Research and DevelopmentIdents

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202

BRIEF TITLE

Coen Brothers season on Film Four

SUBJECT & RATIONALE

I am choosing to look at 4 Coen Brothers films;

The Big LebowskiFargoBarton FinkBurn After Reading

The general theme within the chosen films is “dark comedy” so the films contain unnerving topics such as murder/ death however the subjects are portrayed in a humorous matter but still holding to the serious nature of the events that occur.The target audience will be Coen Brother’s fans or dark comedy enthusiasts or film buffs who watch Film Four. The age range will be varied but the Coen brother’s produce quite niche cult films.The tone of voice will be similar to the content of the films. Lighthearted but with a serious undertone.

DESIGN DIRECTIONS

Film stills will be integral to some of my Idents. Mainly I want to explore handcraft within this brief. The mix of crafted collages and adobe after effects is something that I want to make-work effectively. A lot of the characters within the films are quite naive. I feel that therefore handcraft will support both the characters and the serious/lighthearted juxtaposition that the films contain.For example one of the films is Fargo, which is a homespun murder mystery, I want to play on the idea of “homespun” via handcrafted sewn imagery. For The Big Lebowski I will use a light hearted and surreal tone of the film, I will communicate this via unusual imagery and colours.The other films will follow suit.Barton Fink is set in the 1940’s so I will look into 1940’s imagery/photography.

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202 research

I have undergone a lot of research for the brief and my design context blog has been a hub of activity. Drawing inspiration from on going research has helped me to further my own design development. ‘ITS NICE THAT’ has been a blog that has been an excellent source of secondary research within the brief. Looking at existing publicity materials for my chosen films has help me to draw similarities within my own design work using a visual language that the target market will understand. Diverse interfaces created by design studio Eyeframe who are based in Soho in London have been really useful within my DVD interface design.

Initially storyboarding was integral to start pre-visualising how my initial concepts and ideas will be translated into screen.Here are some developmental storyboards for Fargo and The Big Lebowski. Initially I looked at different ways to communicate the films within the short time frame of a 10 second ident. One main concept for Fargo was to create a haunting forest collage and take the quote, “ a lot can happen in the middle of no where” from the publicity posters for the film in 1996.

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202

design development

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202 design developmentdesign development

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202 type

I decided to create hand rendered type for my Idents based on existing fonts. For Fargo I looked at helvetica bold and for the big Leb-owski I chose a serif font similar to the font used in the film.For the Fargo Idents I want the font to slowly appear within the frame so I have hand rendered 5 stages of the type so it can be slowly revealed in the ident.When experimenting with type, I came across a piece of flock in my ever expanding stocks supply box! I experiments with a serif italic typeface that I took from a publicity poster for the film in 1996. I feel that the juxtaposition of the black type with the soft texture and lowercase type reflects the main female police officer in the film whom is both a compassionate unconfrontational lady but also a savvy detective passionate about bring justice in the town of Fargo.

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202

Design direction has been integral to this brief. The films I have chosen are Coen brothers dark comedies. Dark comedies contain a juxtaposition between the humour of the film and the serious acts committed within the films whether it be murder or another grave crime. I feel that collage will convey the confusing juxtaposition within the films because this mixed media approach will enable Me to convey the diverse elements within the films. The target audience will respond well to the collaged imagery as the films are relatively ‘niche’ and will be targeted at film enthusiasts who like quirky films hence why I am creating quirky imagery to reflect the tome of the films.

design direction

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202 design development

The four films I have chosen have quite a weird nature, the plots are unusual and contain quirky characters and scenes. Collage I feel will convey the peculiar nature of the films and some of the surreal scenes.For example in The Big Lebowski the main character, ‘the dude’ often has dream that contain strange imagery of the character. The Big Lebowski has bowling a consistent theme throughout it and is a form of escapism for the main characters within the film. I wanted to draw some bowling pins to represent this. I found an image of a bowling pin patent and use this inspiration for the above illustration. Within Burn After Reading the idea of the CIA and being followed and watched is consistent throughout the film. Because of this I have created a collage that draws the key aspects together. It contains a car that is meant to represent the character in the film whom is being watched by mysterious black cars. The haphazard approach of the main female character is reflected within the collaged approach.

design development Victoria SimpsonOUGD202 finalised storyboards

Finalising storyboards was a key part within the brief. I had undergone many experimentations with storyboards and explored avenues with how the Idents could be developed looking at frame, format and scale. Finally I gave myself a few restrained to be able to finalised my storyboards which were then to be taken into after effects. For Barton fink I gave myself colour restrictions, I gave myself a 2 colour restriction one being black and the other the colour of “old paper” to reflect the key theme of writing within the film. This restriction has enable the strong imagery in the film to stand out without too much visual confusion. Similarly for Burn after Reading I gave myself a restriction of black plus a pale ‘photocopy paper blue.’ Restrictions within the design allowed me to create a consistency within the Idents but still allow them to have their own personality. I feel that if I uniformed the Idents this would generalise the films too much as yes all the films are Coen Brothers’ dark comedies, however they are very much individual pieces of cinema.

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202 resolutions

I am pleased with the outcomes for this brief. My After Effect skills have improved dramatically and the development of these skills are apparent in my Idents. The finalised Fargo ident uses a couple of stills from the film to create uneasiness, the collage promotes the rela-tively desolate location of the city of Fargo. The bird who get tangled in the flames is a hint as to the idea of death within the film. I feel the ident successfully communicated the film and the music choice of Carter Burwell who created the soundtrack for the whole film, is eerie and dramatic and fits the animation well. Burn After Reading is funnier than Fargo so I wanted my ident to communicate the wit-tiness of the film. The stills of two of the main characters have been moved in a humoured manner to give the correct indication of the tone of the film. I didn’t want to go overboard with the funny imagery as I wanted to keep the serious undertone of the film with the stop frame of the book . The Big Lebowski I communicates many aspects of the film, the main theme of bowling and the surreal nature of the imagery in the film is expresses within the short 10 second ident. Barton Fink is an eerie film and my ident communicates this with the sound clip that I have taken from the film, the key theme of the peeling wallpaper and the frustration of the main character is expresses well in my ident. However If were to change anything about the Idents it would be the fact that I have not used any dialogue or quotes from the film also I feel that I could have experimented more with audio from the characters in the films.

Victoria SimpsonOUGD202 evaluation

I took a lot of time planning my Idents for I struggle with After Effects so I wanted to be as prepared as possible before I moved towards finalising my Idents on screen. I was pleased how close I managed to keep to my finalised storyboards and felt translating the collaged hand rendered approach fitted well within After Effects. At first I felt the movement of the Idents was jarred and not smooth, which re-sulted in the Idents looking unconvincing. This was apart in the Idents for Burn after Reading and Fargo. Initially the Fargo Ident con-tained a large image twice the height size of the PAL D1/DV widescreen format, allowing me to move the image down slowly in After Effects. After evaluating the success of this I decided it did not work and used a different approach of a stop frame animation on a con-sistent ‘forest’ background. Also for Burn after Reading I re assessed the camera pan as I felt it was not working. A lot of the ongoing evaluation I have undergone is contained on my blog and mostly have been a result of not only constant reassessing on concepts and ideas but have been the direct results of crit which have been invaluable within the brief.

resolutions