Overall

Overall I have really enjoyed this project as I have been able to use my imagination to the max. I have so many more ideas I would have liked to produce if I only had more time, like creating a series of film or adverts similar to the ‘protect and survive’ series,  radio announcements, news reports and internet warnings. I feel the pieces I created where successful at answering the brief I set to do, however if I had more time I could have took higher quality photographs to work with.

In the Street

As I will not be able to portray the poster in the context they are in within the studio space, I have taken images of the posters in my street.

Final Pieces 'Warning - Alien Invasion on Earth'

I got a positive response for all the posters, leaflet and hat from my tutor and peers; however there was one small change to make to ensure the pieces looked as professional as could be, this was to have borders to guarantee the text and images fit correctly on the pages when printed.

The thought of enlarging the 3 posters from size A4 to A3 would be an improvement as they would look more like posters.

Final Pieces:

'Warning - Alien Invasion on Earth'

'Keep Calm and Carry On'

The idea of having ‘Stand as Still as a Statue’ as an iconic saying, could be linked with the ww2 phrase ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. From this I recreated the famous poster ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ with the alien invasion phrase. 

The Leaflet

Instead of using diagrams to show how to use the product, I decided to use photographs to fit in with the current technology and get a professional outcome. I experimented with different layouts. I didn’t feel the bottom three images where strong enough, and thought the leaflet looked better with just the text in place. Also I noticed a spelling mistake which had to be quickly amended before printing.

First Poster

Here was the first poster I created:

After having a group crit, the others thought the type face was incorrect for this type of poster and should choose one more simple and bold font.  Therefore I went on to change the font to something similar used in the original ww2 posters. I used the same font through all the posters and information leaflet.

As I wanted to produce realistic propaganda, I should include all the government markings (E.g. issued by The Ministry of Home Security) But updating them to fit in with today.

Designing & Making

From the Three propaganda posters I looked at, here are the designs for the alien invasion recreations.

After designing them I used the software Photoshop to produce them, it was all straight forward and I didn’t have any major setbacks, apart from playing around with the colouring and layout.

To fit in with today’s technology, I chose to photo edit the pictures I took and gathered from the internet, rather than use drawings like the ww2 posters were. I feel this way was more successful and showed my skills greater.

Tin Hat

As I have chosen to create tin hats as my protective products, similar to how ww2 had gasmasks. I will be creating the story where these tin foil hats can only be received by the government, and cannot be home made, as there is a certain way it is shaped and a special seal has been applied to make it work.

Also adjustable straps will be applied onto all hats to ensure they stay correctly on the head at all times.

The hats will be distributed at any local supermarket, as supermarkets today are huge and there is always one nearby.

Posters will be displayed around the streets of Britain, on lampposts, walls, shop windows and billboards. Also they would be shown in magazines, newspapers and on the internet.

The leaflets will be handed out when collecting the hat; also they will be delivered to all houses (like take away menus)

Here is the tin hat I created:

Goverment Posters for Today

As I have only looked closely at ww2 propaganda poster, I researched slightly into government posters for today. These posters were about swine flu, and the recession. The styles of the posters were not suitable for the context of my project as they had a harsher and direct way of giving the information. Also I wanted to reflect the humour and light-heartedness of the ww2 posters.

Chosen ideas

I have decided to use the situation where the aliens can only capture us humans by detecting movement and/or reading our minds; therefore I have chosen to use the Protection method ‘stay still as a statue’ and will be creating a tin hat for the protection product.

I have designed 5 different tin hats to see which would work better:

Similar to the iconic tin hat we know, and used in films and programs such as ‘Signs’.

An adaptation of the first hat.



The same design as British ww2 helmets.

The design of a winter Peruvian hat, adapted to suit my idea (no pompoms or tassels).

This design is not a hat, but a tin headband with straps.

I have decided to use the first design as it reflects my intentions of having the humours factor; also, it already has an iconic conspiracy link to stop aliens reading our minds.

Artist Research- Zhao Renhui

Similar to my idea of a camouflage cloak, the artist Zhao Renhui who’s works “The Blind” was a series of images documenting a camouflage cloak produced by the Institute of Critical Zoologists for zoologists and nature photographers to observe nature. This series of images which documents the camouflage cloak being used provides a peculiar image of man’s attempt to try to be one with nature.

Even though the meaning of the work is completely different, I feel the designs of the work is what is needed to protect being seen by the aliens.

Initial Ideas

Ideas for methods of Protection:

·      Aliens detect movement- stay still as a statue

·      Hide and keep still

·      Aliens detect heat- cover yourself in wet material

·      Aliens can read our minds – wear hat at all times

 Ideas for a protective product:

·    Read minds – metal hat to stop them from reading minds (‘Signs’, (2002), M. Night Shyamalan – the children wore home- made tin foil hats so that the aliens "Can't read their minds“).

·    Cloak - camouflage into the streets, concrete, grass, bushes (The Lord of the Rings,(2001), Peter Jackson - rock cloak)

Protect and Survive

"Protect and Survive" was the title of a series of booklets and Information Film series produced by the British government during the late 1970s and early 1980s, dealing with emergency planning for a nuclear war.

The purpose of the programme was to provide the public with instructions on how to protect themselves and survive a nuclear attack. A copy of the 'Protect and Survive' booklet would have been distributed to every home in the UK, and the films would have been transmitted on domestic television.

Here is one of the film series, “Action After Warnings”.

