World Building

    

World building is something that I’ve been fascinated with for years. From game design to creative writing it is quite literally the building blocks of all fantasy and fictional worlds. Between my film and illustration projects I will be exploring the idea of world building as I see it, from research to concept; map design, characters, location and inspiration to name but a few. Although I am essentially an artist and set designer I have an interest in writing and all forms of narrative such as game design. There will be posts that focus on all types of world building as well as visual inspiration.

     

So whether you’re a concept artist, writer or budding production designer you should find something that suits all narrative research. It’s worth following the blog and also looking back over my MA work as there are many relevant entries about science fiction film and set design.

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The Tube Riders Sketchbook: The reception and levels

I’m continuing with drawing out possible shapes and details for the reception area, incorporating details that I have sourced from my mood boards and getting a clearer idea of what the upper levels might look like.

Above: Mood board that shows the architecture of the Lloyd’s building in London with some more industrial additions. These serve to inspire the main reception area and show how height, levels and piping could work in my designs.

Below: Some drawings to show positions of walk ways, pipes etc and some possible window detail. I’ve added a bit of colour on the bottom picture just to get an idea to work from for concepts.

 

The Derelict Landscape: Nottingham Part 2

I’ve added another selection of derelict building photos from Nottingham continuing the theme and providing more visual inspiration.  Although sunshine doesn’t always set the mood for post apocalyptic scenes, winter sun provides the right light to get some nice shadows and contrast which might be useful.  The light also makes it possible to see some of the detailing in the brickwork and windows. All these photos have had some digital enhancement playing with contrast and colour but I have all the originals for future reference.

The Derelict Landscape: Nottingham Part 1

Nottingham is rich with industrial heritage and it’s not unusual to find an abandoned factory or two around the outskirts of the city centre. Derelict office blocks and what looks like an  old bus station are a little bit rarer. I will probably use these as inspiration for my future project and might even use some of the architectural shapes when constructing concepts for film. Abandoned buildings seem to take on an aura of the past and I’ve tried to capture some of the buildings’ history as well.

Carcass: Machines, cyborgs and future cities

Here are two more pages from my sketchbook that are mainly scrapbook images of Futurism, androids, machines and architecture for inspiration.

Below is an image adapted from architecture in Valencia . I tend to work with cut outs and sketches at the start of a project as I find playing with photographs, altering the angles and shapes can reveal interesting designs that can then be drawn up or digitally enhanced.

Images are from Futurism-Movements in Modern Art (Humphreys, R., 1999),  History of the Future (Lorie, P., Murray-Clark, S., 1989) and my own photo collection.

Carcass:-Beginnings of a scenic design project

This last week we were given our first DFTE scenic design project in which we read the script Carcass by Julius Ayodeji, break it down, design sets and concepts etc. then present our designs to the rest of the group. It’s a fairly big project to do in 4 weeks but it’s probably realistic in terms of what is expected in the industry.

First stage:- Reading the script several times; first sweep was to get a gist of the story as a whole and to break down into scenes/sets-external/internal-night/day, second sweep was to get insight into the themes, feelings and mind-set of the characters which will help focus my visual/contextual research for the coming week ahead. This stage was also for jotting down the props/furniture and some key ideas that came to me as I read. This will need to be written out in a way that is expected by the industry so I will check out this week exactly how to present the information. But, for now it’s in a rough format–just enough to allow me to move to the next stage as quickly as possible

Second stage:- Main research stage in which I gather visual and contextual research and start applying it to the script; I have started collecting images from the internet on my Pinterest page plus internet links to refer to. I also ordered some books from the library on dystopia and gender for inspiration. At the moment I’m focusing on the themes/inspirations of metamorphosis, transformation, gender, futurism art, architecture and dystopia which will give me plenty to fill my sketch/scrap-book. I see this stage taking up a fair bit of this week which means that I will have 2 and half weeks to do the designs/concepts/storyboards and model–a tight schedule–but necessary. This is the all important point in which the ideas start to form and it will allow stage 3:-design/concepts to flow more smoothly. This week will also be when I look up all the stages of film design that I’m less familiar with, such as storyboarding, soundstages, concept ratios and I will brush up on my technical drawing knowledge.

Abandonment and project starting points

As a child and living in Wales I was surrounded by ruins, all of which held ancient stories and secrets. I would often spend much of my summer wandering around castles, finding part hidden walls and houses that had been abandoned. This continued as I got older and moved to the city. The city revealed altogether different settings; old disused canals and factories, derelict hospitals and graffiti. Over time I developed a strange fascination with derelict buildings and knew I wanted to use it in some way.

     

     

Photographs that capture elements of dereliction and abandonment in Nottingham.

Alongside my aesthetic interests I also developed a keen interest in reading and watching post-apocalyptic/dystopian books and films. Through that I became fascinated by society’s obsession with ‘end of world’ scenarios and oppressive situations.

Whether it reveals something about the human condition or our ability to survive against the odds, it’s hard to say, but from a design point of view–it allows for some interesting research.

My plan is to look at post-apocalyptic films that often use abandonment, dereliction, war-torn landscapes alongside dystopian films that  generally show futuristic, oppressive, claustrophobic or controlling environments. Sometimes the two combine into one film.  Both are classed as science fiction. Both types of film have requirements and constraints story wise and  I want to look at these in conjunction with the practical approaches, such as location verses the built/devised set.

This journal will document my journey and will include photos, research into existing films, sketchbook work and experiment, the development of new skills, side projects and the realisation of a final design brief in which I aim to use a novel to create designs for film.