Books Versus Film and My Final Project (The Tube Riders)

As a separate part of my project review I wanted to not only share a handful of the designs from my novel to film project with the wider world but look at the book versus film scenario.

We’ve all heard the phrase “yes I saw the film but I preferred the book”. I see these comments posted regularly on social networks, but why is that?  As readers we have a personal experience when we read a book. The author will guide us and entice us with their own vision, but that doesn’t mean we all see the characters or locations in exactly the same way as another reader or even the author. Novels allow us to get inside a characters head whereas  film, by comparison,  can be more selective. It’s probably because we spend so much time with these fictional people. A book can take anything from a day or two to several months to read depending on the reader compared to a film which is normally set around 2 hours.

Perhaps it’s unfair to compare the two given the time constraints for film makers to produce a believable world. All we can do is to strive for the very best rendition we can, using the best technology, scripts, actors, talent available. Some film versions are better than others for this reason. In many cases some novels are just more adaptable.

My own opinion is that films and books should be treated as two separate  experiences, after all, there are a lot of people who don’t read. Films allow a window into an author’s mind albeit for a few hours and makes a story accessible to all.

What’s important is a good story and a set of characters that an audience can relate to.

For this reason I chose The Tube Riders by Chris Ward. Immediately I was drawn into the world from the first page. There was a great blend of character insight and world building without being too caught up in unnecessary verbal clutter. It also had the right pacing for a film and fell into the science fiction/horror/dystopian genre that is currently popular in both film and TV. Given the time constraints of the project I concentrated on a couple of settings and also worked on some visuals as future guidance for VFX. Working without the normal set up of director/art department/producer I had to make my own decisions through discussions with my tutor. I also used some artistic license as there was no screenplay to work from.

The purpose of this post is to firstly share my work, maybe get some opinions or comments and secondly to hear from those who have read books and seen them transformed into films. What are your experiences negative or positive? Feel free to comment below and let me know what you think about the designs or the subject matter.

Below are some photos of scale models for the Medical Research Centre reception area and arena.

 

The book can be found at:-  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tube-Riders-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B007LVFSP8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409468188&sr=8-1&keywords=the+tube+riders

 

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Street Alteration: Final stages and set dressing

After working on some of the CGI background and graffiti I needed to turn my attentions to the actual set dressing that would  include rubbish, signs, a burnt out car and dirty streets in general. I designed a replacement sign for the fish bar above and changed it to the burger bar in the story. I also needed to dirty the brick work of the existing buildings, board up some of the windows with designed wooden boards. The background also included an abandoned train carriage. This was collage’d in from a photo and would be part of the CGI background. The car was also collage’d in but would be a set dress rather than CGI.

Theses pictures show the addition of set dressing components as they were added.

Below picture shows the dirtying up of the building fronts.That would be done using water-based paint so it can be removed easily. It also includes the burnt out train.

Below the image shows the addition of some fly tipping on the far right and the burnt out car. I have also added some street lights as it’s night and one or two of the buildings are inhabited.

The final stages were about filling the street with bags of rubbish that hadn’t been collected, loose rubbish and papers, alteration of lighting and just generally blending and tidying the image. I also added a larger bin into the foreground and some blending of the figures so they fitted the scene.

 

 

Final stage from this….

….to this.

The final image.

The street alteration needed to look like a dystopian society that had a more post apocalyptic feel. The city is generally uncared for, rubbish is left, people are rioting and setting fires. But the streets are still inhabited, so that meant there had to be life and places where people lived and worked. There is a burger bar, there are places in the city that will sell cigarettes, papers etc albeit limited stock. It was about creating a scene that incorporated CGI and potential post production techniques as well as traditional location scouting and set dressing.

The visual needs to portray the background to pass onto the digital matte painters. It will also need some visual effects due to movement in the background of search lights, maybe a moving train, movement in the clouds etc. to create a dynamic, believable scene.

There were some other items that could have been added such as a shopping trolley, dead flowers etc. I tried adding the shopping trolley and some more piles of rubbish and it started to look a bit too staged, after all it is a street that is still used with people running a business or a shop albeit dirty and run down.

