LLW: The Tree of Life

THIS IS OF COURSE NOT A REAL LITTLE WHITE LIES MAGAZINE COVER. The reason it has the sticker on top is because our brief over Christmas was to design a Little White Lies front cover.  It's Jessica Chastain's Mrs. O'Brien from 'The Tree of Life'.

 For our brief, we were given the 'five top films from 2011' as picked by LWW and asked to design a cover for the magazine featuring a portrait of the main character.  Out of 'Black Swan', 'Super 8', 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', 'The Tree of Life' and 'Drive', I picked TTOL because I was interested in seeing it for myself.  Empire deemed it 'profound, idiosyncratic, complex, sincere and magical' and gave it five stars, whereas my dad informed me it was 'pretentious rubbish' and a waste of 2 hours of his life.

My opinion of it is, that it IS beautiful and expertly filmed, but really it's like one of those arty short films you get in 'interactive art galleries', except 10 times as long, and with Brad Pitt in it. But I very much enjoyed it, I defs recommend it.  Don't expect a clear narrative or well-rounded ending though ><

I was going to use the adult Jack O'Brien, played by Sean Penn, as the main character.  After sketching him however, I wasn't so pleased with the decoration I'd visualised using as the backdrop, or with his portrait.  I think I made him look a decade older, and a little 'squashed'.  Do you see what I mean..? Meh. Plus, fucked up the eyes. Done in biro and pencil.

Soooo I backtracked, did some more brainstorming and such and decided to instead use Jessica Chastain's character. Her Mrs. O'Brien character is pretty recognisable, and I felt watching it that she best represents innocence and beauty, while also the role of parenthood, in a film mainly concerned with those three themes.  I also knew I could use a more feminine, colourful design with her than with Brad Pitt, who was basically jaded and grouchy for most of the film.

It's not the most flattering angle, but it's from her son's point of view so I think it's a decent way of tying in the whole 'parenting' theme, plus she has this lovely line in that shot, where they've just planted a little tree over their neighbour's grave and she goes 'you'll be grown before that tree is tall'. The butterfly is because she plays with a butterfly in the film, showing she's all loving and naive and childish as well as a mother figure :)

Yeah, I've gone on for ages now.

Back in my house, curled up on the sofa having veggie burgers and being given a beginner's guide to James Bond movies from Rosie.  Know I'll have to get up and print all this off at print shop soon, but too cosy right now :3