Perdido Street Station, thumbnails and a storyboard

Perdido Street station is a book by “weird fiction” writer China Mieville. We were given and excerpt and tasked with creating a story board to go along with it.

First of all, I needed to get images in my head onto paper so I know what to put in the storyboard. Some research as required to confirm things like what an Aerostat is. I couldn’t find anything on Wyremen, but with phrases like “Wyremen clawed their way above the clouds leaving streams of profanity” I could only assume they are multi-engined jet craft leaving vapor trails.

The excerpt mentioned slums far away out of the city that the “Milita Pods” would travel to.

Finally, because I love a bit of character development, I couldn’t resist drawing in “Rudgutter”. That kind of fat cat politician that lives in his ivory tower funded by greed.

In the initial story board, your eye is meant to flow from one scene to the next, guided by the object of focus. Starting with bugs, then onto birds, then aerostats then wyremen and so on. Finally settling on Rudgutter himself. I made a mistake here, I’ve not followed the story path, as the excerpt ends with focus on Perdido Street Station rather than Rudgutter. My reluctance to focus on environments has been my downfall but I can remedy this by placing greater emphasis on buildings in my life drawings.

Portraits, Perspective and anatomy.

A couple of Self-Portraits done over the weeks. I still have a problem drawing eyes way to big. But as the drawings go on, it seems the facial proportions seem to equal out.

A couple of anatomy drawings done from Burne Hogarth’s, Dynamic Anatomy. Mid sections in bodies are a weak point of mine, as they’re often clothed, I wasn’t actually too sure what the interior of the muscles and bones looked like.

A couple of faces in places drawn from a hairstyle magazine.

Audience and Aesthetics part 3

In this part of the brief, I am to rework my current animation (Working title: Children’s Tale, so far only visible as an animatic.) Researching from a list of styles and narrowing done to one. Initial research.

An Indie Animation in the style of Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis, 2007.

The black and white style brings greater focus on objects of interest in Persepolis, specifically on a jacket that says “Punk is not ded”, it also highlights the burkha’s the muslim women have to wear and how it doesn’t give them any individuality.

A stylised animated folk tale version of your story in the style of Karel Zeman

Almost a cut out styled animation, it’s washed out colours and period clothing designs give it an antiquated edge.

A show styled after The Powerpuff Girls (inspired by Maragaret Keane’s art)

Her work feature’s oversized eyes, possibly to exagerate the innocence of youth, but it is clearly seen in the Powerpuff girls also. Professor Utonium, their creator appears to have a more “normal” appearance with eyes that are in line with his head shape.

A found object animation in the style of Kayla Parker or Jan Svankmejer

Jan Svankmejer looks as if he’s done a lot of surreal claymation pieces that are surreal in nature. This one is definately out of my comfort zone, I’m not unused to surreal, but claymation is an area I’m quite weak in.

A folded Paper animation in the style of Garry Bardin.

Looking like a combination of cut out and claymation with cultural references to Russia.

An animated Music video version of your story with some of the punk rock/retro styling of Matthieu Bessudo (aka McBess)

The animation hails to the old steam boat willy era of animation, with the big black eyes.

A anthropomorphosised character animation in the style of Adrien Merigeau (Fangs)

Stylised with empathises on pointy ears and long snouts.

A kids animated show using a similar style to the Murikami/Tim Teen Titans show, the characters for which were desinged by Jon Suzuki.

A show in the style of Klasky Csupo (and Peter Chung’s) show, Rugrats

A cut-out animation in the style of Terry Gilliam’s early animation work.

I looked up Mcbess’ (Mathieu Bessudo) website. He certainly comes across as an eccentric individual. Refering to himself as an “Expensive Illustrator/Director“. He’s taken a direct influence from Max Fleichers work but has added his own unique vulgar twist to it, often depicting himself in a surreal world surrounded by meat, music and tattooed friends.

I drew upon a great deal of Fleicher and Mcbess’ work to accomplish the concept designs of the images.

A worrying aspect to encounter was that a lot of Mcbess’ work tends to sexualise the female figure, despite it very obviously remaining a Merry Melody cartoon shape. Full busts, narrow waists and wide hips tend to accentuate the female figure. This was somewhat problematic for my child character, as it is a young girl, it wouldn’t be right to portray her in that sense, especially with tattoos and provocative clothing. Instead it simply says “Generic Vulgarity” or “Something Vulgar” on her hoodie. The father figure has “Roks” with a skull on his hoodie, a nod to Dead Pirates “Wood”.

