Puppets Clothing

More or less finished now. Much of the credit goes to Tor. She made the Snow White dress and came up with how the Queen's silver and black dress could be done.

Puppet wigs

Final wig: didn't come out quite so well unfortunately. The wool itself is a great idea but I decided to try and dye it myself instead of buying it already coloured. It was meant to be a very deep burgundy...but I simply couldn't get the dye to stick. Luckily with these wigs I can try more than once.

Close-up of face...

Wig can easily be taken off and on

Snow is in the wig making stage so you can see how it was done. Basically the plastic bag is wrapped around really tightly, covered in the glue and har (in ths case not sheep wool...real hair...) and it keeps the shape when is comes off.

Still not finished...

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Research Experiment- Storyboards

So going back to what I mentioned before, here're my ideas for storyboards from one section of the Grimm tale that can be displayed with different audio/text or moved around interchangebly and etc. They would be used to see not just the relationship between text and image but also the vantage point of the person telling the story and/or the order of events and how they affect the tale and the reader.

"Looking-glass against the wall,

Who is fairest of us all?"

And the looking-glass answered as before,

"Queen, thou art of beauty rare,

But Snow-white living in the glen

With the seven little men

Is a thousand times more fair."

When she heard the looking-glass speak thus she trembled and shook with anger.

"Snow-white shall die," cried she, "though it should cost me my own life!" And then she went to a secret lonely chamber, where no one was likely to come, and there she made a poisonous apple. It was beautiful to look upon, being white with red cheeks, so that any one who should see it must long for it, but whoever ate even a little bit of it must die. When the apple was ready she painted her face and clothed herself like a peasant woman, and went across the seven mountains to where the seven dwarfs lived. And when she knocked at the door Snow-white put her head out of the window and said,

"I dare not let anybody in; the seven dwarfs told me not."

"All right," answered the woman; "I can easily get rid of my apples elsewhere. There, I will give you one."

"No," answered Snow-white, "I dare not take anything."

"Are you afraid of poison?" said the woman, "look here, I will cut the apple in two pieces; you shall have the red side, I will have the white one."

For the apple was so cunningly made, that all the poison was in the rosy half of it. Snow-white longed for the beautiful apple, and as she saw the peasant woman eating a piece of it she could no longer refrain, but stretched out her hand and took the poisoned half. But no sooner had she taken a morsel of it into her mouth than she fell to the earth as dead. And the queen, casting on her a terrible glance, laughed aloud and cried,

"As white as snow, as red as blood, as black as ebony! this time the dwarfs will not be able to bring you to life again."

And when she went home and asked the looking-glass,

"Looking-glass against the wall,

Who is fairest of us all?"

at last it answered,

"You are the fairest now of all."

Then her envious heart had peace, as much as an envious heart can have.

Research Experiment

A while back last year we were taught three examples on the relationship between text and image:

• Complementary
• Elaboration
• Contradicting

I'm about to do a little experiment that plays with that concept but is more on the relationship between sound and image. This is mainly to see the different ways of telling the same tale, looking at different perspectives, emphasis and etc.

1. Outside Narration-Complementary/Elaboration
2. Outdide Narration-Contradicting
3. Outside Narration-reverse contradicting
4. No Narration-Character voices only
5. No Narration-Silent
6. No Narration-music
7. No Narration-sound
8. Storytelling from with emphasis from the different characters point of view:

• Snow White
• The Queen
• The Dwarves
• The Prince

Colour Experiments

 Today's Workshop we did a little experiment with using colours. So among other things, here's what I did today:

The Seventh Seal

Over the Christmas holidays I saw 'The Seventh Seal' with my family. I've got to say I loved it. I couldn't help but notice several themes in it were ones that I love to explore so I definitely had to talk about it.

DVD cover taken from Amazon

'The Seventh Seal' is a 1957 film from Sweden by Ingmar Bergman. It is set during the medieval period and tells the story of a knight who on his journey back from the crusades meets Death and bargains for his life in a game of chess. Along the way they pass by ravages of the plague, brutalities and meet other travellers.

There's much contemplating (a great deal of which done by the knight) over the nature of life, love and death.

I'd have to say it's really the characters that the film really focuses on and really makes 'The Seventh Seal'. And the character of death is so visually simple yet striking. I love how there's a slight illusion of his face floating amongst the black fabric.

Now, I don't know anything about Ingmar Bergman but I do know this is a beautiful film with such a unique surreal and sombre atmosphere. It takes full advantage of black and white cinematography. I urge those who haven't seen it already to do so. As for me, I'm going to just go an watch it again.

Iconic scene from the beginning of the film.
Image taken from Empire Magazine.

The Ice Queen

I managed to see Disney's 'Frozen' not too long ago. All in all it was excellent, certainly the writers knew their feminist theory I'd say. I wasn't 100% satisfied with the design so I ended up playing around with ideas for an Ice Queen design that was more based on the original Hans Christien Anderson tale. It's rough and unfinished cause I couldn't qute figure out how to finish it off. I was a little disapointed the tradition look of the furs was changed so I wanted to elaborate a little on that element...