Developing Ideas and set design #2
Kaitlan and I obviously envisioned creating this project together, but due to both having to go home for quarantine, we've had to re-think certain aspects of how we progress. Even though there is a lot of distance between us, we plan to communicate on a regular basis and update each other on separate progress we've made that we can then hopefully put together. We had the idea that both of us could create our own paper towns at home, film part of it/take still shots and then send these to each other to try and digitally animate on; as skill we would have to learn.
Research and overview of narrative development:
UPDATED NARRATIVE:
We both imagined beautiful but rather murky projections being cast onto the town with a glowing figure (hopefully animated) wandering through it. The dark projections will draw more attention to this character. We thought this character to be a ghost travelling through his once vibrant town that is now a skeleton of what it used to be- murky and eerie, but darkly beautiful. We want to make it strange and unnatural so we can really play around with projections and the sense of space. We really liked the idea of mixing a physical set with digital art.
Taking inspiration from Inception, we liked the idea of also creating a strange upside down world for the ghost to venture through. We will have an above world and an underworld that the ghost will pass through. The ghost used to live in the above world but now exists in the underworld, visiting his old and now deserted living town above. In a tutorial with Anne, we mentioned that we wanted to include a soundscape that we would create ourselves but we weren't quite sure exactly as to what music we wanted to create. We knew that we wanted it to be eerie and rather disturbing to act as a little motif for our ghost. Anne asked us whether each building would have a separate sound effect to boost it's character. We really liked this idea and began to think more about it. We already imagined that our ghost would cause reactions in the buildings, as he's a glowing figure of energy. We thought that lights in the windows could flicker on and off as he passes each one; almost to evoke a bit of life in a lifeless world and give the audience as sense of what goes on behind closed doors. We began the project almost being certain that we didn't want a narrative, we simply wanted the piece to speak for itself. But, we're specifically making this narrative rather subtle so that the audience can interpret it themselves to a certain extent. The figure is faceless to add a sense of mystery and what happened to the town will never explicitly be revealed.
Whilst developing our narrative, we also saw connections between our idea and current world events. More specifically, the pandemic that is COVID-19 and the eerie, rather ghostly place the world has become. Due to the whole world being on lockdown, the street are naturally deserted and still like the streets of our little town. However, there's life that goes on behind each closed door of each house. Our town could reflect how this pandemic has effected our towns/city's/streets. But, as i said before, we will never reveal what happened to the town, whether it was a virus, a natural disaster like an earthquake, pollution etc.. The world's current affairs just add to a new way that our audience can interpret the state of this town we wish to create. It opens another window.
We did a lot of research on old industrial architecture, and focused on some moving image works that evoke a rather dystopian world/destructed world.
Slums/Shanty towns in Asia
Slums are highly populated urban residential areas, however, their structure makes them seem ghostly. They all hold a similar design but there's an element of uniqueness to each one as they have been built by each family. Even though the situation of most people living in slums is dire, their homes are full of character and some, even colour. The little odd windows and the washing hanging over the river is good inspiration for how we could begin to build our set.
I like this photo (above) because it shows two very different lifestyles in one image. They are so close together geographically but so far apart socially. This is what we want to achieve with our town; we want the buildings to seem odd and not have any that really look similar. We want to give this town as much quirkiness and originality as we can. We want it to be an old industrial working town, but it is our job to interpret that in a new way. Taking away the colour of the slums and rearranging their structures slightly could fit them in perfectly with an industrial atmosphere. A lot of these slums probably don't even have people living in them, they are just left; a skeleton of a building. Over-population is also an issue that we could approach in this project and slums could be a perfect example of that.
The rather empty and rigid nature of this building is very striking. It's not like many you see. I like the countless steps and the textures worn into the beams holding it together. It's very industrial and quite dystopian. It could be the joining foundations of a factory?
The lights in this image caught my attention as i can see them all switching on as our ghost passes them. The layers and layers of apartments is also quite surreal and all the colours are really beautiful.
Examples of my own buildings: (the town has been increasing since February)
Creating these little buildings seemed to come quite naturally. All i used to create them was white card, superglue and a scalpel. They were each extremely time consuming but the detail of each one was really fun to imagine up. I spent the most time perfecting the detail of the first one i made (bottom middle) as i had the time to do so and i hadn't yet been through days and days of cutting and sticking. Coming up with each building's little quirks was interesting because I could start to get a sense of the town's character after putting the first four or so buildings next to each other. This made the construction of the next few buildings a lot more natural. The aesthetic did shift as I went on, as I started to enjoy making more abstracted models rather than making buildings fit with the conventional idea of a house etc. I went all Dr.Seuss and started to create endless staircases leading to the sky and countless windows to let the light through. I felt like these would fit for the atmosphere we'd try and create for the underworld.
