Sunday, 4 November 2012
Friday, 2 November 2012
Unit 2 - Secret Lairs: Set Design Influence Map
Heres another influence map i have created looking at stalagmites and pillars, i would like to combine the two into a sort of half carved feature for my set.
Unit 2 - Secret Lairs: Character Research and influences
The Subterranean Emperor
Subterranean definition “below ground, under the earth, underground”
Emperor definition “a monarch who rules or reigns over an empire”
My character will have the characteristics of a bond villain, wanting to save mankind from his corrupted image of itself. In his eyes he is doing the right thing, but it is ultimately wrong. Kind of like a ‘good’ Villain he has both strong vivid emotions and both massive will power and a strong passion for his course. He has thousands of followers in his underground lair that worship him like a god, hence why he is called Emperor. so this should be reflected in the scale of the set design.
His Lair will be an underground mashup of industrialism, Steampunk and fantasy architecture, utilizing the underground caves for his base, with metal and natural rock working together to form his lair.
When thinking about the character I cannot help but remember Luke Goss’s acting roles as Jared Nomak in Blade 2(2002) and Prince Nuada in Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). Even though both characters are shown to be the bad guy in each film Goss manages to give each character so much emotion and dedication throughout the films that by the end you feel attached to the character, and learn that his is perhaps not such a bad guy after all.
Fig 1 - Luke Goss Himself
In relation to my character, I would like for him to have characteristics of Both Nomak, and Nuada . Being a stressed super mind who only wants to save mankind but his way of doing so is extreme and naturally wrong.
Fig 2 - Prince Nuada in Hellboy II (2008)
Fig 3 - Jared Nomak in Blade 2(2002)
Unit 2 - Secret Lairs: Set Design Influence Maps
The Subterranean Lair
For my Subterranean Lair, I have looked at buildings like cathedrals, factory’s, warehouses, old abandoned buildings and some film sets.
Style wise I have looked at images featuring interior design to do with Steampunk and Industrialism, I think the collaboration of metal and rock will be key to portray my characters secret lair because if it was all metal the viewer may not perhaps get the scenes of it being underground. Light too will play a big key, and I think going with more artificial lighting colours will also help the set, so whites and maybe blue or green lighting. Looking at some of my influence images lighting I can tell the orange lighting gives too much of a sense of daylight, whereas the cold toned lighting gives the scene a more darker and underground feeling.
Another lighting feature that i think would go nicely with the set i have in mind is the Light Bulbs from following music video, i think hey will add some very intresting lighting effects and add to the run down approach i am trying to achieve.
Cinematic Spaces Film Review: Metropolis
Cinematic Spaces Film Review: Metropolis
“Hollywood lives for
money and sex. It borrows or buys its art. It is the Germans who are the
perpetual adventurers in the cinema. They gave the camera its stripling
mobility, its restless imagination.” (Evelyn
Gerstein, 2009)
Metropolis (1927) is a German expressionist science fiction
film written by Fritz Lang and his wife Thea Von Harbou, the film was directed
by Lang himself. Metropolis is
perhaps one of the most influential films in science fiction and special effects
and the boundaries it pushed in film & set production. The film features a
range of set designs, from a huge gothic cathedral to a futuristic cityscape. Lang
quoted saying, “the film was born from my
first sight of the skyscrapers of New York in October 1924". Describing
his first impression and the influence the city had on him, Lang said "the buildings seemed to be a vertical
sail, scintillating and very light, a luxurious backdrop, suspended in the dark
sky to dazzle, distract and hypnotize”
Fig 1 - The dark Cityscape
“Lang's impossibly
vast skyscraper-ziggurats (inspired, it's said, by his first view of the
Manhattan skyline) are the blueprint for nearly every science-fiction movie
city of the past 30 years.” (Ed Halter, 2007)
The Cityscape in Metropolis used the design and scale of the
buildings, to portray the power of industrialism. The buildings used throughout
the movie are very large, sometimes greatly exaggerated, often so much so that
they make the characters seem tiny and insignificant in and around the busy
city life. This helps to tie into the broken spirit portrayed throughout the earlier
scenes of the film, since the storyline has a dominant focus around the social
classes of society, with the workers forced to work long underpaid hours in the
lower parts of the city while the upper classes live high up in the
skyscrapers.
Fig 2 - The Portral of Emotion
The actors give the usual silent-film performance, full of over
exaggerated expressions and broad movements, but they express their characters humanity
in a way that is very relevant to the story. Cinematographer Karl Freund’s use
of a wide arrangement of stylized shadows, dramatic camera angles, and
geometric images all added to the movies style, and helped to really portray
the epic cityscape and characters throughout the movie.
Fig3 - The Awakening
“The meticulous
miniature photography and full-scale floods, explosions and riots, necessitated
a new level of collaborative ingenuity from every department” (Emanuel Levy, 2011)
Lang finished the film at a cost of 5.3 million, four times
as much as the film’s original budget of 1.5 million, this was due to his very
large sets and production style. The miniature sets were built on a grand scale
with key focus on perspective, wtith things like stop-frame animated vehicles moved
around the set from building to building. Over 36,000 extras were hired for the
live action flood, the worker rebellion, and the Tower scenes. This all added
to the huge cost of the film, but it obviously paid off big time as ‘Metropolis’ has gone on to influence many
science fiction film director, and set designers.
Bibliography
Images
Fig 2: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5RZhMKr4zAq2ZMPMqz7T0jpp8XO6dSac8OLgH6pFPcqtEa9bQ26SxBGfTEi8J-yO5osuO_E5ID4hYuB-jZLozTrnE4XAoyGAy3DmJW9_rulTvHM3yWlXaFipSHER-lcx-0b4wH2BceRc/s1600/Fritz+Lang+METROPOLIS+movie+image+%25282%2529500.jpg
Fig 3: http://picturesup.typepad.com/pictures-up/2012/03/index.html
Quotes
Quote 1: Evelyn Gerstein January 1,
2009 - http://www.thenation.com/article/metropolis
Quote 2: Ed Halter July 10, 2007 - http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-07-10/film/back-to-the-future/
Quote 3: Emanuel Levy, June 17,
2011 - http://www.emanuellevy.com/review/metropolis-making-of-fritz-langs-masterpiece-8/
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