Assignment 1: Thumbnails

Class Activity 17 Jan

We were given some time to draw up some ideas for the assignment. And here is what I've got:



Basically, the first idea is a common concept: sacrifice for love, take the blame for something he didn't commit. So the male lead went to jail in place of his girlfriend. It's a real boring idea but what to do when you have time limit and you have to get your brain to start working somewhere.

For the second is slightly better I would say. It's about sacrificing own's life to teach a valuable lesson to someone else. Envisage the poster to have post-its as the border with different ambitions people have. Then the highlighted one will write: I want to be a gangster. The main image will read a person's feet on the edge of the high rise building.

After I presented to Julian, he thought that the second idea is interesting but he explained to me that it is too realistic. I didn't have much idea on what "surrealism" is at the moment so he explained that it is something out of reality. For instance, portraying a man with a snake head is out of reality but the audience will understand the meaning behind it: the man is like a snake, cunning and sly etc. Thus, the first step to develop more thumbnails, I did research on the key points: "surrealism" and "dark comedy" (see posting on research).

Thumbnails development:

After the research, I went into brainstorming and rough sketching. Had a real tough time coming up with the actual concept that I will be using. Had different tries to come up with the best that communicates the key features of surrealism and dark comedy as seen by the thumbnails:



However, after the tries there is still none that is of satisfaction. The ideas mainly centred around flying and reaching for the sky (signifies futility), apparition, angels (sacrifice) etc. But I thought that the things were still to realist or rather friendly and beautiful that they lack the essence of "surrealism". So I went back to the drawing board and listed the key important points found from the research and brainstorm on how to execute them. The list of key points include:

AIM of poster: To communicate in one freeze frame:

1) surrealism (emphasis on human body parts, objects)
2) dark comedy
3) manipulation
4) combination
5) exaggeration
6) disturbing
7) sacrifice (for plot)

Possible ways of execution:
1. magnification of certain human body parts so as to:
- as part of key feature of surrealism: the distortion of human parts
- create comedic effect
- exaggeration
2. distortion of (key) objects involved
- clock? as an indication of sacrifice of time?
- chest? as an indication of life?
3. extreme magnification of objects, much bigger than humans
- create disturbing effect: sense of being overpowered and insignificant
4. colors to be used: red, black

*Key note: Out of reality in terms of concept but must be practical, something in which I can execute and use Photoshop to create the desired effects.

From all these brainstorming, more thumbnails were being created and the concept was generally finalized:



The main ideas I had was to create something dark instead. As from the research, the general feelings that surrealism and dark comedy portray to me is disturbance, distortion etc. So here are the main ideas and execution methods:

Plot:
Female lead loves herself too much and greed overtook her heart and soul. She sacrifice her conscience for the sake of money, or rather for the sake of herself.

1) Surrealism:
- use of "human's" heart as item of sacrifice (prop needed: a heart = rubber heart/animal heart i.e. pig's)
- sense of objectification, a concept of surrealism
- heart as representative of conscience
- distortion via the magnification of human body parts i.e. hands

2) Greed:
- represented by money/dollar note
- blinded by greed: use note to as blindfold to cover her eyes (idea from icon of justice)

3) Sacrifice:
- ritualistic imagery of representing sacrifice is to hold arms high up
- or some sense of offering via reaching hands out

4) Selfishness:
- only female lead as the main focus as representation that she could only see herself and as a concept of surrealism (many combination of things but ultimately only one focal point)
- introduction of devil/evil, but the image will be a distortion of her own image in order to represent self-destruction/devour

5) Dark comedy:
- use of colors
- mainly in the plot: obsession with the self (also portrayed by concept of selfishness)