Les Misérables, Jean Valjean Parole Letter / Yellow Ticket Of Leave - What Paper?

[KirkyTS]

Hello, My first post on this forum, been a lurker for quite some time.

One of my favourite movies is Les Mis (Don't Judge) and I though this would be the perfect place to replicate my first prop. So I have been learning how to photoshop and made (with the help of screen shots, many images of google etc) Jean Valjean's Parole Letter, the only issue I have now is how to print it.

I was thinking of either Yellow Card and then roughing it up, staining etc. (printing on a laser printer so it don't smudge). Can anyone recommend what paper to use?

or

printing on normal paper but adding the effects of the wear and tear in photoshop.

Was hoping to frame it so what would people recommend?

Thanks for the help in advance.




First Image is from the movie, Second is the finished letter ready to print (watermarked).

 

[Krats]

I’d go the laser copier route and weather it after, it will look far more convincing. You’ll have a bit of shine on the ink from a laser print but this can be removed by laying a thin sheet of scrap paper over the top and rubbing some acetone through with a rag. This lifts off the top layer of toner and roughs things up a bit.


As far as paper stock goes, I think a yellow paper (not card) 100-150gsm. The fine creases down the left hand edge make it look like a relatively thin stock that’s been folded in half, although not being familiar with the movie I can’t say for sure. Also looks like there’s some print on the reverse side showing through.


Looks like you’ve done a decent job of lifting the text from the screen shot, look forward to seeing this finished.

 

[CogitoBcn]

Nice project, I will follow it with interest!
(I love this movie, in fact, is the only musical I've seen and liked it)

Silly note: I find funny that the document (written in French) states how tall is Jean Valjean in meters and MILLIMETERS (!!!), that's crazy, my guess is that the people who made the original prop were not used to the metric system at all, because I doubt that in 1800s anyone used millimeters for heights.

 

[19narvik40]

Nice project, I will follow it with interest!
(I love this movie, in fact, is the only musical I've seen and liked it)

Silly note: I find funny that the document (written in French) states how tall is Jean Valjean in meters and MILLIMETERS (!!!), that's crazy, my guess is that the people who made the original prop were not used to the metric system at all, because I doubt that in 1800s anyone used millimeters for heights.

Actually the French government officially adopted the metric system on April 7th 1795.

 

[CogitoBcn]

I know that, but the original metric system used meters and its tenths (decimeters, centimeters and millimeters), not as does the current IS.

So, as we do in Europe nowadays, the height of a person was measured either with cm (162 cm) or meters and cm (1m 62cm).

Take into account that a millimeter is less than half a tenth of an inch, excesive precision for a person's height.

By the way, 1 meter and 62cm, Jean Valjean was a bit shorty for being so strong.