Masters photo from an earlier year, though the  program and promo videos and photos clearly showed Cinderella in the Ashes by Dulac happening in 2011. In one of the videos the two painting-performances are shown side by side so I'm a little confused by this one!