Monday 29 April 2013

///Responsive Brief.

I havent posted on here in a while but I thought i would post it onto the 'film' blog as thats what this module entails. I will post more fim reviews/not actually proper reviews, after this project finishes. 

For the responsive brief I thought I would continue with what I had started with context of practice and the cloud tank. The cloud tank worked really well I thought and I wanted to further explore the idea of creating other worlds in a water tank. So I had this idea of building a alien worlds surface with plasticine. So I thought about all these different plants i could model out of plasticine and submerge into the water tank. But i realised that it didn't have a story, which was fine, as it could work well like that but what I realised is that because I created this world, I could destroy it and film the destruction.

However destruction doesn't mean smash models necessarily, it could mean shootings black paint/ink into the tank to cause what appears to be some sort of apocalypse. I also thought about using black/white coloured plasticine to simulate some sort of evil alien species. If filmed properly I could make it really exciting.  I'll need someone to design the sound for it and make sure special attention is paid to the change in the music from the normality to the judgement day scenario.

I need to use a large variety of shots to make it look as real as I can. I need to make good use of the macro lens' capabilities to make the small models seem very big. I need to splice the macro shots with the 18-55mm lens, as well as potentially getting some fish eye shots. I still need to use the cloud effects of the paint and food colouring in the water just use it less to make them seem like clouds.

If I use smaller saltwater and freshwater layers I can create an underwater island. First I create an island out of plasticine which pokes just above the salt layer. Then I squirt the cloudy liquid into the layer and it will appear that the salt layer is the sea and the fresh layer is the air.

There are many things I am going to have to consider for this project to me a success.

1. Lots of plasticine (ordered yesterday)
2. 150mm macro lens.
3. Tripod
4. Fish Eye lens? (might look really awesome and trippy using a fish eye underwater, well not literally)
5. Rock Salt (for the tank)
6. Modelling tools 
7. Wire (for plant skeletons) 
8. Lights/A light
9. Different colours of paper. For backgrounds
10. Light filters




I searched for 'Alien Environments' and planets, worlds, but very little came up in terms of landscapes and scenery. I made a mood board of my favourites and It has given me other ideas of what I can do with this.  With the plasticine I can create other biomes of scenery, not just jungle/forrest. With the darker colours I can make cliffs, canyons, mountains and potentially waterfalls. 



Because there weren't many fictional locations I could take inspiration from i thought I would take it from some places on planet earth, which can look a a little alien sometimes. This is Bryce Canyon in Utah, USA, once upon a time a mighty river would have carved out this canyon and its abrasive force eroded the rocks into some interesting and tall formations. Things like this would be ideal for what im trying to do. Vast desolate alien worlds, bone dry from the 3 suns and (Pitch Black is a really good film) completely void of proper vegetation. This sort of extreme in environment would be interesting to replicate as somewhere like this isn't usually submerged in a fish tank.



The composite volcano, Krakatoa, is another landmark I would like to use as inspiration. Using a lot of plasticine I could create a volcano and then with some editing make it look as if it was erupting by layering clips on top of each other. This would take a lof of work but would look amazing especially as the plumes of smoke you see above look exactly like the clouds of powder in the cloud tank.