Monday, 28 February 2011
Pre-Viz Final
Well here it is and with sound. It's a little crude but it works (I hope). Now onto finishing the animatic! :D I should also add that the title is a work in progress.
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Circus Lab Set Design: Final
A few adjustments to the previous version. I've applied a little bit of warp to the lab set so that it's more rounded and follows the circus ring. Also added some perspective to the lab sets cabinets and few flasks and test tubes.
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Setting Designs: Circus Ring and Lab Set
Here are the concept designs for the setting of my animatic.
I know that the lab set looks a little crude but that is what I am aiming for. I want it to look as though it was made and painted by someone from within the world of my animatic.
I've also combined both sets to see what they will look like together, after all the lab set is a part of the performance.
Friday, 25 February 2011
Attempting Pre-Viz
This isn't the whole thing, only the first few scenes outside the circus tent with the mysterious flashing light.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Film Review: Cloverfield
The seventh film we watched from the ‘The Cutting Edge’ film programme was Cloverfield, which was directed by Matt Reeves and was released in 2008.
Cloverfield is your very typical monster movie only looked upon from a slightly different perspective than usually expected. In this film a simple video camcorder documents the events of the night an unknown monster goes rampant across Manhattan. Talking about the influences for Cloverfield, Roger Ebert says:
"Godzilla meets the Queasy-Cam in "Cloverfield," a movie that crosses the Monster Attacks Manhattan formula with "Blair Witch.""
Still the point arises that Cloverfield is just another monster movie similar to so many others done before. What makes it different though is its use of simplicity, particularly in the camera department, but in other areas too. And it is this simplicity that makes Cloverfield seem some completely new and unseen. Olly Richards writing for Empire magazine says:
"It’s a film that treads the well-worn steps of many monster movies past, but flits through them as if on virgin territory."
There is a great deal of mystery shrouded around this creatures sudden and rudely interruptive appearance which unfortunately are never explained or at least not fully. This appears to be kept on a need to know basis. The footage from the attack is broadcast to the world only showing the creature. It is almost as though the the government are keeping the vital information under lock and key, which makes this film somewhat of an annoyance as well as a pleasure. Richard Corliss writing for Time Magazine says:
"Instantly you have a million questions. By which I mean: three. 1) Where did the creature come from? (The Hudson River? Or the Arctic, thawed out by climate change and sent south on tidal currents? Possibly Hoboken?) 2) What event roused it from a snooze that may date back to the dinosaur era? (Godzilla's rampage across Japan, you'll recall, was the spawn of atomic bombs dropped there.) 3) What, exactly, the heck is it?"
Bibliography
Ebert, Roger (2008) Cloverfield.
At: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080117/REVIEWS/801170302 (Accessed on 23.02.11)
Cloverfield is your very typical monster movie only looked upon from a slightly different perspective than usually expected. In this film a simple video camcorder documents the events of the night an unknown monster goes rampant across Manhattan. Talking about the influences for Cloverfield, Roger Ebert says:
"Godzilla meets the Queasy-Cam in "Cloverfield," a movie that crosses the Monster Attacks Manhattan formula with "Blair Witch.""
Still the point arises that Cloverfield is just another monster movie similar to so many others done before. What makes it different though is its use of simplicity, particularly in the camera department, but in other areas too. And it is this simplicity that makes Cloverfield seem some completely new and unseen. Olly Richards writing for Empire magazine says:
"It’s a film that treads the well-worn steps of many monster movies past, but flits through them as if on virgin territory."
There is a great deal of mystery shrouded around this creatures sudden and rudely interruptive appearance which unfortunately are never explained or at least not fully. This appears to be kept on a need to know basis. The footage from the attack is broadcast to the world only showing the creature. It is almost as though the the government are keeping the vital information under lock and key, which makes this film somewhat of an annoyance as well as a pleasure. Richard Corliss writing for Time Magazine says:
"Instantly you have a million questions. By which I mean: three. 1) Where did the creature come from? (The Hudson River? Or the Arctic, thawed out by climate change and sent south on tidal currents? Possibly Hoboken?) 2) What event roused it from a snooze that may date back to the dinosaur era? (Godzilla's rampage across Japan, you'll recall, was the spawn of atomic bombs dropped there.) 3) What, exactly, the heck is it?"
Bibliography
Ebert, Roger (2008) Cloverfield.
At: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080117/REVIEWS/801170302 (Accessed on 23.02.11)
Richards, Olly (-
) Cloverfield.
At: http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=135091 (Accessed on 23.02.11)
Corliss, Richard (2008
) Corliss on Cloverfield: The Blair Witch Reject.
At: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1704366,00.html (Accessed on 23.02.11)
Film Review: The Blair Witch Poject
The sixth film we watched from the ‘The Cutting Edge’ film programme was The Blair Witch Project, which was directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez and was released in 1999.
Entering into the world of witchcraft, spirits and superstitious legend, three promising film makers venture into the supposed haunted woods of small town in Maryland, USA.
