After a meeting in Established a couple of weeks before classes started, our group was excited about the prospect of creating an in-depth and detailed environment that would aid storytelling, with a very light narrative. We quickly came up with the idea for a city densely populated with skyscrapers, with one central skyscraper holding a rooftop jungle. This early concept included one main character, a child, who would progress through this environment and interact with it. In our final scene, our character discovers a sea of industrial skyscrapers exists beyond the parameters of their safe natural jungle home. We were particularly attracted to the idea of juxtaposed aesthetics.

As the concept grew, I suggested (this was actually my husband’s interpretation of the initial concept when I presented it to him) that through this idea we focus not only on an obvious theme (industry and man-made taking over natural spaces, our pollution and the ever-growing concern of global warming) but also on a metaphor; the natural space (the jungle, forest, garden) would be symbolic of a ‘comfort zone’, a safe space, somewhere that our character retreats to get away from the pressures of the outside world. The external, contrasting city of industry could represent the external worries and anxieties we all face as a fallout of societal expectations.

We pretty much immediately began collecting references and creating a miro board (https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVKhYpiOk=/?share_link_id=324230682108):

Environments and Environmental Story Telling

Here, there were concepts for how the natural area may look and how it could contrast against a cityscape; we also loved the idea of portraying a more sci-fi look with the skyscrapers, referencing the garbage-towers in Wal-e amongst other things. We moved on from the idea of a rooftop jungle to the potential that an overturned tram or subway or train might be our character’s comfort zone. With these thumbnails, I wanted to make sure to try and nail composition and make a real effort to create good and communicative concepts that also attempted to tell a story as best as I could. Environment painting is something that I’ve really been trying to improve on in personal work over the past year, and I hope that the experience of painting more concept environments for our final year film will bolster these skills.

Please see below for the tutorials and YouTube videos that I consulted during this:

As our concept developed, we realised that the idea of a comfort zone vs. external stressors was a theme we wanted to refine. However, we recognised the nature vs. industrial aspect was no longer aiding our story; we all wanted to focus more on this idea of fear of our anxieties, and the strength and courage it takes to overcome them. As such, we decided to give our character more of an identity and more of an active role in our film. We wanted the character to be an extension of ourselves and our peers, therefore we decided to make our character an artist. The external city would be metaphorical of everything that the character fears but also everything that they long for – connection, self-acceptance, confidence, positivity, socialisation with their peers, and creativity (this is up to interpretation, it can be anything that the viewer connects with should they choose to take meaning from it). The character’s art studio apartment would be representative of a safe space that they hide within, in isolation, that is often used as an excuse not to overcome their mental and physical blocks, and push themselves to venture out of their comfort zone. We hope to have these two settings act almost as secondary characters: the city ultimately being ‘the good guy’ and the comfort zone ultimately being ‘the bad guy’. To insert a space in which the journey to overcoming their anxieties could be set, we also added our ‘abstract world’ as a means of introducing what could be interpreted as ‘the mentor’ of the hero’s journey. Within the abstract world – which would essentially be in our characters’ imagination – we want to heavily experiment with different pipelines, visuals, and techniques in this area; we want to push the boundaries of what we can do artistically, just as we want to communicate pushing the boundaries of our character’s emotions. We want this area to initially be terrifying and overwhelming, jarring, and a sensory overload for our character; ultimately, the abstract will teach our character that the potential that the city holds far outweighs their fears, and their reliance on their comfort zone. This lesson will inspire them to take control of their future and step out into the city that inspires them and excites them so much.

We want to have the city ‘speak’ to our character and have played around with the idea of neon signs flickering, potentially spelling out ‘Hi’, something that our character takes notice of. This is in need of more concept art and development, but as this ‘character’ cannot have a physical voice, we thought this would be a fun way to show that the city is inviting, friendly and good.

Internally, the comfort zone also needs more concept art, however at the moment I’m thinking that whilst the character loves it almost as a security blanket it should be quite messy – it should be a space that would cause anxiety in and of itself; the mess is not conducive to creativity or clear thinking and good mental health. I quickly painted this concept after this thought:

Within this area, through environmental storytelling, we see that she is painting and drawing the same views over and over again – views from her fire escape, drawings of the interior of her studio, things that she can ONLY see from the comfort of her safe place (this could include things like signage and graphics if we choose to attach these to the walls). We want to try and communicate that these drawings are frustrating her, so I played with the idea that there might be lots of scribbles and crosses and self-deprecating words on her work and on the walls. These drawings and paintings are the same views because she won’t leave, she has no other point of view. She ONLY knows her comfort zone. As artists, it’s common knowledge that you have to collect a range of different experiences, and journey to different places, (physically, metaphorically, mentally) to get different ideas and different inspirations; this is ultimately good for our creativity, and as a result, our mental health and wellbeing. Only having one point of view is limiting, creatively stifling, and almost claustrophobic both literally and figuratively – over time, only one point of view can lead to us creating ‘bad art’, just as it can result in bad mental health.

The comfort zone is safe and enjoyable however it is not necessarily good for our character – it’s not good for their artwork, it’s not good for their mental health, or for their social life.

(Please see below the discord conversation when playing around with these concepts narratively:

We intend for our abstract to mirror our character’s sketches and paintings; at the moment we like the idea that this area would be really sketchy or linear, like the character is inside one of her sketchbook pages or in one of her canvases’:

Through experimentation, we’ve been doing a lot of 2D markmaking trying to create a mark-making atlas, and converting these shapes into brushes which we could potentially use to texture our 3D model and environment. With this we’re hoping to engage in some collaboration with our uni course and lecturers; we want to try and collect different marks, made by different people. If we can use all of these marks somewhere in our environments, it will feel as if everyone who takes part will be represented somewhere in the film through their stamp or their brush. As this is a short film that is supposed to be reflective of the experiences that everyone could be experiencing, it feels really suitable that we almost get a little bit of everyone in there somehow.

The Character

Initially, we imagined that the character would be a child. Set within the natural environment, we loved the idea of child-like innocence being represented, unknowing of the outside stressors beyond the parameters of their forest/natural comfort zone. We looked at references from Brave, Coraline, and Little Nightmares.

Here are some of my early concepts:

However, as our narrative developed we realised that it made more sense for our character to be aged, and to be more representative of ourselves. Therefore, we settled on Charlie.

Here are some of my concepts based on this new character:

Charlie is not set in stone quite yet, however we have made the decision to pull back on the overly baggy clothing with ease of sculpting and rigging in mind. We have also been playing around with the idea of ‘stereotypical’ art aesthetics that might be tied to different types of artists (i.e. Graphic Designer, Fine Art, Film and Animation etc.)

Feedback to Consider

We were given feedback after our presentation. One bit of criticism was the necessity of our character being an artist, however since – demonstrated in the explanation above – I think we have managed to articulate why this is an important personality for our main character.

We were advised to pull together colour scripts, and that we should allow for much much more time in visual development in our schedule, as a lot of the meat of story takes places in our abstract aesthetic (the main setting for our sequence) and it will require a lot of experimentation.

This feedback is something that we aim to address going forward.