Gala 2000

Photos of the Gala 2000

The Gala of the Equinox is a traditional event of the École Centrale, acme of one year of preparations. During an intense week just before the event, the building where we usually have courses is taken over by the Gala team and all the students managing the thematic « bars » that will be featured in the edition.

That year, we considered ourselves quite lucky to count the German group Liquido among the artists covering the event.

Note: Most of the following pics where taken by Mathieu C. (Chtidit), with argentic camera, scanned by me in a rather poor quality.

Hangings

Hangings are a tradition of the team in charge of the decoration (aka « la Déco »).
The Asian club decided this time to create their own, and I had great fun taking part in it (helped by Jérémie, Frank, Rémi etc.).

The material is quite rough (the cloth is sometimes fluffy when painted on the wrong side), and I found it quite strenuous to paint something appealing without having to use thick layers of paint, which is on the whole not so good an idea, as the paint tends to crackle once dry.

The only advantage of the hangings is that it can be folded, and stocked easily.

Note: The characters are about the same size as a grown human.

Kenshin [るろうに検心], colours depending on the stocks (black was scarce and highly prized!)

Other characters, I think also from the manga Kenshin. I had a lot of fun with the right woman’s gown (Jérémie with the left’s!).

Bars

The bars, barely more than a heap of painted plywood with a few screws here and there

We decided to paint some characters by Miyazaki, whose works were not overly well-known in France by that time (except for the hard-core fans we had among our ranks).

A few strokes of paint-roller afterwards, (courtesy of Rémi San), the outlines done with chalk and a projector, all that remained to do was to paint.

The advantage of wood panels is that it is such a pleasure to blend colors on them.

First came Mononoke Princess [もののけ姫], with Stéphanie and her little sister as seconds, I played with the she-wolf’s fur.

Then, the ineffable Totoro (from My Neighbor Totoro, [となりのトトロ]). I experimented an impressionnist effect with the brushes, which was quite nice on the whole.

Totoro

Mononoke

Note: Most of the time, these bars are not supposed to last more than one year (dismantled, stocked and re-used). I was impressed to see that thanks to the care of « la Déco », and the members of the GEPEO club, the front part of the bars were re-used till 2005, so more than 4 successive Galas…