Thinking about using old language in modern context - Applying Luhrmann's style to the Tale of the Three Apples

Visual Layout and Imagery

As I wanted to create a modern day e-newspaper, I had a look at some newspaper layouts.

I decided to look at the Daily Mail, as it has the second highest readership in the UK (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/uk-newspapers-ranked-total-readership-print-and-online). Additionally, it has a traditional newspaper visual style. I liked the fact that headlines and body text are in Serif font, whilst the sub headline is Sans Serif. By using Serif font, in a justified paragraph format makes it visually obvious that it is a news paper.


Applying to my e-Newspaper

Using the Daily Telegraph as inspiration, I decided to use a 3-column layout for my InDesign template. For my headline text, I used CapitoliumNews bold, and for my body text CapitoliumNews regular, 12pt with 18pt leading. I decided to also use a 3-line drop cap at the start of the article, as it highlighted the professional look. For the author name (and also subheadlines/'top stories') I used Tahoma bold/regular.

I wanted to have a distinction between what was the main story and what was added by me. Therefore, using a Serif font for the storytelling and a Serif font for the added text gave that clarity. 

I chose to use an image of a modern Muslim woman to depict the woman who's body was found. This was intended to quickly tell the my audience that my telling of the story is set in modern day.

I also purposely chose to have a photo of a contemporary celebrity side-by-side with the article, to juxtapose the two. I decided on this as it is a statement on how popular media places celebrity culture above serious news.


Use of Language in my e-Newspaper

Similar to Luhrmann's choice in 'Romeo and Juliet' (1996), I decided to keep the source text of 'The Tale of the Three Apples' untouched. For the main body text of my mock articles, I just used the original story text. However, I did alter the formatting of the text, to adjust paragraphing so that I could separate them parts of the story into several articles rather than one long story. 

For the headlines of these articles, I used modern English so that the mock e-newspaper looked current at first glance. I also decided to over emphasise the use of 'Muslim' and 'Islam' in headlines and mock quotes, to highlight the fact that current western news sources unnecessarily point this out to add further negative image to the religion. 

As the story of 'the Tale of the Three Apples' is told by Shahrazad in Arabian Nights, I decided to name the writer of my main articles 'Shahrazad Rawiyah' as the surname 'Rawiyah' comes from the Arabic meaning of 'story teller'. So in order to keep a running narrative clear, all my articles that were directly sourced from the main story of 'The Tale of the Three Apple's I made the writer 'Shahrazad Rawiyah'.

Similarily, I decided to name the man responsible for murdering the woman (her husband) 'Abdullah Al-Shahid' as 'Shahid' means 'witness' in Arabic. I felt that it symbolised the idea that he was the only person who saw how she died, as he was the killer.