Field Journal #9: The Polish Poster

From this week's reading I was intrigued with the polish poster, more specifically the film poster for Rzeczpospolita Babska by Jerzy Flisak. Now doesn't that title just roll off the tongue. According to the book, it was "an almost casual collage approach, (...) created from torn and cut pieces of colored paper and then printed by the silkscreen process.

http://www.filmweb.pl/film/Rzeczpospolita+babska-1969-9303

It's not common to see a publicized film poster made simply from torn colored paper, which could be due to it being a lot of work when less effort could be put to use by taking a picture of the actors/actresses in the film with a certain background. This can relate to my previous post about Saul Bass' "The Man with the Golden Arm" poster, however this was done with torn paper. It is very unique because it's not what is ordinarily seen on film posters, as well as the skilled "tearing" of paper to form such an image. It may seem simple at glance and others might think "Who made this!? It looks like a child's arts and crafts project," however this poster could be one of the many pioneering reasons that teachers incorporate projects with collages having torn colored paper and making an image, scene, or event from it. 

When I first saw this poster, I thought about a well-known show that involves children, vulgar language, explicit content, comedy, and parodies of politics, pop culture, social issues, conspiracies, etc. Do you know what I'm thinking about? It's the animated show known as South Park. Now I know it's not a poster or stilled image, but the roots are very similar. Before the creators moved onto production using the computer when technology had advanced greatly, they used to make their earlier shows using pieces of colored construction paper and shot the show frame shot by frame shot. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6279830/South-Park-shows-Michael-Jackson-and-Patrick-Swayze-in-purgatory.html

I'm not too sure what other shows or well-known images contain torn pieces of colored construction paper, but using torn paper for a film poster to an animated show that is still currently airing is an accomplishment with such a simple technique. The problem is what I stated briefly, which is the creators don't make the show with torn paper anymore. With how technology is now, the use of torn colored papers could be rendered as obsolete due to time consumption. The amount of time it takes to make something out of torn paper in 15 hours could be reduced to 2-3 hours with a graphic design program. I believe that the type of style used with torn paper (character design, shapes, backgrounds) may still be used, but piecing torn pieces of paper together would remain only in the classroom for arts projects. I say this because it might not be appreciated as much as other art forms of posters, portraits, murals, that contain more details and are more realistic.