Unit 7 - Development Journal (in progress)

I'll be amending this as I go.

PROJECT

a narrative exploring, inverting and subverting the structure of a fairytale without undermining the entertainment of a story.

Possibly a collection of stories, framed as a tome of fairy tales? Addressing different tropes and expectations?

Experiment with the perspective of a fairytale, and the information provided to the audience, in order to subvert their expections from roles with well defined expectations. Exploration of archetypes. Exploit the universal language and understanding of fairy tales, classical roles. The idea of the wolf as 'danger', the prince as 'charming'. Inversion of the prince and princess roles. Heroic Princess rescuing Prince? Similar to Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber' exploring the previously omitted female perspective. Possible subversions/inversions/explorations:

cinderella glass slipper fits multiple women/only a man/only an animal. fits the ugly step sister first who is made queen?

Frog pretending to be a prince for a kiss (misleading them into thinking that is the subversion). The princess that seems to agree to kiss the frog is actually a creature that eats frogs in disguise as a princess. Transformation trope of fairy tales.

red riding hood a menace for making wolves an endangered species? Harassed by animal cruelty groups? Anachronism.

Question ideas not typically explored/explained that are accepted as part of the strangeness and internal logic of the setting. Where do talking animals learn to talk? The recurring rule of 3(e.g 'what big teeth/long nose/claws' LRRH and three bears goldilocks)

Universal rather than self-referential. Audience research to ascertain reactions and associations with particular archetypes and colours. Reliance upon preexisting knowledge of the tales in the audience. Stick to the best known tales?

The frog prince.

Cinderella.

Sleeping Beauty

Beauty and the Beast

Hansel and Gretal

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Little Red Riding Hood:

The Three Little Pigs

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Rapunzel

Rumpelstiltskin/p>

Jack and the Bean Stalk

The Princess and the Pea

As there is an expectation of dark and edgy renditions of fairy tales alongside the more soft childish ones I could use different stories to address different expectations in the depiction of fairy tales. Use a bleak oppressive aesthetic (similar to Eddie Campbell's in 'From Hell'?) for one story to cultivate expectations of a grizzly, adult fairy tale and then tell a 'disnified' version of the tale with saccharine narration and a happy ending. Similarly, use a soft cutesy colourful style to create anticipation of a simple childish story and then present a gruesome, old style fairy tale possibly using the original narration to maintain a clash on every page(similar to the juxstaposition of cartoonish visuals and extreme violence in 'Happy Tree Friends').

Test own assumptions. Have people draw my character descriptions and see how what others draw correlates. Question what people consider to be the tenants of a fairy tale.

REFERENCES

http://thedreaming.holycow.com/1999/10/10/snow-glass-apples/

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLjEooM5f5HxG6TFCuzFIwtRe29yTYcsPtbmntNFC5N5tLG0-lH58ChbzcbFs5mo1edQjrIAxBqF3AhkyfoJkDcNrlQVvxrzo7BOC15OFP5SZgMNsVimD0GcCmszGMJwg71xcp8WfJb1Sl/s1600/aaaaaaa.jpg

http://www.mangatank.com/manga/one-piece-omake/c9/1

http://www.mangatank.com/manga/one-piece-omake/c14/1

The Seven Basic Plots by Denis Dutton

The Origin of Stories by Brian Boyd

Several feminists approach this – Babette Cole is interestng for dhildren – Tarzanna, also thePaperbag princess + Angela Carter 'The Bloody Chamber' + Carol Ann Duffy 'The World's Wife', 'The Stolen Childhood and Other Dark Fairy Tales', 'The Stolen Childhood and Other Dark Fairy Tales', 'Grimm Tales'.

JACK ZIPES FAIRY TALES FUNCTION. RELEVANCE.

ANACHORISM http://www.harkavagrant.com/nonsense/fairysm.png

DISSONANCE OF CUTE PERCEPTION OF FAIRYTALES WITH THEIR ORIGINAL INCARNATIONS (MAUS STYLE CARTOONISHNESS WITH HORROR) http://www.rabbitvalley.com/pictures/mark-millars-the-unfunnies-3-offensive-cover-41976.jpg http://fatbottombooks.com/sites/fatbottombooks.com/files/imagecache/product_main/images/products/gen_extract1.jpg http://artspiegelmanandmaus.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/camp2.jpg http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mefjjwq1OY1rmxc2oo1_500.jpg

TYPIFYING ELEMENTS http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FairyTaleTropes

Vladimir Propp 'Morphology of the Folk Tale' http://homes.di.unimi.it/~alberti/Mm10/doc/propp.pdf

Tolkien 'On Fairy Stories' http://public.callutheran.edu/~brint/Arts/Tolkien.pdf

DISSERTATION

"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I would condemn it as improbable fiction." — Fabian, Twelfth Night

Dissertation an exploration of the necessity for familiar story structure and archetypes in order to successfully communicate and engage with the viewer, while entertaining by purposely betraying/subverting/inverting expectations. Reliance upon archetypes. Established colour queues. Reasons for story telling conventions. Means for both surprise and involvement.

Needs some theoretical underpinning _ the purposr of stoorytelling: basic plots: character archetypes and stereotypes: linguistic modes

The material has a lot of potential – need to steer away though from subverting the narrative in t a way which reads only to you – it needs to be universal to work; Try audience research as in previous project on colour – generate charachers and see how people read them, or get people to draw your character descriptions. Test your own assumptions.