I decided to keep the sky a murky orange green to show the fires off in the distance and the pollution. In heavily built up areas skies do take on an orange glow, this of course is emphasised for this scene.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Street location Alteration 1: Graffiti and posters

I wanted at least one street alteration that incorporated CGI/VFX as part of the set extension. I chose Shadwell as it provided some interesting urban views that could be added to or manipulated. The main action is focused on the bridge end of the street and some shop fronts, one of which is used in the action.

I gathered some visual inspiration from my Pinterest page of urban dystopian/post apocalyptic streets and some of my own photos.

 

 

A short excerpt from Chapter 3, The Huntsman in which one of the characters Switch walks the streets of London.

A couple of streets away he found a dirty fast food joint and bought a burger which he ate back out on the street. In a bin he found an old newspaper from two days ago which had little of interest, but he wasn’t much of a reader anyway. Most of the news he did glance at concerned crime within the city, murder, robbery, arson. The only mention of the world was from opinion columns that criticised the European Confederation’s trade blockades, and there was no mention of America at all. (The Tube Riders by Chris Ward)

Description here is mainly about the world around him and the character himself so it was fairly open in terms of design. Reading through other parts of the book though gave me visual ideas to work from. It had to say city, London, future, dirty, uncared for etc. Because the story revolves around a gang I wanted to make the streets have a gang-like feel with graffiti and posters. I also wanted to incorporate elements of resistance in the wall art, such as doves wings. The eye was used as a resistance poster, “they are watching you…join us…”. It adds to the sense of dystopia and being watched.

 

 

Above show the visuals for one of the walls. I used some of my artwork and adapted it, combining it with some tag street art.

I worked on some visuals that could be part of a boarded up shop front. This was inspired by some of the abandoned buildings around Nottingham that were boarded up with wood panels and joined together. This would also be part graffiti’d and would fit over the front of one of the existing shops.

               

The finished boarded up shop front using my building photo, artwork and graffiti wall. The image was produced in photoshop with layers and digital painting.

This image shows where it will fit.

 

Production Design: The concept or visual

Concept drawings are impressions of the set, often starting out as simple pencil drawings and becoming full colour renders that encapsulate the look of the film (LoBRUTTO, V., 2002). These can take on many forms from rough sketches to paintings with many being produced using computer software like Sketch Up or Vectorworks. The concept or visual is also used as a tool to show the set or character with possible colour schemes and overall mood of the scene ( BARNWELL, J., 2004). I have always had a fascination with the concept and while researching my project I have come across so many different styles. The following images are taken from various dystopian/post apocalyptic films and TV shows. Here they show how the concept creates the atmosphere and gives an overall impression of setting, props, lighting and colour.

Above: A visual concept from The Road found at  http://liveforfilms.wordpress.com/tag/concept-art/page/3/[sourced on 5/3/14]

Visuals from The Walking Dead found at http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/walking-dead-showrunner-unloads-stash-concept-art-exit-photos-75131 [sourced on 5/3/14]

Visuals from The Children of Men by Peter Popken found at http://abduzeedo.com/astonishing-movie-art-concepts-peter-popken [sourced on 5/3/14]

References:-

Visuals:- http://liveforfilms.wordpress.com/tag/concept-art/page/3/ [sourced on 5/3/14]

http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/walking-dead-showrunner-unloads-stash-concept-art-exit-photos-75131 [sourced on 5/3/14]

http://abduzeedo.com/astonishing-movie-art-concepts-peter-popken [sourced on 5/3/14]

 

Books:- LoBRUTTO, V., 2002. The Filmmakers Guide to Production Design. New York: Allworth press

BARNWELL, J., 2004. Production Design: Architects of the Screen. New York: Wallflower

 

 

The Novel to Film Project: The Tube Riders

I have chosen The Tube Riders (part 1) as my novel to film project for a variety of reasons. The obvious one is the genre. It’s set in future London in the year 2075 so it fits into the sci-fi category as well as having a strong dystopian thread to the narrative. I was also struck by the post-apocalyptic feel to the settings the first time I read it; some futuristic architectural elements are present but there are a lot of existing modern-day locations that are in  varying stages of decay or destruction with some areas of London being more well-kept. There are external locations that can be adapted from today’s London, a large underground complex that contains a lab, torture chambers, an arena and various floors and corridors that would be more than adequate for a model/concept designs and government buildings that provide further concept options. In addition to this there are abandoned tube stations, cars, rubbish filled streets and a general look of a war-torn, unkempt London. There is also an opportunity to work on some interesting character/costume concepts and with horror elements in regards to the “Huntsmen” hybrid creatures that feature all the way through the book.

