Unit 2: Space

Online Green-Light Review

Gabriel Burokas
Folder 5: The Lost World by Conan Doyle

Contents
Slide 3: Links to weekly work Slide 4: Project Introduction Slide 5: Author Slide 6: Book Summary Slide 7: Adaptations Slide 8: Visual Concept Slide 9: Three Scenes Breakdown Slide 10: Visual Concept Influence Map Slide 11: Scene 1 Influence Map Slide 12: Scene 2 Influence Map Slide 13: Scene 3 Influence Map Slide 14: Scene 1 Key Thumbnails Slide 15: Scene 2 Key Thumbnails Slide 16: Scene 3 Key Thumbnails Slide 17: Assignment Introduction

Weekly Work
Maya (Digital Set): http://burokasdesign.blogspot.com/2011/11/mayaprogess.html Photoshop (Week6+7): http://burokasdesign.blogspot.com/2011/11/photoshop-week-6-and7.html Worlds Apart 1 Review: http://burokasdesign.blogspot.com/2011/11/worlds-apart-1-robertweines-cabinet-of.html Worlds Apart 2 Review: http://burokasdesign.blogspot.com/2011/11/worlds-apart-2-fritz-langsmetropolis.html

Project Introduction
For Unit 2: Space we have been given excerpts from a book(s) which details certain visual environments within the narrative. We then have to create three digital paintings using Photoshop based on visual clues gathered from the excerpts. The final three paintings have to be preceded by a hundred thumbnails to fully develop all ideas that surround one scene.

Author
The Lost World was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Scottish writer born in 1859. His extensive bibliography ranges many genres however his most notable book has to be Sherlock Holmes, a character that is infamous to this day. His character from The Lost World, Professor Challenger, also remains an icon himself. So Doyle was able to create not one but many famous icons that people to this day still recognise.

Book Summary
The Lost World is set around the 1910s just like its publication date in 1912. It takes up the story of a young journalist by the name of Edward Malone; he is desperate to become a hero in the eyes of the woman he wishes to marry. His need to do something extraordinary brings him to a story about trying to prove false a certain professor that claims to have evidence of a new world not seen by man. This man is Professor Challenger and to prove his story, the two men plus a few extras embark on a trip to explore this lost world. Their expedition leads them through many troubles, one of which is finding themselves in a war between ape-men and tribal humans where they help the tribal humans defeat the ape-men. Not wanting them to leave the party have to escape back to England where upon their arrival they are nearly accused of falsifying their claims, however Challenger shows them a live pterodactyl. The members of the party then go their separate ways with Malone and one of the other members journeying back to the lost world.

Adaptations
The Lost World has been visualised and reused many times over the years simply for its influential story. It appeared in many TV films, regular films, and radio narrations but most notably has to be its influence on the movie Jurassic Park. Its not a direct adaptation but the concept of venturing to a lost world filled with prehistoric creatures remains true to the book. At the end of Jurassic Park pterodactyls can be seen flying away in freedom and this reflects the end of The Lost World where Challenger reveals a pterodactyl to the audience that ends up flying off.

Visual Concept
For this book I want to create digital paintings that give a sense of a mystical world. Not necessarily mystical in terms of fairies and unicorns but more like environments that normally dont occur in our world, or are at least really difficult to get to. The Lost World contains many dinosaurs so naturally a Jurassic world can be visualised as a jungle covered mountainous region. In the book there are many key words that reference to Amazonian flora and I want to capture this in my paintings throughout the three scenes so that they seem prehistoric in nature.

Scene Breakdowns
Scene 1: The thick vegetation met overhead, interlacing into a natural pergola, and through this tunnel
of verdure in a golden twilight flowed the green, pellucid river, beautiful in itself, but marvellous from the strange tints thrown by the vivid light from above filtered and tempered in its fall. Clear as crystal, motionless as a sheet of glass, green as the edge of an iceberg, it stretched in front of us under its leafy archway, every stroke of our paddles sending a thousand ripples across its shining surface. It was a fitting avenue to a land of wonders.

Scene 2: Their place was taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which grew so thickly that we
could only penetrate it by cutting a pathway with the machetes and bill-hooks of the Indians. Anything more monotonous and wearying could not be imagined, for, even at the most open places, I could not see more than ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision was limited to the back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me, and to the yellow wall within a foot of me on either side. From above came one thin knife edge of sunshine, and fifteen feet over our heads one saw the tops of the reeds swaying against the deep blue sky.

Scene 3: At last (my watch showed that it was one in the morning) I saw the gleam of water amid the
openings of the jungle, and ten minutes later I was among the reeds upon the borders of the central lake. Close to the water's edge there was a huge isolated block of lava. Up this I climbed, and, lying on the top, I had an excellent view in every direction. The first thing which I saw filled me with amazement. When I described the view from the summit of the great tree, I said that on the farther cliff I could see a number of dark spots, which appeared to be the mouths of caves. Now as I looked up at the same cliffs, I saw discs of light in every direction, ruddy, clearly-defined patches, like the portholes of a liner in the darkness. Lake Gladys - my own lake - lay like a sheet of quicksilver before me, with a reflected moon shining brightly in the centre of it. It was shallow, for in many places I saw low sandbanks protruding above the water. Everywhere upon the still, surface I could see signs of life, sometimes mere rings and ripples in the water, sometimes the gleam of a great silver-sided fish in the air, sometimes the arched, slate coloured back of some passing monster. 9

Visual Concept Influence Map

The main influence for this map is the centre image taken from the film The Fountain, where the tree of life is growing atop an Aztec pyramid. This gives a real sense of lost world that I can use.

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Scene 1 Influence Map

Since my first scene is located in the hidden river passage Ive gathered images that have a tight atmosphere and contain a stream or river. The main middle influence is from Guild Wars 2, the concept art gives a nice sense of depth to such a small space.

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Scene 2 Influence Map

For the second scene which is a bamboo forest I gathered images on how to better portray a wall of bamboo dynamically rather than flat. Also in the bottom right image I to have a reference on how light goes through bamboo since that was in the excerpt.

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Scene 3 Influence Map

My final map is for the lake scene in which the main character sits on a lava rock and can see a wide distance and has a view of the plateau off further ahead.

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Scene 1 Key Thumbnails

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Scene 2 Key Thumbnails

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Scene 3 Key Thumbnails

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Assignment Introduction
This essay will be looking at how modern CGI affects cinema and how its used to visually communicate ideas to an audience. To help explain this topic the film Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith will be used in terms of its concept design and how that is transformed into CGI. Things that will mainly be focused on are the environment scenes throughout the film which provide a broad range of material to analyse. Other sources that will be used to aid this topic are Ryan Churchs concept art, a person whos personally worked on Star Wars design; and Expose 2: finest digital art in the known universe by Daniel Wade and Mark Snoswell, which features an article about Ryan Church with quotes from him about his design processes.

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