Comparative mythology.

Brechtian metatheatre. Fourth wall. Consciousness of separation. Distancing effect.

Carl Jung Jungian Archetypes. Freud. Psychoanalytical significance of stories.

structural archetypes

HERO'S JOURNEY. TEMPERAMENTS. FORMULAE. VILLAIN = UGLY/ HERO = BEAUTIFUL

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9jk-6l2YsEw6IisJku0xO8-GXdiH9BrAzIwtbKYN11pCUkVxbhNXmq_vFiTXy7CFdKt1Q2gx5syFWuxs8jPTecOb6T6L7_wxMpDtGtaPtb3HWdft6T4kMQ3UhYj9AJarwnKSL8KGpHufL/s1600/primary+research+comparison0001.JPG

http://z.mhcdn.net/store/manga/106/39-365.0/compressed/One_Piece_365_08.jpg?v=11192686008

http://www.mangahere.com/manga/one_piece/v39/c366/16.html

http://cdn.eyemanga.com/690/368/p_00011.jpg

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fotm280_1470.png

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/heros_journey4_8462.png

http://www.artofstorytellingshow.com/2008/06/29/jack-zipes-fairy-tales/

http://denisdutton.com/booker_review.htm

Robert McKee 'Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting'

Joseph Campbell 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces'

Christopher Booker 'The Seven Basic Plots'

FORMULA Victoria Lynn Schmidt 'Story Structure Architect' '45 Master Characters', Georges Polti 'The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations' http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/articles/36drama.html, Aristole 'Poetics'

Comic Project - Final Outcome

Aside from the robot and the monster undergoing redesigns, there was very little in the way of deviation from the initial storyboards. Just a few modifications to make some story beats more emphatic. Like the scientists expectations of the robot shrinking with the panels on the left hand side of the second page. And the happy rainbow in the final panel of the story. Having said that, the fourth page wasn't planned before the final week of the project. But it might be my favourite. Because it was so action based, without each panel telling something important, I felt like I could loosen the compositions of the panels to make the page a bit more dynamic and playful. At first the robot had more of a cutesy Astro Boy style design, before becoming a more Frankenstein monster (which worked better for the unexpected nice deeds), so I was very surprised when after completing my first storyboard, I looked in the Osamu Tezuka book in the library and found that the scene of Astro Boy's birth was very very similar to my first page. So I thought I must have been doing something okay...

Brave New World Inspirations

Mostly relating to the Lenina working in the hatchery. The second image was always going to be less literal and more exaggerated so there was a little more freedom there. The third image I was merely without the time to really develop. The last image, from the Akira manga, was more about when I was conceptualising the world as a whole. The nursery for the elderly children in Akira was kind of summoned up in my mind when I read the book and I was quite interested in emphasising the infantilization of the inhabitants of the Brave New World. I also began planning their outfits to seem a bit like the onesies worn by newborns because they reiterated this same effect while simultaneously appearing rather futuristic.

Brave New World Project Images + Cover

I have absolutely no idea how but I wasn't introduced to the actual brief until a week before the deadline. I was just continuing on with the primer and conceptualising the world under the impression that BNW was what would be used to make up the narrative project. As such, I didn't get to plan out the compositions as much as I would have liked. Nevertheless I quite like the first 2. Especially the second. Thanks to Frederico Tam for unifying my cover images for me, devoid as I am of photoshop.

Paperweight Zine - Apocalypse Issue Submission

My contribution to the second Paperweight zine. In contrast to the first submission I may have gone too far with the toner. Generally I find it very difficult to discern what it is that has influenced and informed my work. And although I don't believe I consciously emulated their works, while uploading this I have managed to think of images by perhaps my two favourite artists that it bears resemblance too. The second image is from Eiichiro Oda's series One Piece. My favourite series by far. A distant and still very very beloved second being Neon Genesis Evangelion. The third image is the iconic logo created by Yoshitaka Amano of Final Fantasy fame. Far from being an example of his best work, or even best series logo, the fiery meteor is nevertheless indelibly burned into my memory.

Edition Project Outcome

My riso design produced for the Edition project. Inspired by the rows on rows of preserved snakes during our museum visit to Oxford, in particular the double headed (presumably mutant) one. There may once have been a more substantial idea behind the work but it ended up being about what I thought might make a good print. I tried to create a contrast between the twisting forms of the multitudinous snakes against the static, repeated shapes in the background. To this effect, I tried to embolden them though the application of grey tonal markers. This was my version of the image prior to manipulating it to translate successfully for the three colour print. I had difficulty recreating the grey so I ended up tinting the image a kind of yellow and rendering what would have been grey as green which I thought suited the reptilian creatures. It was also chosen in imitation of the preservative fluid that the snakes were submerged in. I also played around with the textures, which to my typically technology killing self worked out surprisingly well. Also, I feel the need to say that I really love snakes.

Editorial Project Outcome

My creations for the editorial project. I can't remember precisely what phrases in particular I chose to respond to from the given text but they generally pertained to ideas of isolation, alienation and the unfamiliar. Using the leftovers photocopies of the patterns we created to produce images that attempted to represent certain words, I created these images as my outcome. I hoped to communicate the confusion and disconnection felt by the individual in the brief. I feel that it has some success in doing so but perhaps no as well as it could have. Unfortunately, I had almost run out of sheets of patterns, otherwise I might have tried to make a larger, more defined image.