My university major project is a Gothic fantasy feature film design of the novel Scar Night by Alan Campbell. The book is set in an ancient city called Deepgate, where the districts are suspended by chains over a seemingly bottomless abyss, ready to topple in at any moment. I chose a district called Cage Wynd; an industrial area where chainmen and yard workers have fortified their homes with iron. The main feature of this district is a mansion, planetarium and clock tower belonging to Oberhammer, an astronomer whose fortune dwindled as the masses refused to believe in science.
I loved how descriptive the book was of its location and began with sketch modelling in cardboard to work out how to create the ‘abyss’ described so frequently in the book, and how my architecture would respond to the landscape. I adapted the mansion / clock tower / planetarium description as in the book, these buildings seemed to be combined into one, and I wanted to spread them out. The sketch model was so useful in being able to plan the layout, framing of shots and specific architectural features. My sketch model began to take shape in quite a basic manner and then quickly developed into a more complex space. Initial concept art also helped me in developing a darker visual look for this design.
Although I was keen to return to hand drawing for this project as the style and theme lends itself well to a hand drawn texture, I knew I had a personal strength in CAD and it would save me a lot of precious time. I put a lot of effort into bringing natural textures to my drawings despite the restrictions of computer based drafting.
This project also required a 1:50 scale white card model and four concept visuals, which I produced in Adobe Photoshop. I also produced mood boards from several reference photographs that I constantly used as inspiration.
