Going Crazy?

Last night I learnt a valuable lesson.

Yesterday I slept until mid-day, which was a much needed sleep. I did this with the knowledge that the following evening (last night) i would be giving out hot drinks at the student union with the others from the Christian Union. This was so that as people came out of clubs they could have a hot drink and a sandwhich so that we could show a little love and get some great convos going with people.

Now the problem with that was that it was going to be at 2 in the morning... and so as it came to late evening I decided to watch the film Brazil with my house mate and then make my way to bed for a little sleep before I went out. This is where I made a grave mistake. Brazil is a very surreal and slightly disturbing film. I went to sleep for a couple of hours only to wake up not knowing where I was... what was real or even WHO I was. The combination of surreal ideas being planted in my head and lack of any kind of decent sleep or sleeping pattern resulted in me feeling a little bit crazy.

The moral of the story... sleep well, at regular times and don't watch weird films before bed or you may wake up as confused as I did!

Learning from this... I am off to bed... without any strange images of Bob Hoskins in my head. Yes it is as weird as it sounds.

My self portrait

Pretty much finished the model for the head of my self portrait in 3ds max. There are improvements to be made to the mesh but Im sure that I can do that once I have done other parts of the body. Once I have some textures on the model I intend to make the hair using lots of planes and alpha textures. This is fun!

I've used about 1000 polys at this point but I think i can lose about 20.

My day as a movie star!

My day yesterday ended up making me feel somewhat of a movie star! It started with a nice early 8 o'clock start (a time I had started to beleive was mythological) and I headed down to the university with my house mates to do some filming in the green-screen rooms. All I had to do was take a drink and act poisoned and die... a simple task for anybody with a simple acting bone in their body, a feature that I'm sure God left out when he drew up my blueprints.

The whole experience made me feel like I was in Star Wars, you know... the bad ones. I wasn't complaining! The interesting thing about it was the use of lighting to create certain moods. The shot we were doing was intended to have a film noir feels and so a heavy spot light was used to create heavy drop-shadow.



Soon after I had finished filming with my friends I headed on to the photography studios in order to both take pictures of my maquettes and to get some reference pictures of myself so that I could create myself in 3Ds max. The lighting rigs were surprising: a large amount of lights were used in order that there was no particular shadow and create a flat lighting. All of the flash lights were attached to the actual camera.




Once a few of us had enjoyed the photoshoot (a little too much), a seperate lighting rig was set up so that I could take pictures of my models. These were set up so that we could have a directional light. The guy helping me out explained that often people have the preconception that you can just take a picture and it will turn out the same as you see it at the time. However, he went on to explain that the directional light simply helps to pick up surface details and create shadow, it is the flash that creats the exposure needed to get a successful picture.





It was a very exciting morning and it actually left me quite exausted! I think I may go and book the photographic studios again at some point so that I can take some more pictures for reference such as poses and maybe some more of my models could be presented better this way.

Personal Development

Over the last couple of weeks I have been studying how the muscles and bones are structured within the human body. This was so that I could draw them in a more believable way. I have noticed a real increase in my confidence to drawing and sculpting the human form and I would highly reccomend other people doing a similar project. Wenever I felt I didnt understand a part of the body or thought it was difficult to draw I gave it a go after looking at my anatomy and drawing books for at least an hour.



This has lead to me being more confident with creating interesting characters. This one was based on a quick sketch of a guy in a pub. You wanna find weird looking people? Go into a pub during the day!




Once you start to understand the bones at a simple level, it becomes easier to draw because you know what to expect out of each shape. Another thing that surprised me was that actually sculpting the shapes helped tremendously to help me understand how they worked.

Adventures in Cinema - The City of Lost Children

The City of Lost Children is a French film directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, made in 1995. The film is set in a supposedly, post-apocalyptic, surrealist society. A scientist kidnaps children in order to steal their dreams as he cannot have any of his own. This has resulted in him ageing too quickly and in order to save his own life he relies on finding a child that can help him experience any kind of positive dream.

Early on in the film a strong man in a freak show loses his little brother when the scientist sends “the Cyclops” to collect some children to sample their dreams. These characters are a kind of religious cult who have decided to blind themselves to the world in order to hide them selves from its sinfulness. They rely on a mechanical eye to see in a more sterile manner. The strong man (who is simply called One) is played by Ron Pearlman. His character is an ex-sailor who speaks French very crudely, in the same stereotypical way that The Hulk breaks his sentences. One is joined by a young orphan called Miette, a character who has very many similarities to Little-Red Riding Hood or Alice from Alice In Wonderland.

Many of the characters in the film borrow from the kind of fairy tale mentality of a child but the surrounding world seems corrupt and polluted: Riveted surfaces, dirty sewers and an oil rig are the main settings for the film. This juxtaposition works wonderfully and along with using a striking colour palette this suggests a completely alternate universe for you to explore. Interestingly, the main theme of the film is dreams and nightmares and the world seems very much like a twisted, nightmarish version of what it is supposed to be. I think that the best way to describe the experience would be like watching a cruel world through the eyes of an innocent child.

There are many references within the script to things such as “The Big Bad Wolf” and “The Sandman” and the characters themselves also fit very familiar roles to the ones that you may have heard in children’s stories. For example:

The Uncle (literally a brain on life support) is the intelligence figure. He represents logic and science. He is also the sandman character in the film and at times seems to act as a conscience for the scientist.
The evil twin sisters who run the orphanage speak at exactly the same time and are effectively one person (although you could dispute this as they fight later in the film).
One, the strong man, is a physically powerful character with very little brains but a big heart.
Miette represents the innocence of children and is the only character in the film that is not filthy or grotesque to look at.
The orphans are effectively thieves, much like in Oliver Twist.
The four brothers are clones, and they all act the same also but they all battle for individuality and want desperately to be the original.

There are other characters which borrow from other stories or history also. The Cyclops seem to believe that they are a master race and want to convert all to their cause. This is very reminiscent of both a negative view to evangelical religion and historical dictatorship such as the Nazi movement. The cult leader is heard to say that “only through the third eye will you truly see” which is an idea taken from eastern religion. It is quite clear that the writer Jeunet has a very negative view of religion and the corruption it can bring. From the outside the Cyclops appear grotesque and rather than becoming less evil they appear to hide from evil by removing their ability to perceive it. Maybe Jeunet was making a comment about the hypocritical nature of religion: he may believe that religion is not a solution to the problem of the world but that it is just a way of deceiving oneself and closing ones eyes to the corruption and suffering.

On the other hand, some of the Cyclops allow themselves to be able to hear or see with a greater sensitivity than before. At a stretch, this could be just a way of showing how easily offended religious types can be. The slightest noise startles them are causes an uproar. However I am just reading into the matter quite deeply.

The relationship between One and Miette is actually quite a disturbing one. It appears at first to simply be one of a brother and sister and it is often referred to as that, but the appearance of it is that there is something more sexual to it than that. There are many hints at this in the film even to the extent that they have what could be interpreted as a consummation scene in which they are both lying next to each other. Of course this is very metaphorical if my argument is correct. Furthermore, to develop this idea there is a scene in which Miette asks One if he will ever find a woman and he seems to say “there is no hurry to find a woman”. Again this could be interpreted that he would wait for her to grow older before initiating a relationship with her. These are quite hidden themes and maybe they are there just to get the viewer thinking or on their toes when identifying what these people are really like. Against all of this is the fact that they call each other brother and sister so I may be completely incorrect.

The colours in the film range from being Christmas themed (which again seems to represent the warm innocent dream world) to industrial browns, greys and toxic greens. Miette carries the same colours as the dream world which is again a directorial trick to show her innocence visually. In the dreams, Santa is present but the dreams quickly turn to nightmares. The Scientist dresses up as Santa later on and terrifies the children corrupting that dream and becoming their nightmare.

Overall the film was a very strange experience, but one that the viewer can get drawn into very easily. All aspects of the film work together effectively, which actually makes this strange world quite believable: The fantastical technology that looks old fashioned, the polluted world and the wonderfully strong characters all work together to create a picture that is disturbing yet familiar.