Experimenting with creating textures through projection:
We weren't sure as to what we were going to project onto the buildings exactly; whether it would be moving or still image and what that image would consist of. We knew what we wanted it to look like industrial and murky) but we didn't know how to achieve this. I found my mum's old slide projector and folders of old painting she'd put onto film slides. I turned this on, put some slides through and this is the result:
The above world town starting to take shape
I then properly constructed an idea of how the town could be laid out with the buildings i had made so far and experimented with shadows and angles, as i wasn't satisfied with how it was laid out originally.
Original layout
I liked how the eerie shadows were created behind. The shadows constructed a new kind of factory-like building. However, It seemed a bit too jumbled and random for a working, Industrial town. So, I used the new buildings I had made to my advantage and created a new set up: (below)
Updated Layout
This layout is a lot more regimented and clean which is how i imagine our ghost would’ve pictured it when it was still a working, lively town. I can almost picture the ghost walking through this space. There's still a lot more to add to it but this is a good basis.
I wasn’t worrying about certain buildings being suspended in mid-air as our world is meant to be very topsy turvy in its nature anyway. We want it to be out of the ordinary and other-worldly so we want the buildings to respond to that. I added some stairways just to give it that extra quirk. I think more houses like this would work well for the underworld town, as they’re already quite strange in their design. An inspiration for these designs is Dr.Seuss.
Dr.Seuss' illustrated structures are so imaginative and wild that you get the feeling they could topple over any second, they're so crazy. he pushes the limits and creates houses that would be impossible to construct in real life. He creates the un-imaginable which transports you to a completely new world. This is what we want to achiev with our town and that's why I can imagine more designs like this fitting for the underworld- Dr. Seuss gone dark.
Building's Inspired by striking architecture
I thought it would also be interesting to create buildings inspired by structures/places that are usually heaving with life and make them unrecognizable within the context of our film- like the Palio, for example, where thousands gather to watch. i'd contrast this energy and life by turning them into a ghost town:
I also wanted to see how we could incorporate water into this scene, as a bridge without water defeats its purpose. I didn’t actually want to use water as that would add to complications so I found some cling film and experimented with how i could manipulate that to look like a running river. I simply broke some off and crumpled it a little to put some movement into it and this was the result:
In Daylight
Out of focus (night)
The light catches it really beautifully so that it isn't recognizable as cling film. I think it's definitely something for both of us to play around with when we are able to see each other. It also adds texture and multi-media to the set. It breaks away from the sea of white card and compliments the set by adding a little shimmer and depth. The stream of clingfilm could go on for ever for all the audience knows. We can play around with depth of field and manipulation of the image when we come to shoot.
Buildings and initial projection inspiration:
Projections on such a large scale as these are usually political statements or a celebration of something. They catch your eye from miles away and bring a new perspective to the architecture that you wouldn't appreciate in daylight. They evoke a sense of power and the projections we cast onto the town will give it some life within it's emptiness, giving it power over the ghost. We want to focus a lot on perspective as well; use the projections to our advantage and make things seem like they're not, make the town seem larger than it is etc...Projections of this kind of scale generate conversation and provoke change. It's a different experience, looking at art like this. The mix of the real and the virtual does make people stop and think because it's bringing art that might have once been hidden in the depths of the internet and showcasing it to the world so it cannot be ignored. Our town will not hold such statements but we take inspiration from projections like these to perhaps have underlying meaning and messages within our projections. We don't want obvious and obnoxious messages to overpower the delicate narrative of our film. We want the audience to very much be in charge of the way our final product is interpreted.
Art for inspiration:
James Downie- 'Northern Industrial Town Street Scene'
I'm drawn by the slender figures, bearing resemblance to Kaitlan's character design for our ghost. The shadows they leave behind them are beautiful and creepy at the same time. I also really like the structure of the town depicted in this painting. It's terraced houses are like the ones I built inspired by Siena's architecture.
I love this image (above) because of the variety of buildings populating this town and the obvious but not overpowering factory chimney's dotted about. I will start to construct some paper chimney's and see how they fit in around the town as it is so far.
Minus the population of people in this image, this illustration is how i imagine one of the streets to be seen from our character's POV. It's towering buildings enclose the light and make the street seem dingy and endless.
Moving Image works
'12 Monkeys'- American Neo-Noir Science Fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam.