Symbolism in the scene – The Cypher

For this brief, we were to establish a scene in which a masked individual approaches an object or a statue. The main focus being on the symbolism and what the masked person represents as well as what the object or statue represents to him. I used the chess pieces symbols that I had chosen in an earlier brief to represent a pawn and a queen. It could be viewed in a multitude of ways, with the pawn, a piece that’s only real purpose is to die for more valuable piece, gazes upon it’s queen for the first time. It could even be that the pawn has reached the other end of the board and is being gifted the power of the queen for the first time.

In my inital drafts, I used obvious objects to represent certain things (A Q shaped scepter for Queen, and a sword for power), but my tutor put the idea in my head that the Queen’s power is less obvious and more of a reflection of the power she commands, rather than straight up martial prowess. The designs were reviewed, instead now she holds the crown and offers it forth to the pawn, who exchanges it for his expressionless mask. The sword is still relevant but less so, as it is not so clearly in view.

One of the main things I took from this was composition and camera angle. Important elements when it comes to establishing the scene and setting the characters. In both scenes, the ‘Pawn’ is in a much lower position than the ‘Queen’ to represent his station, even though he’s being promoted, it’s important to remember where he came from.

It was pointed out that the square shaped composition wasn’t well thought out. Whether the final piece is to be for a poster or film concept, the piece’s size was 1600×1600 pixels. I could change this to reflect standard 16:9 ratio quite easily, but I would have to reshape the characters to better fit the scene.

Another problem with the composition is the lacking background. The blackness is almost crushing but it doesn’t do anything to establish or set the scene. I can change this to reflect the Queen’s power perhaps, regal and rich fabrics to line the walls along with a grand doors that the pawn has pushed open.

Recommended to look at the works of Franklin Boothe and Joeseph Clements Coll.

Franklin Booth – I like this design for how daunting it is, but it makes for a beautiful portrait piece. With the figure seeming content surrounding by so many books.

Joseph Clement Coll – Has far more evocative figures in his compisitions, not just in the facial expressions but in the positioning as well.

I did a few more thumbnails in an effort to change the positioning and see about adding maybe just a bit more detail.


I like the idea that the pawn had to climb a mountain of black and white skulls to get to the crown. The idea that he’s had to witness friend and foe die. I pondered the state of the bodies around him as well. If they are recent, it implies he perhaps killed them himself. If they are old and desicated, it’s more like he came across a very old battle ground.

Rotoscoping 101

I rotoscoped the first few seconds of the Dr’s Meeting to better establish and capture the finer, more subtle movements in animation and exaggerate them a second time around

It was good practise, but the process was -very- time consuming, even when I decided to shoot on twos rather than use all the frames available.

It’s a good technique to fall back on if I’m struggling to create a more realistic movement.

Children’s Tale – Air Beam Adaptation animatic

The Doctor’s Room – acting for animation

As one of our group projects, the entire class was tasked with creating a short narrative that would then be recorded onto video to use a reference for an upcoming animation project. We brainstormed various ideas, ranging from retail scenarios to military conflict, ultimately, we decided on a Doctor and a councilor giving bad news to a patient and their relative. This had good opportunity for subtext, being able to show emotion without having to speak aloud, as not many of the students were comfortable with acting in front of a camera, or acting in general for that matter. The script was designed and can be viewed on Joseph’s Blog. I felt it needed refinement, as there was far too much dialogue in a situation that needed very little, the less talking the better, that way we’re relying more on the acting than on the dialogue to drive the narrative in the scene. Some trimming was also necessary so that way, everyone had roughly equal speaking parts. Though we weren’t all comfortable with this method, it was important for pulling us out of our shells and revealing in what areas we were weakest. The new script looked like this;

Dr – Well, we got your test results back… I’m afraid it’s bad news.

*Patient & relative react*

Dr – It was a longshot, but it was worth a try.

Relative – Is there nothing else we can do?

Dr – No. I’m sorry.

*pause*

Patient – So… what now?

Counsellor – I empathise this is difficult, you should spend time with your loved ones and… perhaps consider getting your affairs in order.