The overall visual aesthetic of the story is that of divisions of rich and poor, but predominantly poor and abandoned. There is a sci-fi genre crossover between dystopian, post apocalyptic, horror/gothic with the characters and locations but also in the way that the buildings are described in the text; empty shells, half-finished building work, particularly the bypass road depicted as “a severed arm” I immediately thought that this way of  describing the landscape could work well with all the buildings, adding a sense of  a gothic, almost Frankenstein look to the film design, which fits well with the cyborg/human/animal hybrid Huntsmen.

The next phase is to breakdown the chapters into potential settings/props/concepts and to list all the  designs/types of work that I will produce in order to explore the role of Production designer, initially for the pre-production stage and then possibly for later stages should it be necessary.

Synopsis from Amazon

“Beneath the dark streets of London they played a dangerous game with trains. Now it is their only chance for survival…
Britain in 2075 is a dangerous place. A man known only as the Governor rules the country with an iron hand, but within the towering perimeter walls of London Greater Urban Area anarchy spreads unchecked through the streets.

In the abandoned London Underground station of St. Cannerwells, a group of misfits calling themselves the Tube Riders seek to forget the chaos by playing a dangerous game with trains. Marta is their leader, a girl haunted by her brother’s disappearance. Of the others, Paul lives only to protect his little brother Owen, while Simon is trying to hold on to his relationship with Jess, daughter of a government official. Guarding them all is Switch, a man with a flickering eye and a faster knife, who cares only about preserving the legacy of the Tube Riders. Together, they are family.

Everything changes the day they are attacked by a rival gang. While escaping, they witness an event that could bring war down on Mega Britain. Suddenly they are fleeing for their lives, pursued not only by their rivals, but by the brutal Department of Civil Affairs, government killing machines known as Huntsmen, and finally by the inhuman Governor himself.”

Further information about author Chris Ward is available at:- http://amillionmilesfromanywhere.blogspot.jp/

References:-

visual and synopsis http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Tube-Riders-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B007LVFSP8

WARD,C., 2012. The Tube Riders Trilogy (#1) . (Kindle Version)

From Page To Screen: Visualising Literature 1

There are two strands of research that will be my main focus for the practical side of the MA project. One is the role of the production designer in the science fiction genre, the other is the realisation of film designs from a novel. Many films are adapted from literature and recently  there has been an increase within the teenage/young adult category– The Hunger Games being a good example of a book  developed for the screen. The Hunger Games is the most popular Young Adult dystopian novel to date, still dominating the lists on Goodreads.  https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/12408.Best_Young_Adult_Dystopian_Novels [sourced on 31/01/13]

This is a selection of some of the films that use source material from dystopian books.

 

Pictures are PD James: The Children of Men  http://www.librarything.com/work/14944#  The Hunger Games http://www.carriesaba.com/blog/the-hunger-games-trilogy-3-books-that-get-you-thinking/

[sourced on 29/01/2014]

I thought I’d look at a few of these books in terms of designing for film before choosing my own source novel, taking on board some of the thoughts and approaches of the Production designers when dealing with literature.  Each film adaption can be different for a number of reasons.

Realism and the director/screenwriter approach

The Children of Men

This film was always going to have a strong guiding force as the director was also the screenwriter. Alfonso Cuaron had definite ideas about where scenes would take place and what details should be included. It was the job of the designers to allow Cuaron’s visions to materialise, solve problems and make sure there was continuity for when the scenes were finally put together.

Production Designer Jim Clay discusses dealing with the screenplay version of the book

Production designer Clay says, “We had to find locations that served all the actions, which are always very clearly in Alfonso’s head from his writing of the screenplay. One of my greatest challenges has been to join all of the pieces together in a convincing way.” http://www.visualhollywood.com/movies/children-of-men/about6.php

Cuaron was also hands on with his approach to the overall vision often adding props to the scene before filming. Actor Michael Caine recalls such a time when the director added  postcards to various areas around the back of the actors ” …It didn’t mean anything to us, but it’s important to him and for the look of his film.”  (www.visualhollywood.com/movies/children-of-men/about6.php)

Detail was also important to the look of the film, particularly when you’re dealing with a near-future England. Here, the director/production designer relationship comes into play as Clay recalls the importance of other creative inputs from Cuaron.