In this film, the world above has become deserted and stripped of all human existence. The people that remain live underground in a very dystopian and industrial prison-like setting. The protagonist is sent back in time to try and warn people of the world to come. This is very similar for the narrative we have created. The ghost is concerned that the underworld he now exists in will be overcome by its industry and collapse into non-existence, like the above world. It will leave the underworld empty. Although the underwold is chaotic and the ghost wishes he could still live above ground, this is where he has to exist now and he at least wants to try and do the best for it.
The underworld in 12 Monkeys is a strict and rather totalitarian regime and its mechanical featured are aspects that I envision our underworld to posses.
We've created a Google Document so that we can share everything we're doing and progress through that. Here's the link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12QBJq6qTUokj5VrFt7w2OGAYkZxHU5dYcoO57gn01i0/edit?ts=5e84c6b2
Research and overview of narrative development:
For this project we are taking
inspiration from artists Su Blackwell and Stuart Rowe. We aim to create a
miniature industrial town set which we will then project moving images onto and
incorporate animation into the final product. We looked at the work of paper
artist Charles Young and decided to build our town from white card, enabling
the projection to have more of an effect.
Charles Young
Young has folded, crimped, creased and cut paper pieces into freestanding constructions, individually photographing each in their finality. Simple stop-motion animation techniques gives the various buildings, buses, cars and carousels a sense of the movement of everyday life. Animation wise, we want to attempt to digitally animate our character and then project his moving figure onto the town. We will consider stop-motion for other aspects of the town's character however as we can really draw out detail this way and stop-motion is something we're both more confident in.
Thom Yorke’s music video ‘LAST I HEARD (…He was
circling the drain)’ helped us to decide that we wanted to include a narrative.
The video is very dystopian in its nature and its faceless figures are
mysterious and ghost-like.Charles Young
Young has folded, crimped, creased and cut paper pieces into freestanding constructions, individually photographing each in their finality. Simple stop-motion animation techniques gives the various buildings, buses, cars and carousels a sense of the movement of everyday life. Animation wise, we want to attempt to digitally animate our character and then project his moving figure onto the town. We will consider stop-motion for other aspects of the town's character however as we can really draw out detail this way and stop-motion is something we're both more confident in.
UPDATED NARRATIVE:
We both imagined beautiful but rather murky projections being cast onto the town with a glowing figure (hopefully animated) wandering through it. The dark projections will draw more attention to this character. We thought this character to be a ghost travelling through his once vibrant town that is now a skeleton of what it used to be- murky and eerie, but darkly beautiful. We want to make it strange and unnatural so we can really play around with projections and the sense of space. We really liked the idea of mixing a physical set with digital art.
Taking inspiration from Inception, we liked the idea of also creating a strange upside down world for the ghost to venture through. We will have an above world and an underworld that the ghost will pass through. The ghost used to live in the above world but now exists in the underworld, visiting his old and now deserted living town above. In a tutorial with Anne, we mentioned that we wanted to include a soundscape that we would create ourselves but we weren't quite sure exactly as to what music we wanted to create. We knew that we wanted it to be eerie and rather disturbing to act as a little motif for our ghost. Anne asked us whether each building would have a separate sound effect to boost it's character. We really liked this idea and began to think more about it. We already imagined that our ghost would cause reactions in the buildings, as he's a glowing figure of energy. We thought that lights in the windows could flicker on and off as he passes each one; almost to evoke a bit of life in a lifeless world and give the audience as sense of what goes on behind closed doors. We began the project almost being certain that we didn't want a narrative, we simply wanted the piece to speak for itself. But, we're specifically making this narrative rather subtle so that the audience can interpret it themselves to a certain extent. The figure is faceless to add a sense of mystery and what happened to the town will never explicitly be revealed.
Whilst developing our narrative, we also saw connections between our idea and current world events. More specifically, the pandemic that is COVID-19 and the eerie, rather ghostly place the world has become. Due to the whole world being on lockdown, the street are naturally deserted and still like the streets of our little town. However, there's life that goes on behind each closed door of each house. Our town could reflect how this pandemic has effected our towns/city's/streets. But, as i said before, we will never reveal what happened to the town, whether it was a virus, a natural disaster like an earthquake, pollution etc.. The world's current affairs just add to a new way that our audience can interpret the state of this town we wish to create. It opens another window.
We did a lot of research on old industrial architecture, and focused on some moving image works that evoke a rather dystopian world/destructed world.
Slums/Shanty towns in Asia
Slums are highly populated urban residential areas, however, their structure makes them seem ghostly. They all hold a similar design but there's an element of uniqueness to each one as they have been built by each family. Even though the situation of most people living in slums is dire, their homes are full of character and some, even colour. The little odd windows and the washing hanging over the river is good inspiration for how we could begin to build our set.
I like this photo (above) because it shows two very different lifestyles in one image. They are so close together geographically but so far apart socially. This is what we want to achieve with our town; we want the buildings to seem odd and not have any that really look similar. We want to give this town as much quirkiness and originality as we can. We want it to be an old industrial working town, but it is our job to interpret that in a new way. Taking away the colour of the slums and rearranging their structures slightly could fit them in perfectly with an industrial atmosphere. A lot of these slums probably don't even have people living in them, they are just left; a skeleton of a building. Over-population is also an issue that we could approach in this project and slums could be a perfect example of that.
The rather empty and rigid nature of this building is very striking. It's not like many you see. I like the countless steps and the textures worn into the beams holding it together. It's very industrial and quite dystopian. It could be the joining foundations of a factory?
The lights in this image caught my attention as i can see them all switching on as our ghost passes them. The layers and layers of apartments is also quite surreal and all the colours are really beautiful.
Examples of my own buildings: (the town has been increasing since February)
Creating these little buildings seemed to come quite naturally. All i used to create them was white card, superglue and a scalpel. They were each extremely time consuming but the detail of each one was really fun to imagine up. I spent the most time perfecting the detail of the first one i made (bottom middle) as i had the time to do so and i hadn't yet been through days and days of cutting and sticking. Coming up with each building's little quirks was interesting because I could start to get a sense of the town's character after putting the first four or so buildings next to each other. This made the construction of the next few buildings a lot more natural. The aesthetic did shift as I went on, as I started to enjoy making more abstracted models rather than making buildings fit with the conventional idea of a house etc. I went all Dr.Seuss and started to create endless staircases leading to the sky and countless windows to let the light through. I felt like these would fit for the atmosphere we'd try and create for the underworld.
Experimenting with creating textures through projection:
We weren't sure as to what we were going to project onto the buildings exactly; whether it would be moving or still image and what that image would consist of. We knew what we wanted it to look like industrial and murky) but we didn't know how to achieve this. I found my mum's old slide projector and folders of old painting she'd put onto film slides. I turned this on, put some slides through and this is the result:
The above world town starting to take shape
I then properly constructed an idea of how the town could be laid out with the buildings i had made so far and experimented with shadows and angles, as i wasn't satisfied with how it was laid out originally.
Original layout
I liked how the eerie shadows were created behind. The shadows constructed a new kind of factory-like building. However, It seemed a bit too jumbled and random for a working, Industrial town. So, I used the new buildings I had made to my advantage and created a new set up: (below)
Updated Layout
This layout is a lot more regimented and clean which is how i imagine our ghost would’ve pictured it when it was still a working, lively town. I can almost picture the ghost walking through this space. There's still a lot more to add to it but this is a good basis.
I wasn’t worrying about certain buildings being suspended in mid-air as our world is meant to be very topsy turvy in its nature anyway. We want it to be out of the ordinary and other-worldly so we want the buildings to respond to that. I added some stairways just to give it that extra quirk. I think more houses like this would work well for the underworld town, as they’re already quite strange in their design. An inspiration for these designs is Dr.Seuss.
Dr.Seuss' illustrated structures are so imaginative and wild that you get the feeling they could topple over any second, they're so crazy. he pushes the limits and creates houses that would be impossible to construct in real life. He creates the un-imaginable which transports you to a completely new world. This is what we want to achiev with our town and that's why I can imagine more designs like this fitting for the underworld- Dr. Seuss gone dark.
Building's Inspired by striking architecture
I thought it would also be interesting to create buildings inspired by structures/places that are usually heaving with life and make them unrecognizable within the context of our film- like the Palio, for example, where thousands gather to watch. i'd contrast this energy and life by turning them into a ghost town:
I was drawn in by the long windows and rows and rows of balcony's to gaze at the square from. If you were to remove the context of this image (the crowds and horses) I can imagine the structures at the back really fitting with the industrial town aesthetic. Their white washed, terracotta fronts imply that they've seen a few years and the dark openings of each window evokes a rather eerie atmosphere. Each structure is also very similar to one another, so making a few structures like these would really bulk out the town and naturally create more endless streets for our ghost to walk down. I also really like how they're not the same height. It creates a sense of movement and gives the square even more character. Their height difference almost personifies them, as it's like a group of tall and small people watching over. I might be getting carried away but i just think the buildings are extremely quirky and their structure is actually quite simple when coming to make it out of card, so creating a little series of them shouldn't be too time consuming.
