As part of my project I need to find a text to design for. I’ve known the story to The Magicians Nephew by C. S. Lewissince I was a young child so I am very familiar with the story, characters and locations. This therefore gives me an advantage If I use this particular story to design for.
This story is the first of the Chronicles of Narnia books, some of which have been made into very successful films. This is a good example therefore of a novel that when adapted for the screen is very popular.
This is my favourite choice of story so far but I will conduct further research into the others.
“I chose faces and figures as my subject matter simply due to the fact that the human form is already beautiful art”
Frank Bruno
I think my drawings of the human form are improving nicely now but I still need to work on shading and final rendering techniques. In our tutorial class the other day we asked if we could have some extra classes on location drawing and architectural drawing as the majority of the things I will have to design in the future will be physical spaces and sets rather then people.
"Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else
has thought."
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
I started researching different stories I could use as my text for the year. I wanted a story that was suitable for a younger audience, filled with magic and adventure but still incorporating an element of darkness and mystery. Many of the chosen stories below take root in Mythology so are good subjects for fantasy related design.
The following images are mood boards I created showing themes from each story that could be incorporated into the design. They help show at a glance the overall atmosphere, locations and colour schemes for each story.
I will do further research into each story by making a list of possible sets that could be designed and any design constraints that the texts include within the story.
“Practice by drawing things large, as if equal in representation and reality. In small drawings every large weakness is easily hidden; in the large, the smallest weakness is easily seen.”
The Making of Nightmare before Christmas 3/3 accessed 09-10-2011 12-28pm
It took 100 artists and technicians, 13 animators, over 100 camera operators, puppet makers, set builders and prop makers 3 years from start to finish to produce Tim Burton’s vision. Using 19 sound stages, 230 sets and hundreds of individual puppets.
Through the hard work of all these people the film won Best Fantasy Film from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA in 1994.
The basis of the film came from Tim Burton’s original poem and artwork entitled The Nightmare Before Christmas. Using the artwork, the art department created characters, sets and locations that coincided with Tim’s original drawings. Tim Burton was head of the visual team so in one sense could take on the title Production Designer, though he never did.
This film, like many, relied heavily on the use of storyboards in the Pre-production stage to save time and money by planning out the whole film before any filming began. Joseph Ranft was the Storyboard Supervisor and with his storyboarding team they drew scene after scene of storyboards, many scenes containing several shots, until they had the full film, accompanied by voice over’s and music. This method of planning a film before shooting allows the director to see his vision before any filming begins and allows any problems to be solved quickly saving hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The look of the film was taken from Tim’s original sketches- the entire set was covered in plaster and then etched into, creating cross hatching and texture so it looked like a living illustration.
Tim had a strong emphasis on colour and told the set designers that the only colours they could use in their colour pallet for Halloween Town were black, white and orange. This emphasis on narrow colour choices created the scary look of the town which fits perfectly with the overall theme.
Post-production techniques were also used to add snow, smoke, shadows, fire, electric bolts and floating ghosts.