*Patient & relative nod, pause before rising, thanking the pair and leaving.*

 

We used multiple cameras to capture the footage and even multiple takes at different angles for dynamic camera changes. After the footage was aquired, we went our seperate ways to edit it together individually. I’ve imported mine into a flash, and I plan on rotoscoping over some parts of the footage for reference.

 

developing the air beam advert further

While I’m waiting on voice actors to get back to me to finalize the air beam advert, I began making some rough sketches for my next assignment. Which was to adapt the advert into something that would appeal to a young audience. It doesn’t have to remain as an advert, but the premise should stay the same. Broken down pick-up truck, big green beam of energy but it has to appeal to a young audience. Whatever the case, I needed to have a young character in it that could be related too.

I drew inspiration from the Last of Us for the father figure in this one, you can definitely see a great deal of Joel in there. The child doesn’t look nearly as young as I would like her to appear, especially not young enough to be attached to a teddy-bear backpack. Perhaps it was a gift from her dad, but the two aren’t really close and the dad doesn’t really know what to get a pre-teen child. She keeps it anyway for it’s use for storage.

Clothing still needed to be decided as well, I opted for uncomplicated stuff more for practicality over style, hoodies and jackets for warmth. The father figure might be wearing a shirt under his hooded jacket to denote that he’s a blue collar man. Though he needs to dress warm, he also needs to be presentable for whatever his profession may be. His jacket sleeves rolled up to imply that he’s a hard worker that’s not afraid of getting his hands dirty.

Having the two characters interact was important just to obtain size differences and scale if nothing else.

I began storyboarding a narrative of how events transpire that lead them to the Beam.

Already, I decided to get rid of the ‘rev drop’ and ‘foot pedal’ screens, instead I’ll be using a flat tyre mechanic for the vehicle break down, simply because it’s a lot easier to fix a flat tire then to determine what’s wrong with a faltering engine. It also makes for a good opportunity for a bit of faster pacing when the tyre pops.

It’s a bit unclear, but the truck skids to a halt, the child awakening from all the commotion. The man get’s out and begins to change the tyre, the girl, somewhat bored and curious steps out to look at what he’s doing, then to look at the environment around them. Suddenly, she sees a green glow coming from the ridge above. I should’ve specified, the scene is taking place at night, for an atmosphere with a creepier overtone and to make background creation a bit easier. The creepy atmosphere should make for a nice contradicting flow on the story.

So, the child climbs the ridge, her bear backpack and all. She comes across the beam and it reacts to her presence, narrowing and focusing, causing the rocks and the girl to float helplessly into the air, the vibrating hum of the beam intensifying as this happens. The final shot being a zoom in on the bear back pack, we see it blink before we cut to black. The title credits appear “The Beam” followed by “Coming Soon”.

And just before it ends we get a small glimpse of what follows;

What does it mean? Everything and nothing. The girl now has a sentient bear back pack capable of changing it’s size. Not far different from Jake and Finn from adventure time. What adventures will they embark on together? What challenges and obstacles would they overcome?

Freudian and Jungian imagery

A found a link to a powerpoint here that explained some of the finer points of Freudian interpretations in dreams and art.

I’ll summarize, it explains that man has often used destruction and placement of phallic symbols to demonstrate power, things that are often deemed as “Masculine”, masculinity and the ability to destroy are closely linked. We can look at modern day monuments and amassing of firepower to prove this. In stark contrast, the “Feminine” is depicted as safe, a representation of the nurturing woman. Flowers often represent the feminine, as with the work of Georgia O’keefe.

Women are later shown to be a symbol of fear for the masculine, with the Gorgon Medusa being the earliest depiction of the monstrous feminine figure with reference to “Vagina Dentata” and castration. It even mentions the monstrous feminine figure as depicted by the Alien Queen in Aliens, with the Queen and Ripley facing off at the film’s climax is James Cameron showing two maternal figures confronting each other.

