Experimental Video #3: Developed Idea & More Research

Due to current events and having to both go home, Ellie and I both hope to carry on and pursue this project. We would both really like to execute this project as we originally planned however, we may be to produce both the set and the animation separately. There was also the idea of each creating a small paper town in our own homes and filming bits of it and then putting together our clips then learning how to CGI that with the animation on top. However, that's if we manage to successfully learn how to do this.

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DEVELOPED IDEA:

We both imagined a beautiful but rather murky projections being cast on to the paper town with a glowing figure (hopefully animated) wandering through it. The dark projections will draw more attention to this character.

We wanted the 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. Maybe even explore with how we can manipulate the set in creating an upside-down world or an ‘Inception’-esque world.
We also would maybe like to explore looking at what goes behind doors or what was once happening. Almost give each house a sense of character as the ghost walks past each one. 

The animation wont have a long narrative as such but will focus on creating a certain atmosphere of impending doom but also a sense of calm eerie-ness. 

We have also come to the realisation that this idea reflects the pandemic and the state of every country affected by COVID-19  . Being on lockdown with unnaturally silent streets. This town that we are planning to create could potentially be the worst case scenario of current situation. However, our focus on this project is that we will drop in little ideas of what had happened to the town but never completely reveal what had happened. Despite COVID-19, this project also reflects the fear of the earths future if we did not stop and reduce our CO2 emissions, plastic waste and focus more on climate change. We wanted to embody all of these fears in to one town and ghost. We want to show what once was but could no longer be. To show that period of time after destruction, but before the earth reclaims its land. 



Some images which I found inspiring for our set:

After making links to our current situation,  and looking at the photos I found (as shown above) I thought they really resembled some dystopian films setting. I thought it would be really interesting to look at how we could adapt these features with in our own work...

CHILDREN OF MEN (2006)

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

A story based in 2027 where human infertility had inexplicably become the worlds major problem. This created a sense of impending doom as the human race would eventually become extinct. The world had broke in to chaos and became a war zone.

The film set was of deteriorating cities and countryside of southeastern England. It becomes alarming to the viewer of how realistic it is due to the minimal use of sci-fi futurism. The world is standing on the brink; being politically disrupted, having mass refugee problems, terrorist attacks, and an authoritarian UK that had closed off all boarders to all outsiders. The landscape was neglected, homes torn apart, people practically living on top of each other and all over the streets. 

We want to reflect a sort of aftermath of all of these issues. We haven't directly pinpointed which issues we want to focus on and I feel as if we do not necessarily need to. We just need to focus on more of how it looks after been neglected. 

Going back to having paper white houses in the dark, this would reflect the idea of this previously functioning, city that was once looked after is now in the dark and is no more. it is only shown and lit up through the glowing outline of the ghosts body as if it can only be remembered that way in memory.

28 DAYS LATER (2002)

Directed by Danny Boyle, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

Set in a near future London, an outbreak of infected chimps from a laboratory start to attack people. 28 days later, the protagonist, Jim (Cilian Murphy) wakes up from a coma in a deserted hospital to find that he is the sole inhabitant of the capital. 

There is a scene where Cilian Murphy walks across the completely deserted Westminster Bridge that is cluttered with garbage. I really like the idea of places being so familiar yet so distorted in silence and emptiness. It completely changes the atmosphere creating fear and suspense. Almost like the idea of a calm before a storm. However, in our case it's more like the calm after the storm.