Monday, 29 November 2010
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Third Final Piece and 5 Supporting Images
 |
| Final Image |
 |
| Stage 1 |
 |
| Stage 2 |
 |
| Stage 2 |
 |
| Stage 3 |
 |
| Stage 4 |
 |
| Stage 5 |
Reference Images : Rays of Light
I finally remembered where i originally saw this one beam of light coming from a cathedral window...It was in the Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame! The light shining down on the floor below looks very spirtual ad that was the concept I was aiming for in my final piece.
Some other images I found...
Second Final Piece: Mirror Experiments
I decided to flip my final piece the other way to check the perspective then i decided to mirror the piec to expand the view but the image became too symetrical for coral but it created a dynamic 'cross road' type scene.
Third Final Piece Re-think
Started to work into my thrid final piece whe i started to look at it and think realistically i wont be able to complete this piece in time. Its such a shame because I would really of liked to complete this piece and put in the same amout of detail as my previous pieces. I would defintly like to complete this piece at some point. So I decided to look back through my thubmbnails to pick a design I had perviously liked.
I chose this design below because it would work well with the lighting tecniques I had hused in my previous picece. The idea behind the piece bellow is again for the the burial extract when they are buringing the body in the clearing. The beam of light is shining down on the divers buring the body is symbolic of the heavens shining through the coral to create an atmosphere of calm sadness. in the water.
The Dark Crystal (1982)
Scanning through the list of films lined up for this project, the mention of the Dark Crystal brought back floods of memories from watching this film when was younger. I could remember most about the wonderful mystical creatures like the gentle Mystics, the pixie like Gelfling’s, funny yet loveable Fizzgig and not forgetting the grotesque Skeksis. Watching this film again allowed me to really appreciate how athletically remarkable the whole film is from the creature designs to the sets jammed with imaginative beauty that transport you into a world of fantasy.
Full credit for the designs of this world bursting with imagination is fantasy concept artist Brian Froud he crams every single detail he can imagine into the every scene that everywhere you look. It is very rare that one artist is assigned to develop the whole concept art for a film but that sets the Dark crystal apart making it highly stylised. It also makes it a golden opportunity to see inside the mind of one man’s vision of a whole world and how it all comes together. I didn’t realise how much detail and thought when into the whole vision of the world until I looked through the concept art book which shows every single piece of detail about every creature their habitat, maps of the land and a whole history! An extensive vision like this is way up there with the world of Avatar’s Pandora.
Despite this at times I lost where I the storyline because my attention was either focusing on absorbing the scenery or being strangely hypnotised by the vile yet moronic nature of the Skeksis. Many film critiques have debated the target audience for this film because of the storyline being a little bit too complicated for that of children but the puppet style being to childish for adults. For me some of the scenes were a bit too scary for younger audiences, especially when I first watched this as a child I remembered being scared by the Skeksis and there foot soldiers. The way the creatures were designed makes them repulsive to look at a skeletal vulture figure with piercing sunken eyes and venial wrinkles. Even when re-watching the film I still found them haunting and I’m not the only one:
“Kids may be both scared and enthralled by the scope and details, not to mention the graphic nature of the darker elements portrayed (as a kid I cringed a bit when the 'vital essence' scenes came up). And for adults there's a lot of great craftsmanship that goes into the story, which is with all of the effects and over-the-top creations very well told by directors Henson and Oz.”
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Barbarella (1968)
A film critique describes Barbarella as being “bright and loud and trashy with a little soft porn thrown in for good measure” this pretty much sums up Barbarella. Many of the sets are busy and alive with colour which is a backdrop for a “trashy” and sexist storyline full of cheesy gags.
Being made in the sixties the loud and colourful hippy influences channel through in the set designs especially the interior to Barbarella’s space ship with the faux fur flooring and psychedelic arrangement of flashing lights. Alongside this are some strange yet bold choices made in the concept designs later in the film like an angel that lives in a nest also a man floating around in a bong under the name of essence of man...Certainly not your typical view of the future. However the film did achieve a terrifying scene when Barbarella is being violently attacked by carnivorous china dolls, especially when china dolls can look haunting at the best of times.
 |
| Interior of Barbarella's Spaceship |
 |
| Barbarella Dolls |
“The designs are 1960s psychedelic with as many Freudian twists as the film's makers can come up with, and when all is said and done you can't help but roll your eyes in amusement.” The film is full of these sexual gag's some coming across in a sexist way.
The film picks up on the breakdown of social stigma surrounding the sexual behaviour women from with introduction of the contraceptive pill to the public. The pill gave women sexual freedoms that lead to the idea of women becoming more promiscuous and the character Barbarella embraces this promiscuous attitude. References to the pill can be interpreted within the film when they refer to the sex pill leading to “space sex” by touching hands and synchronised bobbing.
The storyline starts off with the world’s number one secret agent being assigned a top secret mission then Seventeen minutes into the film she is kidnapped by two 8 year old girls... and it goes downhill from there. The basic outline of the plot consists of Barbarella crashing her spaceship all over the universe having sexual relations with various different male life forms that do the detective work for her. Overall the film sums up a very clumsy yet helpless view of women who rely on men coming across as being sexist on a number of levels.
 |
| Barbarella "Sace Sex" |
More Coral Brushes!
To save time I decided to make a couple of brushes using the select colour range tool in photoshop from a couple of photographs that I have researched. I like the amount of detail in the patterns and textures this technique achieves however i prefer the brushes that I had made previoulsy becaues they make my work more stylised rather than realistic.
Essay Research: Treasure Planet
“A Disney animated version of "Treasure Island". The only difference is that the film is set in outer space with alien worlds and other galactic wonders.”
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland first novel influenced Disney film... criticised for americanising the work
"All it says is that, for this particular Thanksgiving weekend, this movie didn't perform as well as we'd anticipated. For whatever reason, we did not make it look appealing enough." And Exhibitor Relations chief Paul Dergarabedian told the Times: "There are two reasons that Treasure Planet did as poorly as it did. One is called Harry Potter and the other is called Santa Clause. There was just too much competition for the family audience."
-Too much competition at the time
“Treasure Planet encountered fairly stiff resistance on its US release. Whether or not it heralds the death of old-fashioned animation is open to debate, but it's crafted with all the care and imagination you would expect” Andrew Pulver: The Guardian Friday 14th Feb 2003 -
Production designer is a term used in the film industry and television to refer to the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the director and producer, they must select the settings and style to visually tell the story. The term production designer was created in 1939 out of respect for the amount and level of design work single-handedly accomplished by William Cameron Menzies on the film Gone with the Wind. Previously (and often subsequently) the people with the same responsibilities were called "art directors".
-CGI Lead animator for John Silver: Eric Daniels- key role
-Creativity of voice actors vs. Visual animation: characters life
-Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements
-Adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island
Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times may write that the sight of pirate ships and galleons sailing through the stars "just doesn't look right," but Ray Conlogue in the Toronto Globe and Mail observes that while such sights may seem "bizarre to the adult mind," they are "actually a charming triumph where its intended under-12 audience is concerned."
Ron Clements original idea of Treasure Island in outer space – combination of old with new
Old aspects: classic period tale of pirates ect
New: Science fiction elements... aliens space voyage holographic maps etc
Ships: to space ships, peg leg: cyborg etc
Reference to Robert Louis Stevenson: the ship the RLS Legacy
The 70/30 Concept: ratio between old (familiar) and new (invented technology) eg guns look like old flintlocks but shoot laser bullets
Development artwork Hye Coh, Ian Gooding and Frank Nissen
Treasure Planet: A Voyage of Discovery
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)