“The job of production designers Kirkland and Clay was to create and provide an expansive, reality-based world full of texture, one with sufficient space to allow for the action of the story. Clay says, “It was very exciting and very challenging for the whole crew, because we were charged with knitting together a series of shots that should hopefully become seamless as one timeless piece of action. Alfonso has a brilliant eye for detail and sometimes, when you’re designing the bigger picture, you forget to put in those detailed elements. He’s constantly reminding us what makes it real.”

There is so much visual information in a novel that it is quite easy to forget important little additions in set dressing. The audience has to be submerged visually from the outset. They have to be told a story through imagery rather than suggested text. Usually in a novel there are descriptions that allow the reader to form elements of scene or props in their imaginations.  Of course each reader will then interpret it in a slightly different way. Readers often flesh out what isn’t always there. (This is often dependent on the wording used in each book as some are more descriptive than others) That’s probably why many readers are often disappointed by the film versions of their beloved stories as they don’t match the images that they have created in their own minds.

Maybe films are and should be treated as  different experiences altogether and it’s the job of the filmmakers and designers to make the story as real as possible. Visually it should speak to an audience on many levels and not just through pure spectacle. Props, visual metaphors and colour palettes help to create a mood and therefore allow the audience to enter the characters heads in a way that might be similar to a book, or as close as possible, through detail and realism.

References:-

Current Young Adult popularity list to date https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/12408.Best_Young_Adult_Dystopian_Novels [sourced 31/01/14]

Images from  http://www.librarything.com/work/14944# [sourced on 29/01/14]

http://www.carriesaba.com/blog/the-hunger-games-trilogy-3-books-that-get-you-thinking/ [sourced on 29/01/14]

Article  information  from   http://www.visualhollywood.com/movies/children-of-men/about6.php [sourced on 29/01/14]

So What is Science Fiction? Themes and contexts part 2

I’m continuing with my research into science fiction as a whole and the breakdown of the themes highlighted in Science Fiction Cinema: From Outerspace to Cyberspace. Because my project focuses on earth-bound science fiction I won’t go into great detail about some of the themes, but this is a brief description with sample pictures of the next two that feature in both film and literature.

Travels in space and  time

Probably one of the most well-known science fiction themes in cinema. It provides stories that can be either realistic in terms of what was technologically possible at the time that the film/book was made, or pure fantasy. With space travel, the genre has taken us from the retro, colourful  This Island Earth (1954) through to the more  realistic visions of Apollo 13 (1995)  in which technology fails and human bravery and ingenuity is at the forefront of the story.

This Island Earth picture available from http://www.retrocinema.wetcircuit.com/films/this-island-earth/

Apollo 13 picture available from  http://www.blu-ray.poral.net/apollo_13.php courtesy of Universal Pictures

Science fiction not only takes us beyond this world but to other times. A perfect example of this is Back to The Future (1985) in which a DeLorean car is made into a time machine. It highlights the brilliance of the mad scientist but more importantly that time is a concept that should not be tampered with; that every time an alteration is made in the past, no matter how small, it can have far-reaching consequences in the future.

“Time travel broadens the visual scope of science fiction because it allows its stars to be shown in various costume styles and interacting with important historical events” (KING, G., & KRZYWINSKA, T., 2000. pg. 26)

This makes the theme particularly popular in cinema providing the chance to use all manner of technologies and design approaches available to the filmmaker. At the opposite end of the scale, the much darker approach to time travel can be seen in films like The Terminator  and  Twelve Monkeys (1995) both showing the future world as dystopian or post apocalyptic and the present as a preferable time to live in. Here changing things in the present can be seen as a good intervention, preventing the cataclysmic events of the future. In these films maybe we can learn something from knowing what the future is, then time travel becomes humanity’s saviour.

“The Dystopias of recent Hollywood science fiction have a seductive appeal to some viewers, combined with a sense of horror.” (KING, G., & KRZYWINSKA, T., 2000. pg. 27)

Time travel, post apocalyptic and dystopian themes combine well with horror and is another good example of themes overlapping in science fiction. I will look at some of these cross overs in later posts.

Twelve Monkeys available at http://www.scriptgodsmustdie.com/2010/09/format-18-screen-direction-the-absolute-last-word/ courtesy of Universal Pictures

Image from  The Terminator 2: Judgement Day  available at   http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1147444736/tt0103064?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_prd_41

References:-

KING, G., & KRZYWINSKA, T., 2000.  Science Fiction Cinema: From Outerspace to Cyberspace. London: Wallflower Press

http://www.retrocinema.wetcircuit.com/films/this-island-earth/ [sourced on 22/01/14]

http://www.blu-ray.poral.net/apollo_13.php [sourced on 22/01/14]

http://www.scriptgodsmustdie.com/2010/09/format-18-screen-direction-the-absolute-last-word/ [sourced on 23/01/14]

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1147444736/tt0103064?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_prd_41 [sourced on 23/01/14]

Film Focus:The Hunger Games (Catching Fire)

After watching Catching Fire at the cinema a couple of weeks ago I made some notes on the overall visual impression that the film gave me.

The beginning of the film focuses on district 12 as the location and straight away the audience is immersed into a cold, poverty-stricken world of mining in a dystopian world. Visually I noticed how dark it was. It was winter of course and the weather certainly reflected the state of mind of the characters and of the district itself. Without reading into the hows and whys of the decision-making between the Director, Production Designer and Director of Photography I can only assume, as an audience member that this is deliberate–a metaphor of character and situation, influenced by the original novel.  A visual representation of the old poorer world.

Still from Catching Fire from www.IMDb.com  picture courtesy of Lionsgate (2013)

District 12 (The Hunger Games) http://thehungergames2012.wordpress.com/

Later on in the film, The Capitol shows the stark contrast. The Capitol is the governing city for all the districts of future America and  is shown as brightly coloured, modern, clean and almost surreal in its portrayal of the people who live there. A depiction of the new improved world that is more technologically advanced.

A screenshot from the film trailer of The Capitol from turntherightcorner.com  picture courtesy of Lionsgate (2013)

Scene from Catching Fire from www.IMDb.com  courtesy of Lionsgate (2013)

To the main character Katniss Everdeen it’s an alien world. Flamboyant and unnecessary given the poverty of her own district and others, but she is forced to conform; to save her family, her own life and that of her friends.

Dystopian film and fiction seems to exaggerate opposites. The ruling classes are often shown as rich, while the masses are poorer much like society of today only taken to extremes. Like survivors of post apocalyptic stories, the poorer dystopian communities are forced to return to a simpler way of life in regards to occupations, technology and the housing that is available to them.

Production Designer:- Philip Messina

Director:- Francis Lawrence

Approx budget:- $130 Million

References:-

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2518473984/tt1951264?ref_=ttmi_mi_typ_sf_41 [sourced on 23/12/2013]

http://thehungergames2012.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/photos-district-12seam-digital-rendering/ [sourced on 23/12/2013]

http://turntherightcorner.com/2013/07/21/the-hunger-games-catching-fire-trailer-reveals-the-quarter-quell-102-screenshots/the-hunger-games-catching-fire-trailer-screenshot-the-capitol-2/ [sourced on 23/12/2013]

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2827670272/tt1951264?ref_=ttmd_md_pv [sourced on 23/12/2013]

Designing the future: Clarifying dystopian and post apocalyptic

“Designs of the future can be divided into utopian or dystopian in their  underpinning conception. The surface design tends to fall into a limited set of styles, defined as futurism, retro futurism, realism, gothic and post apocalyptic” (BARNWELL, J., 2004: pg 100)

I have already looked at some futurism art references so I will now turn my attentions to post apocalyptic futures and what dystopian actually means in terms of society, film and literature.

When dealing with film and fiction, dystopia and post apocalyptic are usually categorised as separate types of film although some stories encompass both situations.

Dystopian:- The antithesis of utopian: figuring a nightmarish world in which rational impulses to engineer society back-fire dangerously. (KING, G., & KRZYWINSKA, T., 2000)

dys·to·pi·a

noun

a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.(online. available at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dystopian?s=t  [sourced on 21/12/2013]

So looking at recent films I can start to clarify what films are classed as dystopian:-

Minority Report (2002) Picture and budget courtesy of IMDb.com  :-

In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future murder. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/

Production Designer:- Alex McDowell

Director:- Steven Spielberg

Budget:

$102,000,000               (estimated)

Utopian:- An imaginary state of ideal harmony and perfection derived from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516).  (KING, G., & KRZYWINSKA, T., 2000) For the purposes of comparison.

Post apocalyptic:-

a·poc·a·lyp·tic

adjective

1.

of or like an apocalypse; affording a revelation or prophecy.

2.

pertaining to the Apocalypse or biblical book of Revelation.

3.

predicting or presaging imminent disaster and total or universal destruction: the apocalyptic vision of some contemporary writers.

(online. available at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/post-apocalyptic?s=t [sourced on 21/12/2013]

So anything set after  apocalyptic events such as large-scale environmental disasters, widespread viruses, biblical events, wars etc. Living in the after times is termed as post apocalyptic.

The Road (2009) picture and information  courtesy of IMDb.com

A post-apocalyptic tale of a man and his son trying to survive by any means possible. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Production Designer:- Chris Kennedy

Director:- John Hillcoat

Budget:

$25,000,000               (estimated)

The films and books are often categorised together as there is often a cross over of ideas, situations or causes. The same audiences or readers are drawn to both kind of stories as seen in on-line book groups such as Apocalypse Whenever found at https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/967-apocalypse-whenever. Both types of story are generally about forms of survival.

What I will be looking at as part of my research is the audience/social context  through engaging with fans of the genre but also as a designer thinking about such questions as:- Are there differences between the two strands of dystopian and post apocalyptic stories in terms of design? Do they present the same problems in terms of budget and approach?

At first glance at the two example films above, there does seem to be quite a difference between the size of budgets. I will look at this in more detail in future research.

References:- BARNWELL, J., 2004. Production design: Architects of the Screen. London, New York: Wallflower

                        KING, G., & KRZYWINSKA, T., 2000. Science Fiction cinema: From Outerspace to Cyberspace. London:

                        Wallflower

                        Online sources :- https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/967-apocalypse-whenever

                                                        www.IMDb.com

                                                        http://dictionary.reference.com [All sourced on 21/12/2013]

Contexts: Where to go from here

I’ve been giving my project some thought in regards to context and have come up with a list of potential avenues of research.

The question:- Given the post production techniques available today, what is required from the Production Designer at the pre-production stage in terms of scenic design?

Initially I can break this down into a list:-

Post-production techniques

Production Design/Designers

Pre-production

Scenic design

Each one gives me a vast amount of potential research. I have started to look at the role of the Production designer and art department, seeing where it fits in to the production as a whole. I am also looking at the Pre-production stage.  As my chosen genre is Sci-Fi- the post-apocalyptic/dystopian film/TV production, I will mainly concentrate my scenic design and Production Designer research within these parameters.

 

The genre choice also gives me a wide base of potential research:-

Science fiction in film and contemporary culture.

The role of Production Designer within Science Fiction/changing role?

The culture of Post Apocalypse/Dystopia in modern culture.

Scenic design in Science Fiction.

Post-production techniques in relation to pre-production.

Does Science Fiction differ from other genres in regards to design, pre/post production, the designers, knowledge etc.

Practical:-

Visual research for Science Fiction/the chosen novel (this will form the basis for my practical development in stage 2)

 

I also wrote down a few thoughts when I attended the past MA students lecture that relate to the above and my learning agreement.

-Do culture and politics impact on the books and films that are being produced…and why?

-What do Production Designers think in regards to above(this may become part of my case studies)

-Audiences/readers in regards to science fiction/dystopia/post-apocalyptic books, films, TV. What do they think? (a possible case study/survey/poll. This might be useful for the production designer when dealing with budgets/metaphors/pre-production techniques.

-Determine if there is scope for change within Production Design. The future of the film industry with Sci-fi in mind.

-Can we promote a more holistic approach in the design process, from pre-post production?

 

With this in mind, the contexts for research are as follows:-

Technology:- skills, techniques for sci-fi in a changing world.

Culture/philosophical/social/political:- an overlap of background research into dystopia/post apocalyptic ideas and how it relates to society and film.

Economic:- this relates to technology in regards to the changing film industry/design roles/budgets. Producers?

Audience:- aesthetic issues when turning books into films/how the designer uses visual metaphors/symbolism in design. The designer has to portray the directors vision while keeping audience in mind.