Fugee. Props. Ivory Coast Passports.

I was asked to make 4 Passports for Fugee. My only brief to begin with was that they were to be African Passports. That they didn't need to be the same and originally it was thought that it may be good if they were all of different colours.
I went away thinking I would research different African Countries and see what different colour passports there were.
The most popular passport that came up often when first researching was South African Passports, which seemed to be green. After taking a look also at Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria, it seemed that all African Passports appeared to be Green. When looking at Ghana Passports for example, the ordinary, standard passport was green, the diplomatic passport was dark red and the service passport was dark blue. Seeing as the Passports I were to make were for ordinary people it looked like I had no option other than green.
On further research it appeared that each country determines its own passport colour and quite a few countries belong to country groups and often used a standard design. so I can only presume that this may also apply to Passport colours.
Whilst researching, one of the Tutors mentioned the main character in Fugee was from the Ivory Coast, making him West African. After speaking again to the DSM it was decided that although the main character doesn't have a Passport on him, he is in a queue with other people, so we agreed that the Passports would be all of the same origin.
After researching further on Passport sizes it appears that size is mostly standardized, so I bought in an old EU passport of mine plus an old blue British passport that I still had. I felt the old blue one was of a better size for the stage. I showed the Tutor both the Passports and he agreed that the old style Passport was the better size.

Once I had a picture sample of an Ivory Coast Passport, picture top left, the Tutor and I felt that I should simplify it slightly and edit out the bottom logo along with the bottom 2 passport words. We also took away the top 3 lines, making our Passport start with the words Republique de cote d'ivoire. Once edited the Tutor printed off the edited version for me.
The printed out copy appeared on the left of an A4 piece of paper so I cut around the picture and re-stuck it so it would be on the right side of a piece of A4 . I did this as I intended to copy the picture onto Dark Green paper and the Dark Green paper would eventually be wrapped around card to form the Passport book, so the picture needed to be on the right.
I cut and wrapped a scrap piece of A4 around my old British Passport so I knew where to position the cut out Logo on the new piece of white A4 paper, I did this so it would be in the correct position when I came to print onto the Green paper.

The only Dark Green paper I found in the Art Shop was a large piece, so I had to cut the paper into A4 size so that it could go in the printer tray.
I had the Ivory Coast Passport image copied onto the Dark Green paper.
Once printed I had to go about painting over the black image with gold paint, as the front of the Passport has gold lettering and image.

This task was fairly time consuming and it is not perfect as I do not have the most steady of hands when using a paintbrush plus I struggled with the brush as I could not find an ultra fine one. Also the photocopy image was not clear in some areas. Even so I persevered and did as good job as I could.

 

The next job was cutting some stiff card the same size as the old Passport I had, to form a book, with which to wrap the Dark Green paper round.

 

 

After cutting out the cardboard book I folded the Green paper around it, cutting and folding as I went and once it was fitting correctly I glued it in place.

 

 

Finally I needed to make the inside of the Passport. The DSM informed me that the Passports did not need to be opened and that the actors were just going to hold them in their hands.

Whilst I was researching the Ivory Coast Passport it appeared to me that the inside pages were blue/green in colour, I did feel that the book needed to appear as if they had inside pages and not just glued shut as they were. I could not find any paper that looked right so I settled with a light green paper.

I cut out 4 pieces of corrugated cardboard, that wasn't too thick, to act as the interior pages and covered these with the green paper. I then stuck these into each individual Passport using a glue gun and pressed down firmly on each one.

The bottom right hand picture shows a Passport side view on, showing the interior 'fake' pages.

I worked on this project alone and enjoyed doing it. I do feel satisfied with what I have achieved but feel I may of approved on the finished outcome if I had finer brushes and also possibly a better grade of acrylic paint that had a higher pigmentation. The paint I used was a student quality and not an artist quality. The reason for this was the cost. I feel the finished Passports could of possibly done with a second coating in places but I could not afford that time. A higher pigmentation may of given a better finish that wouldn't of necessarily needed a second coat.