The Blair Witch Project is a terribly frightening horror and not for the reasons we would normally associate with horror. That's right Saw fans, no blood, guts, mutilated corpses or special effects here. Instead this film plays on the fears of being lost in a place that is very isolated from any form of civilisation and the paranoia that close follows suit. The three protagonists of the film are made to feel hunted, that something they can't see or rationalise is chasing and torturing them. As Roger Ebert states:
""The Blair Witch Project," an extraordinarily effective horror film, knows this and uses it. It has no fancy special effects or digital monsters, but its characters get lost in the woods, hear noises in the night and find disturbing stick figures hanging from trees. One of them discovers slime on his backpack. Because their imaginations have been inflamed by talk of witches, hermits and child murderers in the forest, because their food is running out and their smokes are gone, they (and we) are a lot more scared than if they were merely being chased by some guy in a ski mask."
The horror style of this film was made and executed to take effect psychologically, playing not only with the victimised protagonists in which strange occurrences are taking place around them, but also with the audience using shock values to instil fear and an uncomfortable paranoia. In a review by Film4 they say:
"The sleeper hit of 1999, helped by a brilliant marketing campaign that cleverly used the Internet, is a work whose surface artlessness conceals a sophisticated and meticulously conceived and crafted piece of psychological horror."
The viral internet campaign set up to promote the film did so superbly. Not only was this advertising but before the film could even be seen it was already instilling deep seated fears within its potential audience. However there is some let done in terms of the fear factor in the movie as it wasn't frightening as its viral campaign made it appear, as picked up in a review by Ali Barclay for the BBC:
"Not as terrifying as advertised, and definitely flawed, it is still one of the most original horror films to have emerged in recent years."
Bibliography
Ebert, Roger (1999) The Blair Witch Project.
At: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990716/REVIEWS/907160301 (Accessed on 23.02.11)
Entering into the world of witchcraft, spirits and superstitious legend, three promising film makers venture into the supposed haunted woods of small town in Maryland, USA.
The Blair Witch Project is a terribly frightening horror and not for the reasons we would normally associate with horror. That's right Saw fans, no blood, guts, mutilated corpses or special effects here. Instead this film plays on the fears of being lost in a place that is very isolated from any form of civilisation and the paranoia that close follows suit. The three protagonists of the film are made to feel hunted, that something they can't see or rationalise is chasing and torturing them. As Roger Ebert states:
""The Blair Witch Project," an extraordinarily effective horror film, knows this and uses it. It has no fancy special effects or digital monsters, but its characters get lost in the woods, hear noises in the night and find disturbing stick figures hanging from trees. One of them discovers slime on his backpack. Because their imaginations have been inflamed by talk of witches, hermits and child murderers in the forest, because their food is running out and their smokes are gone, they (and we) are a lot more scared than if they were merely being chased by some guy in a ski mask."
The horror style of this film was made and executed to take effect psychologically, playing not only with the victimised protagonists in which strange occurrences are taking place around them, but also with the audience using shock values to instil fear and an uncomfortable paranoia. In a review by Film4 they say:
"The sleeper hit of 1999, helped by a brilliant marketing campaign that cleverly used the Internet, is a work whose surface artlessness conceals a sophisticated and meticulously conceived and crafted piece of psychological horror."
The viral internet campaign set up to promote the film did so superbly. Not only was this advertising but before the film could even be seen it was already instilling deep seated fears within its potential audience. However there is some let done in terms of the fear factor in the movie as it wasn't frightening as its viral campaign made it appear, as picked up in a review by Ali Barclay for the BBC:
"Not as terrifying as advertised, and definitely flawed, it is still one of the most original horror films to have emerged in recent years."
Bibliography
Ebert, Roger (1999) The Blair Witch Project.
At: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990716/REVIEWS/907160301 (Accessed on 23.02.11)
Film4 (-) The Blair Witch Project.
At: http://www.film4.com/reviews/1998/the-blair-witch-project (Accessed on 23.02.11)
Barclay, Ali (2000) The Blair Witch Project.
At: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/10/23/blair_witch_project_1999_review.shtml (Accessed on 23.02.11)
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Clown Character Designs: Make-Up
Looking over the mouth design for the clowns make-up, I thought it looked a little generic seeing as how the original was made without any source material so having looked at a few pictures of snake mouths (below) I've redesigned the make-up.
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| New clown mouth make-up |
Clown Character Designs 3
As the clown character for my story is portrayed to be the more villainous of my two characters I was thinking of how I could make him look more so when I stumbled on an old drawing of mine.
Originally this was meant to be an evil looking theatre mask but I ended up turning it into a clown (for reasons I can't quite remember). The design around the mouth was meant to resemble an open snakes mouth while the design around the eyes was meant to resemble fangs.
I have applied this design to my clown with the following result:
Originally this was meant to be an evil looking theatre mask but I ended up turning it into a clown (for reasons I can't quite remember). The design around the mouth was meant to resemble an open snakes mouth while the design around the eyes was meant to resemble fangs.
I have applied this design to my clown with the following result:
