Sketchbook

 Some of my favourite sketchbook pages, finding this one easy to doodle with.

Bright Lights and a Bigger City

I was doing some explorative work into moods and colours of certain Non-place. The more that I thought about it I thought it would be really dynamic if I created a set that could define the mood of the scene. The best way I thought was LED lights, but the textures I was going to use on my set wouldn't bring it out well enough. It was back to the drawing board.

Then it occurred to me, the lights would show up nicely on white. So my sets all white now which I think makes it look fresher and helps add to the story.

Neo-Realist film

Over the past two years I've developed a more academic respect for film whereas before I just watched films for entertainment. Last year I looked at Akira Kurosawa and John Cassavetes' work, and I started to really appreciate the craft of film-making - the amount of thought that goes into each scene, the story, even what it is being filmed on. Film is considered to be the absolute art as it involves everything creatively both through the digital mediums and physical works. This year I have in a way carried on from my previous year's studies by looking at Neo-realism.

Neo-realism first came to light in post-war Italy with directors such as de Sica, Rossellini, and Fellini being the founders of the movement. Its aim was to show the world the reality of life in Italy rather than the illusion that film had created to hide the socio-economic issues of the country. They used real locations with unprofessional actors to play out some of the rawest story that cinema has ever encounter. It is a movement that I find profoundly interesting and I rather look forward to writing about it.

The Evolution of Eddie

So following on from last week this Non-place story is growing arms and legs. I am fascinated with different patterns I have found on the street, pavement, buildings, etc. What I seem to be noticing most of all is the amount of Non-places there are, an empty spot no longer has no meaning! It's driving me a little bit insane.

Anyway I digress - Eddie's character has gained a characteristic that I sort of stumbled upon. I just so happen to be a massive fan of poetry both reading and writing. Whilst trying to fill in my sketchbook I started having a bit of fun with little rhymes some of them my own others from songs, and I couldn't help but think my lecturers are going to think I am demented. Then I thought what if Eddie was the same, what if people thought he was demented but in reality just struggled to communicate like everyone else. His character would speak entirely in rhyme, whereas everyone would speak in the normal format, the only one who would understand this rambling old man would be a child who has not learnt the conventional way of converse.

I want to make them quite normal looking as well so as not to take away from the setting or the real aspect of the story. There are still so many ideas I'm looking at

Light...Bulb

I had an epiphany! Doesn't happen often so this is rather exciting stuff. Non-place is all about people's relationship with a place and the emotional connection with said place. So keeping in with the theme of homelessness I am making a story about a homeless man named Eddie - inspired by a Glaswegian I met on the train. Eddie sits on the same spot everyday, he meets a variety of different characters while sitting there, ranging from a mother and child character to Bert and Agnes the bickering elderly couple. It will be set out like a play so in the second act I want emphasis on the non-place aspect with the death of Eddie and how no one notices it other then the child that he had once helped. I'm still working out a few odds and ends but I'm full of ideas for this one. Could it be that non-place is actually going to be interesting for me. I'm feeling hopeful.

Non-Place. Non-Hope.

Caught up on my sleep to face another brief this week that comes in the very conceptual form of non-place. I genuinely have no idea how I'm going to tackle this one. Others in the class are even struggling with it, which is sort of a relief. I think I might look into something to do with homelessness and streets. We'll see what happens, but I'm not holding my breath. This could probably be the biggest test for trying to do costume and set design.

Scribble: Concluded

The finished display

Prototype 1

Sketchbook work