The image of the mythological earth mother as a devourer of man can be seen in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, where prisoners are forced to walk off a plank into the mouth of a Sarlacc, a ground dwelling creature. In contrast, in The Empire Strikes back, the millenium falcon narrowly avoids being consumed by a giant, asteroid dwelling space slug known as an exogorth, perhaps a fear of being consumed by their own masculinity? Come to think of it, Star Wars is quite possibly riddled with imagery such as this. When Luke get’s his hand dismembered by Vader, that can be construed as a castration complex, empowered further more by the fact that they are father and son, and male children fear castration and it’s loss of power.

lingam

Lingam (Sanskrit for “shaft of light”) is the term for the Hindu god Shiva as represented by a phallus (erect male organ). Usually found in conjunction with the Yoni (‘vulva”) which represents the goddess Shakti – the source of Creative Energy. They co-join to form Bhrama – the Universe. This is the Hindu Trilogy; the representation of the twins of Creation and Destruction as the highest manifestations or aspects of the One (Bhrama).

Ties quite nicely back to masculinity and feminity as represented in medi.

Aesthetics and Symbolism in the Scene

The Name of the Rose had a purposefully muted colour palette to draw attention to the lower members of the clergy and how they would’ve given up material items and wealth. This draws attention to when we see the higher members, arch bishops and the like wearing gold embroided reds and rich colours. These themes of vanity are evident, those that exists within the lower echelons of the clergy appear to have deformities or tend to be of birth or are simply of poor appearance. Whereas those in higher standing are more attractive. This begs the question is exterior ugliness evil? In the tales of old, the handsome shining knight triumphs over the ugly demons. Have the lesser men turned to god because no one else will take them? Must they repent they’re evil unattractive ways?

Develop scenography, cinematography, design and design palettes for a range of characters/settings, scenarios, moods and atmospheres based on the following.
1, The Seven Deadly Sins. 2, The Muses. 3, The Planets. 4, Chess. 5, The Senses. 6, the Zodiac.

Develop the designs towards one of the following.

1, a theatrical/operatic stage performance. 2, a costumed, mobile festival street performance. 3, a mature audience oriented animation. 4, a period costume drama. 5, a children’s action adventure animation series. 6, a fully immersive 3d game.

With a dice roll I was given the Seven Sins for a mature audience oriented animation. Pleased with that outcome, but I rerolled the first as I felt the sins was a bit too mainstream. So I rerolled and was given Chess instead.

Each of your aesthetic exploration should include research into the psychology of images and symbolism, mood boards that use colour palettes, textures, materials, objects and cyphers, lighting schemes and related art and design elements and iconography from historical and contemporary sources, and perhaps even typography [Depending on your choice you may wish to develop an overarching scheme, then choose just two or three individual elements for full development, certainly no less than two].

The History of Chess Pieces
The Pawn is commonly viewed as a simple foot soldier or even a citizen in earlier cases.
The Knight is the only piece that seems to have remain unchanged throughout the history. A sword and shield wielding mounted warrior.
The Bishop was originally an Al-Fil, an elephant piece. It may have been changed when it reached the Western World because no one knew the translation for elephant and so Bishop was more appropriate to represent the growing power of the church. However the piece as been the most open to interpretation wither the Laufer (Runner, German origin), Fou (Fool, French origin) and Alfiere (Standard Bearer, Italian origin).
The Rook now represents a fortified tower, it used to represent the fortified construction on a war chariot or war carriage. The Persian word for Chariot is Rokh, most likely where the name comes from.
The Queen initially started out as an advisor, guard or protector to the King. Given it’s position next to the King, it was assumed the the piece’s role was that of Queen, with this in mind she was given much more power as the game advanced. This may possibly because of Queen Isabella or Joan of Arc.
The King is the most valuable piece, but by far the weakest. This is most likely because the King is a leader, but not a combatant, he leaves the fighting to his generals. Old and wizened he is vulnerable. Next to the Knight the King has remained unchanged throughout the games history.

Suggested reading and research areas: Try and evidence all the discussion, interviews and related reading you can find on the creation of aesthetic schemes that production designers, art directors, cinematographers, stage designers and others who must take these issues into account in their work, perhaps some reading around those practical subject areas might be a starting point. As might areas to do with pyschology [Freud and Jung], semiotics, symbolism, colour theory and artistic composition.

In Addition: There are interviews on many film DVDs that are available upon which designers discuss the reasoning for their artistic/design choices.

Finally; Look at the work of Sarah Greenwood, Ben van OS & Jan Roelfs, Mark Friedberg, Dante Ferretti, David Boyd, Colin De Rouon & David A Koneff and Jack Cardiff… and Umberto Eco. And cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema.