Thursday 27 February 2014

Adaptation Part B: Visual Influence and Style

These are my influences for now, showing some of Drobohych city pictures in which Bruno Schulz was born, as well as other images from Dr Caligari's that inspire in terms of their expressionism.

The second visual map will help me set the mood and colour palette, the use of light, reflection and colours I want to incorporate in my set.





Concerning the style of the set and its compositions, I have looked at Marcus Jansen, a former American combat soldier who became a leading contemporary painter known for his gritty urban landscape paintings since 1990s.
The abstract expressionist style really caught my eye. Besides the painterly and collage techniques he uses, the smart use of the space gives the viewer an overall mood of the composition but still "sweeps the eye" around the painting through the use of details and mark making.


Next step is doing some collages to apply these styles and work on the composition of the set.

Wednesday 19 February 2014

Adaptation Part B: Extracts and Response

As an initial step, I have decided to quickly respond to the following extracts in order to understand the mood of them through Abstract form and Expressionism.
Below are my visual interpretations of the chosen extracts:



"The old established inhabitants of the city kept away from that area where the scum, the lowest orders had settled- creatures without character, without background, moral dregs, that inferior species of human being which is born in such ephemeral communities." P.70



(Watercolour, Ink and Masking tape on paper)







"Everything seemed suspect and equivocal there, everything promised with secret winks, cynical stressed gestures, raised eyebrows, the fulfilment of impure hopes, everything helped to release the lowest instincts from their shackles" P.71


(Ink and Watercolour on paper)






"Reality is as thin as paper and betrays with all its cracks its imitative character." P.73

(Photoshop)





" An atmosphere of strange insignificance pervades the scene. The crowd flows lazily by, strange to say, one can see it only indistinctly; the figures pass in gentle disarray, never reaching complete sharpness of outline." P.73



(Graphite on paper)





" Let us say it bluntly: the misfortune of that area is that nothing ever succeeds there, nothing can ever reach a definite conclusion. Gestures hang in the air, movements are prematurely exhausted and cannot overcome a certain point of inertia. " P.76

"Over the whole area there floats the lazy licentious smell of sin, and the houses, the shops, the people seem sometimes no more than a shiver on its feverish body, the gooseflesh of its febrile dreams. Nowhere as much as there do we feel threatened by possibilities , shaken by the nearness of fulfilment, pale and faint with the delightful rigidity of realisation." P.76 

" We shall get involved in misunderstandings until all our fever and excitement have spent themselves in unnecessary effort, in futile pursuit." P.76


Concerning the last three extracts, I have imagined them as characters who are exhausted by the atmosphere, they reflect on their vicinity and vice versa.



 (Graphite on paper)


Adaptation Part B- Source and Goal



For the rest of the year, I will adapt The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.
Bruno was a Polish writer and fine artist, regarded as the leading writer between WW1 and WW2 as well as one of the greatest prose writers in 20th Century Poland.

The Street of Crocodiles is a short story in which he shares his childhood memories through a remarkable mix of real and fantastic storytelling elements, as well as figures of speech such as metaphors.

Concerning the goal of the project, I will adapt extracts from the short story, through the story's mood and metaphors, into a Digital set.

The Digital set will be shown through different shots (camera pan, zoom..)
It will also have animated elements in it as well as using sounds and atmospheric effects (rain, sunrise, wind..) in order to bring the piece to life and make the viewer feel part of it.