As well as creating propaganda posters and information leaflets, I could consider creating a series of film or adverts similar to the “Protect and survive”, but using the technology and culture of today.

Artist research – Brian Moore

Based on World War II propaganda posters, the posters have been rethought in contemporary context, remixed for today’s Internet culture.

As well as similarities of looking at World War II propaganda, I also will be recreating them to reflect today and the future. He has turned something important and serious into something funny; I also want to make my work humorous but still having the background of informing.

Whereas Moore has used actual posters from the war and changed the text, I will only be using the template of what the posters have e.g. type of information, style of images, layout.

World War II Propaganda

Here are three posters from World War II that will influence my works; I am interested in warning and showing what could happen when the aliens come and no action is taken. Also I think it is important to give clear information on what to do. Like this war had gas masks for protection, I want to create a protection product to use so to prevent capture by the aliens.

As well as having a product to protect us I also want to create methods of protection, I want these methods to reflect the humour that we feel they was during past wars, they was given to ensure the people stayed calm and felt safe, even though the methods were not reliable such as the ‘Duck and cover’ method.

Birmingham is Under Attack

From the influence of Banksy I created this quick experimental piece on Photoshop; I feel it captures the cheesy humour I intend for this project. I may use the technique of photo editing for my final works.

Banksy – Alien Invasion

Bristol Museum -15th July 2009

Here Banksy has taken an old painting and defaced it by altering it into a futuristic sci-fi image, where he has added alien space ships attacking earth.  Like all his other pieces of works, the painting has a humorous and immature feel.

Research on Real Claims - Betty Hill

I am more interested about the alleged abduction of Betty Hill, also known as the Zeta Reticuli Incident in 1961. Even though this claim may be untrue I feel this can be an influence to my work. She gave many interviews describing what took place on 19^th September 1961. She gave detailed descriptions on how the aliens look:

·         Form of human

·         Larger eyes

·         Smaller nose

·         Smaller mouth

·         No hair

·         No pinna part of the ears

Also she stated that all communications with the aliens were verbal, they could understand and speak English but not fluently. After she put up a fight about being taken into the aircraft, she told us the aliens said “all we want to do is some tests and we will leave you alone”. Her and her husband where taken on board and separated into different rooms where they were both being tested on, they was interested in the nervous system and bone structure. Both Betty and her husband where under control, however betty came out of it and was fully conscious, she said she was talking to the leader about our way of living and asked where they was from, the leader then went on to show her a map of stars, betty at the time was unaware of where theses stars were, until few years later after having nightmares and hypnotism, she could remember what actually happened that night, and could draw the star map the alien showed her. In 1968, Marjorie Fish, an elementary school teacher and amateur astronomer, Intrigued by the "star map", found a match to the map betty had drawn, it was from the viewpoint of the double star system of Zeta Reticuli. Therefore she concluded that the UFO might have come from a planet orbiting Zeta Reticuli.

From Betty hill story I will use the information of how the aliens look to influence my ideas, but exaggerating it for a humours factor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g93YoWsHjU

Research on Real Claims

After doing some research about real claims on aliens visiting earth, such as:

·    The ‘Roswell Incident’ –In 1947, Army Air Forces allegedly recovered remains of a crashed “Flying Disk”.

·    Alien Abduction Implants - Most objects removed were similar in appearance to small pieces of metal or glass, the objects was lab tested and found to be not of this earth, but the metal objects were actually extremely rare pieces of meteorite that had an iron based cover, possibly for protection. whoever or whatever put these object(s) inside the individuals done so without cutting their skin. It should also be noted that in most of the cases, the embedded objects were connected to the abductee's nerve endings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-H3RQihy8k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga2LHrsLDYM&feature=related

·    Aliens deactivated British and US nuclear missiles- A group of RAF workers claim that the object came over and hovered directly over the site and beams of light fired into the base. There have also been many other claims similar to this in the UK and USA.

·    Area 51 – According to many sources this places does not exist and it is not on maps, even though it can be seen. (Google earth). Some say that alien aircrafts and autopsied alien bodies are stored there.

Film Research

I have looked into many alien invasion films, to influence the creation of the aliens in my work, how they look, move, act and attack. Below are four films I am interested in:

‘The day the earth stood still’, (2008), Scott Derrickson.

·         The alien takes a human form.                                                       

·         They attack by Realesing  a swarm of  insect-like nanites that begin destroying everything in their path.

‘Skyline’, (2010), Colin Strause, Greg Strause.                          

·         The alien ships look similar to a squid like form.

·         They  shine bright blue lights down on earth which attracts the humans, then vacuums them up into their ships.

·         The brains of the humans are ripped out and placed into bodies of new aliens.

‘War of the Worlds’, (2005), Steven Spielberg.

·         Lightning strike the ground and huge machines on three stilted legs bursts out of the holes.

·         The tripods were brought to earth long ago and been buried underground.

·         The tripods end up dying off on their own as they ingested a virus from the human's blood.

‘Independence Day’, (1996),  Roland Emmerich.

·         A giant alien mother ship, over 340 miles in diameter enters orbit around Earth, and deploys several dozen saucer-shaped "destroyer" spacecraft’s that  take positions over many of Earth's major cities.

·         The ships attack the city. And releasing smaller ships to blow up our army planes.

·         A computer virus is inserted into the mother ship which disables the protective shields around the destroyers and attackers leaving them to be easily taken down.