I missed the showing of Poltergeist on Monday as I was marooned in the snow, but I found a copy and watched it yesterday evening. The story revolves around a typical American family; a home-maker wife and an estate agent husband who live in a newly-built development with their three children. Like a lot of the other films we've watched this unit, the family very stereotypical. The strange events begin when a storm hits and the youngest girl of the family, who is only five, starts to talk to 'people' in the television, which no other person can hear. As the plot progress, more strange things happen in the house, such as chairs being moved and balanced, leading to the family moving. This doesn't help, as the trouble still occurs.




When a tornado hits in a strong storm, the youngest daughter goes missing, and the boy of the family hears her speaking on the other side of the Television. This leads to the family calling in a group of paranormal experts who witness complete mayhem in the house. I thought the film was very subtle until this part. In the scenes with the chairs moving, the camera cuts away when they move, however, when the paranormal experts look on, the film shows objects flying around the room, which breaks the build-up. Another expert is then brought in to rescue the daughter from 'the spirit plain', this pshyic turns out to be no other than Kim Jong Il.



I thought the film was enjoyable, it was obviously very far-fetched, but the acting was believable and the plot was fun to follow. A lot of more recent films have obviously borrowed from this, the newest I can think of is 'Paranormal Activity' which took a very similar approach (Although a more subtle) I really liekd the setting, of the new development and the slight-twist of the house being buried on the graveyard, which disturbed the dead.

I have a copy of Blue Velvet, the film I missed on tuesday, so I'll watch it and post something up.

I'm posting up a few thumbnails from last week that I forgot to upload. I've also got a concept piece but I never finished it, I will post it up before the end of the project though.

I haven't worked too much over the last couple of days, I missed Monday's lecture as well, I was stuck in Maidstone, but I'll be back in Chatham tommorow. I still have a few more buildings to model and then I'm going to try and improve the textures. I've put in the underground sign and railings, but I'm thinking it may be too far from the camera, so I might re-arrange the scene a little bit.

A few textures:



I'm working on a corner building at the moment, which was quite easy as I used the same window for most of it. I'll be adding more detail, such as Flags and ground-floor windows.





What I have so far is below. The light is a little bit bright in this render, but in the final one, I'm planning on having fog so it will be much dimmer. I'm also hoping to post up some concepts tonight.

I've been posting up progress on my project in Maya and explained breifly my idea, but I haven't gone into much detail about what I want my image to achieve. As the brief is to create an image that tells a story but has ambiguity I'm taking the path of creating a 'disaster' scene of a place that used to be alive but is now dead, as a few other students are. We were told Gregory Crewdson was the genre-defining artist to look at for this project, so I wanted to create an image that had similar themes and aspects to his series 'Beneath the Roses'.



Crewdson's art is very American, focusing on the surburban and rural towns and laying a strange blanket over them, making them seem detatched and alien. This is where my idea stemmed from, I wanted to create something with a similar feel set in London, a city closer to home.

Something I really like about Crewdson's images are the use of Mist in the mid-distance, it isolates the scene from the outside as well as giving it a very strange feel. I want to use a fog-like substance in my scene, implying the fallout of a catastrophe or perhaps just weather and nature taking over the abadoned city.

The focal point of my image is still to be decided. It will be something showing abandonment, as if everybody left in a hurry. The 'story' element of the scene will be portrayed in leaflets scattered over the ground, they will not be readable but will suggest some sort of mass exodus. These are the ideas bouncing around in my head, I know the feel and the effect I want the image to have, I'm just trying to turn that into actual objects and design the scene.

At the same time, I don't want to repeat the mistake that Phil pointed out in my first project, of including too many references implying a similar thing, so it may be that I will decide to simplify it, and just have one main focal point.

I haven't worked much on Maya today, I was too busy pelting snowballs, but I've managed to create another quick building for my scene. Below are some renders of it, I still need to texture the lower story. The glass will be reflective so in the final scene it shouldn't be visible inside.

I wanted to look a few more films with destroyed London as a theme, so I found an old copy of 'Reign of Fire'. I hadn't seen it for about five years or so, and it wasn't as bad as I remember it being. The premise is that the world has been attacked by a species of Dragons which have re-surfaced from underneath London, it is set in 2020, where most of the world's population have been fried and eaten by the beasts. It is set in England, with a group of survivors living in a castle in Northumberland lead by Christian Bale and Gerard Butler, who both have big bushy post-apocalyptic beards and dress like Elbow.

The plot is OK, I remember it being ridiculous and over-the-top but I found watching it again enjoyable and compared to a lot of films made in the last five years it's not THAT bad. I took a few shots of London, where the final scenes are set, where the main characters go to kill the 'male' Dragon who is getting a lot of action impregnating thousands of females.


Also: Is there a single film starring Christian Bale where he doesn't get topless?

I'm struggling a bit today, it may be because of the shitty weather or the fact I only slept for a few hours, but my day is definitely going better than Phil's as I'm not stuck in a Spanish airport (Though at least he has seen the sun recently). I've taken a break from the buildings to work on the London Bus, but it is not going too well. I've never modelled a vehicle before so it is looking a bit square and doesn't have much charm. I'm hoping to improve it using textures. Here is what I have so far. I still need to sort out the textures on the windows and the wheels.


The reason for the box is because that is where the bus will be hidden, it will be crashed into a shop.