When beginning to come up with thumbnails and rough ideas, I initially struggled as there weren't that many main characters in the film, with it changing from time to time as characters died and the movie progressed. It was for this reason, I decided to firstly focus on the first victim and the last to be found, Liz Walker, with the leeches being more of a second part of my initial thumbnails to built up on the mystery surrounding them
Some of the ideas I had was to use materials such as paper, plasticine or shadows to try and convey scale in the work - whether this will work or not will be explored in the next steps where I intend to try and create, at the very least a face out of plasticine and paper to see if which works best as tackling the 3D aspect is something I am unsure on how to do just yet. It is for this reason I intend to experiment first with the materials, and then go back to refine and decide which ideas would be able to be carried out, and which would not. |
When looking at a handful of Propaganda posters from the 1950s, one of the things I noted was the use of the same select colours; vibrant yellows, reds and blues - each having connotations of danger. It was for this reason when playing about with colour I used those three colours as a basis; red for the danger, blue for the water and yellow to emphasis the American standard of beauty Liz holds as a blonde.
For the most part, I preferred the thumbnails that were more close up as well as had a softer background, as seen in the yellow one in the middle, it blended with Liz' hair and made it harder to see, it was for this reason I stuck with the blue background for the majority of the rest of the thumbnails. I much prefer the posters with a softer background, bringing out the more vibrant colours to the front, as it brought a focus to Liz, and conveying the fact that she was the one in danger. Additionally, the initial sketches I had of the leeches, I saw an opportunity to include a subtle reference to the radioactive concern of the time by changing the mouth into something more reminiscent of the warning for radiation, as seen below in two of my thumbnail ideas that I preferred the look of more than the rest. |
When it came to deciding on what I wanted the text to look like, I went back to the 1950's propaganda photos, as I believe the chunkier, more expressive kind of text would work well for my piece, linking it back to the time period in which it was made.
As for how I wanted the text to be laid out, I initially wanted it to be overlaid, over the girl - however decided against it as would look messy and be difficult to scale and difficult to read. Instead I decided to look at using something to hold the lettering up, and this was where I got the idea of using signs, hanging down to ensure the text was legible, as well as able to stand on it own - or in this case hang. |
The first big issue I ran into was the overbaking of the clay for smaller features such as the hand and the hair. This bent back the fingers on the hand, however, from the angle I want to position her on the set, worked in my favour, giving her a more animated feel, despite the unrealistic curve of the fingers. The discolouring was something I was worried about initially, however, once they had cooled, the dress and hair weren't too much of an issue as it followed the curves of the fabric and hair. By far my biggest concern is the discolouring of her hand, as it will take a few coats of paint to patch up. With that said, I hope I will be able to work around it, and hope that it will be secure enough to go back in the oven at least one more time as I have yet to finish the left side of her hair and attach her head to her body. I don't plan on giving her legs as that will be the part that will be cut out of the frame, and I only wanted the curve and ripples in the bottom of the dress as they would effect the form further up. |
I decided to go with using ice pop sticks to make my backdrop for my lettering, as cutting off the curved end and cutting up the straight pieces gave little panels that could be put together to create more of spontaneous feel to the signs. I did go with using my lettering from before, as found that it was chunky enough to turn into a 3D piece.
When it came to my lettering I tried numerous things; firstly I tried plasticine, and that quickly turned out to be a bad idea as I recalled how soft it remained from my previous test pieces. Additionally, it wouldn't have kept it's shape, risking damage as it lay around, and was also too fiddly. Secondly I tried foam, and too turned out to the a bad idea, as it only came in one shade of red, and cutting it down proved difficult as I accidentally kept shaving away some of the layers, in turn ruining the letter. Cardboard was the best option for the lettering, as it was easier to cut out and was something that could be tacked down and repainted. I printed out my letters and stuck them down, then cut them out, with my next step being repainting and tidying them up. |
Upon putting things together, it became apparent that there was a few issues. Firstly, the base was too small, as the counter below was seen to the right; this was an easy fix, as I just made an additional bottom panel. Secondly, the text proved to be more of an issue that I had thought as getting it all in a shot was an issue. With that said, moving the text backwards solved some of the issue as made it fit in, but found it to be unfocused in comparison to the woman. Alternatively, rearranging the composition of the text could help.
Hiding the base was another issue as I didn't want it to be visible on the set, and so decided to use felting wool to cover it and play part of the water in the background. I decided to use felting wool as it was softer and wispier than both cotton pads and cotton wool. When it came to lighting the set, I decided that I wanted to go against the idea of including shadows as it proved difficult to work with as the set grew more and more complicated. Thus lighting carefully from the left or the right was my safer bet - and given the lack of space when setting up the set, I was unhappy with how harsh the warm light was. It is for this reason going forwards, I will have to set things up where I have more space and access to playing around with the lighting more. |
After the test pieces I had done the day prior, I now had and understanding of how to light the piece, as well as where to position things. Having completed each piece of the set, I began to put them together, covering the bases with wool to make it look like mist on top of the water, fraying it out into the background and other parts of the set. Finding a way to set up the cardboard and other parts was a problem, and I had to get creative with how to prop things up using the wall to hold the roof up, but in the end it worked out despite the issues I faced along the way. |