Just some songs I tend to crave to hear for a bit of an inspiration boost.
1) Miss M – Sounds of Summer (Competition Mix)
https://soundcloud.com/missm_sa/miss-m-sounds-of-summer-competition-mix
2) Shakka – When Will I See You Again (AMTRAC Remix)
3) Glass Animals – GOOEY (Paul Epworth & Dave Bayley Rework)
4) Nora En Pure & Sons Of Maria – Uruguay (Passenger 10 Remix)
5) Shadow Child & Doorly – Climbin’ (Piano Weapon) (Thalab remix)
For our first year film, namely ‘Renegade’.
“…To create a narrative world that will transcend to you viewing audience the understanding of colour is vital. For this assignment you will create a fictional world that could be based on your narrative film or on a world you want to create only for this project. The world needs to be supportive of a character…”
For this assignment, I have chosen to use the narrative story from my serial killer project for CMS. For that project, my protagonist is a trained female assassin. I chose to use an assassin instead of a serial killer because the psychological development of this character is fascinating. The motivation behind this concept was to explore the psychology surrounding an organised, premeditated murder – especially when the protagonist refuses to see it as murder, but rather, as justice.
Explanation of Mood Board
The mood board attempts to represent Vivian psychologically through use of colour schemes and semiotics. The eye is naturally drawn to the blood splatter and it holds a certain shock factor to it, ultimately keeping one’s attention to delve in further. The many uses of a circular shape reveal how whatever Vivian and Jim discuss is between them only – enclosed to never be passed on.
The numbers are symbolic of Vivian’s victims, as she only sees them as numbers. The butterfly that has a skull on its wings and the wolf are both symbolic of the same thing: innocence and appearance versus reality. Vivian, someone so young and beautiful is a killer. This is why both images are the same taupe and chocolate brown colour scheme.
The grey circle with a black background is representation of Vivian’s enclosed turmoil of emotions, in order to maintain her sanity and block off any sense of self. It is the only way she can save herself from feeling anything about what she does. The twisted clock shows the passage of time between the killings and also planning of killings. The black and white handwriting also shows how the murders are premeditated and the crumpled up newspaper shows how Vivian refuses to know how her killings could affect anyone or anything.
Vivian’s reaction of shock, above the blood, is her reaction upon discovering that Jim killed her mother. She has just stepped out the shower, when an anonymous person had sent her a clip of the incident. She almost does not want to believe that it was Jim. The shattered glass image reflects this feeling.
The rose covering Vivian’s mouth shows how she’ll never tell anyone who she really is and what she really does. Only ‘good’ things will come out her mouth when speaking to others. The lace covering Vivian’s eyes is symbolic of the moment she secures Jim, as well as how she refuses to notice the reality of her murderous acts. The burgundy blood colour in between these two images is like a stream of blood and it creates this effect for the rest of the mood board as well.
The colours of focus are presented on the mood board: black, burgundy blood red, taupe, chocolate brown and steel grey. These colours are repetitive throughout the narrative, but are most prominent when Vivian’s psychology changes when certain events occur near the end of the story. In this way, these colours effectively enhance the emotional relevance of the protagonist throughout the narrative.
PROFILE OF PROTAGONIST:
Name: Vivian Qistina Mallory
Name Meanings: life (ironic), justice, war counsellor
Age: 27
Height: 160cm
Weight: 57kg
Style of ‘elimination’: Organised and premeditated, she follows a set of rules in order to maintain her sanity. For example, she refuses to know any information about the victim’s family.
Character Inspirations: Assassin’s Creed (Fiora Cavazza), Lara Croft Tomb Raider, Catwoman (Selina Kyle).
BACKGROUND:
She is a trained female assassin who kills certain men in positions of high power, as they pose a threat to the country and the government. Her mother was murdered when she was only 3 years of age. She did not have the best relationship with her father, as he was absent in her life due to the fact that he was busy as an assassin as well. Her father did not realise that she knew what he really does. As a teenager she would often follow him and witness some of his ‘work’.
Her traits include; stubborn, patient, assertive, solitary, pragmatic, organised, meticulous and brave. Audience members who possess the same traits as Vivian will be able to relate to her.
Vivian typically has a serious attitude and a bold nature, creating many boundaries for herself in order to maintain her mind. She attempts to remain preoccupied and detached from society. She is distant from others because she is worried that if she lets her guard down, people will take advantage of her or somehow discover who she really is.
Her relationship with Jim, her mentor, is inspired by two films. Firstly, the father-daughter relationship in Hanna (2011) between Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) and Erik (Eric Bana). They have a deep trust in each other and we see how he trains his daughter to be an assassin. Secondly, the character portrayed by Kurt Russell in Furious 7 (2015) who provides weapons for the team. He refers to himself as “Mr. Nobody”.
Each character/victim is inspired by characters from other film and television products. This is in order to ensure three dimensional characters, as it is the best way to pour meaning into the narrative and to stay true to the ideal concept of justice. The inspiration behind each character/victim will be explored in their profile descriptions (a blog coming soon).
The binary code that exists within the concept is death versus peace and the irony behind it. In the protagonist’s mind, the only way to achieve peace in the country is through death. This is a character-driven story because the protagonist initiates the events of the story and causes them to happen (Schmidt, 2005: 5).
The character psychology is inspired by the series, ‘Dexter’, as it portrays a protagonist in a similar mindset to that of this story. The mood of the photoshoot is inspired by Taylor Swift’s music video, ‘Bad Blood’, because it has an underlying theme of betrayal, which is relatable to this story.
Schmidt, V. (2005). Story Structure Architect. 1st ed. [ebook] Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, p.5. Available at: http://tinyurl.com/storystructurearchitect [Accessed 18 May 2015].
I really enjoyed this class because I love colour and I found it so relaxing to just be creative with it. I must admit, I really took my time. I chose brown for the monochromatic colour scheme because it’s warm and beautiful. I just ‘felt’ brown that day.
Creating bruises and stab wounds with only watercolour paint was really interesting, because it just shows how our brain will automatically link colour to events or subtext. Because, even though I knew it was fake, I still got ‘grossed out’ when the makeup was complete.
Production Design really interests me in the sense that you can decipher A LOT from the aesthetics of a film.
I learnt that everything (everything) placed on a set has to have meaning. (Isn’t that the purpose of film anyway? Man’s unending search for meaning). Everything placed in a scene has to have some form of a purpose that is not solely for practicality reasons.
I learnt more about the ‘hierarchy’ of jobs within the film industry currently, and I definitely agree with Miss E that it should rather be a group effort – a collaboration of rich ideas and new perspectives from every crew member in the team. It reminded me about the mini experiment in a Production Course lecture: two groups of people had to be creative with plastic white cups. The one group, led by a single leader, produced a simple and straight-forward cup tower. The other group, with input from everyone, produced a very artistic cup tower. Enough said.
The assignments for Production Design seem creatively challenging, which I love. The one that seems the most challenging to me is the ‘Reinvention of a Fairytale’ assignment. I think it will become ‘easier’ once I actually have an idea of what modern day societal issue I want to confront.
Upon being reminded of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I learnt that this is a useful tool to help define one’s target audience. To have the ability to directly influence a specific audience is a great opportunity.
Below is a rough draft of my ideas and inspiration for my project group’s term 2 film.
kaylaismyname 
