Project and Challenge done by Katalina Garrido, SJSU student

For this Adobe Rush Challenge, I wanted to create something that I enjoyed doing- making advertisements and something that I enjoyed watching- vintage movies. I researched some YouTube videos that featured old beauty ads(below) and did my best to try and capture the essence of what they were portraying.

I then started coming up with scripts and ways of sounding like the old 1940's "trans-Atlantic" accent. A fun fact actually, there is no such area as the trans-Atlantic as it is just the between area of the United States and Great Britain. The accent was used as a mixture of both British and American accents so that many audiences could understand films and shows. When asking my brother for some help in what I could do to sound refined and sophisticated(and many failed attempts after him laughing at me), I decided on a simple more British sounding accent. I remember I had a broken mic that I connected to my phone and when speaking, it sounded like the audio in those vintage videos.

I used these as my inspiration for my makeup/outfit look and had a very fun time trying to adjust my current makeup technique with this older style. I tried to do a small photoshoot as I most likely was never going to do this type of makeup again and had fun as I even used just my iPhone as well.

Now to get to the actual Borders part of the challenge. I knew back then-most ads were very sexist or put a hard tone on women to be beautiful. The standards are true for today as well but there was a certain 'housewife has to be done up for her husband ' look that was the basis of most makeup looks in the 1940's. Most lipstick was worn to be shown off only for her husband and red would be too flashy to be worn in public. While the video I did shoot was in black and white, I still wanted those standards inside the video too.

If you notice within my script, I make(or at least try) things sound glamorous and divine. But, I do sneak in especially when I say, " meant to hide all of your body's insecurities" or " will change perception of your beauty". As the video goes on, I however switch up on the blatant put downs and then change it as whoever wears this lipstick will see their true beauty- regardless of how they perceive themselves. This borders name was mentioned to break the border between reality, beauty, and society. There is no need to cage a woman's beauty into a specific standard- and certainly not one where just a lipstick can hinder one's beauty. The lipstick allows you to see your unique beauty( which everyone has) and done in a blunt way that entices the viewer.

I noticed in older videos that most advertisements had some sort of poster or copywrite page that talked about the product. I wanted to create that too but I remembered that I could only use my iPhone to shoot. So I made the posters in Illustrator, then printed each page out, and then filmed each page so I only technically used my iPhone for filming. I made a opening cover, a copywrite page, a tagline page, and a ' The End" page.

For song choice, I chose " I'll never smile again" by Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, and the Pied Pipers. Due to the copyright rules, anything over 50 years is able to use royalty free. This song was one of the more popular songs in the 1940's. I loved this song as it was about a love lost but I tried to spin on it and hopefully the person wearing this product will have lost his/her insecurities.

Overall, I enjoyed this challenge as I had never used Adobe Rush before but have used premiere before. I normally prefer using my phone for certain recordings because I know not everyone can afford a regular camera. This project was fun to do because I have always wanted to try and recreate an old advertisement( As a designer, I even do mock posters of that genre) I am very thankful for this lovely opportunity to be creative and challenged- especially with the time limit. The final video is below.