Venice is also one of the most attractive cities, so to make its buildings seem almost unrecognizable would be really interesting. This little building was inspired by Venician architecture and I think the features that really link it with Venice is the odd windows and the intricate balcony. The balcony was very delicate so proved a struggle when trying to align it around the top of the building. However, it was definitely worth it and will add even more variety to the shadows, when light is cast through the windows and gaps:
Although buildings in Venice are grand and evoke wealth, if you were to place these buildings in a context other than Venice, they could easily look rather dystopian. This is because their architecture is like no other, and although i know that makes it even more difficult to make them unrecognizable as Venice is know for these buildings, it's a challenge and i feel like it's achievable. I will simply take elements of the architecture and adapt it into my own version. When these buildings are placed with the other paper buildings I have made, they'll all be so varied that just that variety will create another world. A world away from Venice and away from Sienna's Palio, but a world overcome by industry and now explored by one lonely little ghost.
Having used the Palio as beginning inspiration, I went onto develop the building to make it look more industrial. I created an attachment building that I can separate from the rest of the structure- It acts as a part we can easily remove and put back on when we wish. The flexible thing about this design is that they aren’t dis-similar to a factory building anyway, now that we have taken it out of context. We are able to subtly weave a bit of culture into our project whilst still keeping a strong theme and aesthetic.
I then took inspiration from a painting (shown below) and added a bridge to make this area fit into a working town scene:
I also wanted to see how we could incorporate water into this scene, as a bridge without water defeats its purpose. I didn’t actually want to use water as that would add to complications so I found some cling film and experimented with how i could manipulate that to look like a running river. I simply broke some off and crumpled it a little to put some movement into it and this was the result:
Out of focus (night)
The light catches it really beautifully so that it isn't recognizable as cling film. I think it's definitely something for both of us to play around with when we are able to see each other. It also adds texture and multi-media to the set. It breaks away from the sea of white card and compliments the set by adding a little shimmer and depth. The stream of clingfilm could go on for ever for all the audience knows. We can play around with depth of field and manipulation of the image when we come to shoot.
Buildings and initial projection inspiration:
Projections on such a large scale as these are usually political statements or a celebration of something. They catch your eye from miles away and bring a new perspective to the architecture that you wouldn't appreciate in daylight. They evoke a sense of power and the projections we cast onto the town will give it some life within it's emptiness, giving it power over the ghost. We want to focus a lot on perspective as well; use the projections to our advantage and make things seem like they're not, make the town seem larger than it is etc...Projections of this kind of scale generate conversation and provoke change. It's a different experience, looking at art like this. The mix of the real and the virtual does make people stop and think because it's bringing art that might have once been hidden in the depths of the internet and showcasing it to the world so it cannot be ignored. Our town will not hold such statements but we take inspiration from projections like these to perhaps have underlying meaning and messages within our projections. We don't want obvious and obnoxious messages to overpower the delicate narrative of our film. We want the audience to very much be in charge of the way our final product is interpreted.
Art for inspiration:
James Downie- 'Northern Industrial Town Street Scene'
I'm drawn by the slender figures, bearing resemblance to Kaitlan's character design for our ghost. The shadows they leave behind them are beautiful and creepy at the same time. I also really like the structure of the town depicted in this painting. It's terraced houses are like the ones I built inspired by Siena's architecture.
I love this image (above) because of the variety of buildings populating this town and the obvious but not overpowering factory chimney's dotted about. I will start to construct some paper chimney's and see how they fit in around the town as it is so far.
Minus the population of people in this image, this illustration is how i imagine one of the streets to be seen from our character's POV. It's towering buildings enclose the light and make the street seem dingy and endless.
Moving Image works
'12 Monkeys'- American Neo-Noir Science Fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam.
In this film, the world above has become deserted and stripped of all human existence. The people that remain live underground in a very dystopian and industrial prison-like setting. The protagonist is sent back in time to try and warn people of the world to come. This is very similar for the narrative we have created. The ghost is concerned that the underworld he now exists in will be overcome by its industry and collapse into non-existence, like the above world. It will leave the underworld empty. Although the underwold is chaotic and the ghost wishes he could still live above ground, this is where he has to exist now and he at least wants to try and do the best for it.
The underworld in 12 Monkeys is a strict and rather totalitarian regime and its mechanical featured are aspects that I envision our underworld to posses.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12QBJq6qTUokj5VrFt7w2OGAYkZxHU5dYcoO57gn01i0/edit?ts=5e84c6b2
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