Table design on cad

I decided to make the top of the table oval to be more in keeping with the beetle-esque theme of the living room furnature that some of the others have thought up but I kept the base the same and put it together using AutoCAD


Front view


Side View


Top View

Table design

These are my early sketches of the table. i think its should be distressed and lightly dusty with marks where plates and cups etc. may have been. and also slighly crooked to show its age.

Living Room Dining Table Ideas

We met today and decided who should design which main feature of the two rooms. As I am working on the living room designs due to a lot draw I opted to do the dining room table.
We have decided to base the set in Prague about 1915 so were looking at decor from anytime before 1905 with uses of 'contructivism', 'expresionism' and 'art nouveau'.

I started doing some research into dining tables that use art nouveau and I found a really nice one that with a bit of distressing could easily fit the scene.

http://www.1stdibs.com/furniture_item_detail.php?id=314470

I also found a page that has a number of decent tables that could work based on Art Nouveau dining tables which i intend to look into further for designing.

http://www.artscraftsfurniture.co.uk/strachandiningtables.html

The area where Gregor's family lives

I've read through Kafka's Metamorphosis and highlighted certain things to do with Gregors room in one colour. the living room in another, various props that could be used to dress the set and hints to the area he lives in which i've managed to sumarise as there are only a few.

Where they live:

• In an appartment
• On an urban street call Charlotte Street
• It's a city
• it rains in the spring time
• Theres a hospital of some sort accross the street
• There is a place called The Conservatory somewhere in the city which sounds like it could be a school of some sort the way it's mentioned
  
• its a rather grey area
• there is a tower clock in the vascinity
• there are trains and electric trams available

Group Tutorial

My group met for a tutorial this morning and after this we got together and began going over some ideas. We have basically desided on a bedroom that is erily bug like but has remnants of once being normal. and a hallway outside leading to the room that slowly goes from normal to slimy and unusual.

We have created a shared blog that we can post meetings and quick ideas onto so we can all see them easily
I made it for us and made everyone authors so we can all contribute our ideas -- http://www.metamorphosiscatf.blogspot.com/

We intend to meet tomorrow with some rough sketches and ideas to put a presentation together for Thursday and will then devide in half to decide on who will do which room.

Tutorial 1:

• Where in the world is it set? Eastern europe?
• What year is it set in?
• What age do we think Gregor is?
• Colour palet? Dark colours?
• Lower/middle class family.
• What insect is he?
  

Group Brainstorm:

• Hallway and Bedroom
• 4 poster bed
• chest of draws
• single window
• at least two doors are mentioned in the story
  
• dark bedroom
• ripped curtains on the window
• slime and brown fluid around
• shadows/ low light
• dung beatle?
• victorian designs?
  
• 1910-1920?
  

Visual Narative Lecture

Sets and Sensibility
Set building:

• To support the story
• To put the story into an appropriate arena
• To create an enviroment for the audiance (one that is believable - Mise en scene)

Why choose a studio?:

• Because it's a controllable enviroment
• Location work is impractical
• What you want to film does not exist

Location, location
On Location:

• The location may not be appropriate - eg. difficulties with access
• The locations may not provide everything needed
• Set construction may be needed if there are unwanted details
• Area may be historically or contempararilly correct

Everything on film is an Illusion
Sets can be surprisingly real even if they are simply small models or of something that does not exist

Creating the Illusion:

• Carpenters
• Riggers
• Plasterers
• Painters
• Dressers

Part of the Whole:

• Production department will supply drawings for construction
• The drawing are passed onto relevant departments for casting
• Once approved, construction can begin

Time is money:

• Studios can be expensive to hire
• The crew is expensive to hire
• The equipment is expensive to hire

Deadlines:

• It is very important to know the deadline and to try to complete the project before the deadline so there is time to fix anything that may need fixing
• Set building may involve work in a controlled enviroment or an uncontrolled enviroment

Visual Narative:

• Your project will involve you construction - from plans - a Set
• We will complete the task and erect the Set in a studio enviroment where it will be dressed, lit, filmed or phtographed
  

Beginning of Set

We were given our briefs on monday starting our new project.
I am in group one doing a film set based on the story 'The Metamorphosis' by Franz Kafka:
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/stories/kafka-e.htm

Set requirement: The living room of the household and the bedroom of Gregor Samsa – for this set, the stylistic brief is constructivism and expressionism.


Constructivism:one of the main characteristics of Constructivism is a total commitment to and acceptance of modernity. The art is typically totally abstract, with the emphasis on geometric shapes and experimentation. Constructivist art is optimistic, but does not tend to be emotional in any way and subjectivity and individuality were subsumed in favour of objective, universal forms. A new order in art was being sought, with new media being experimented with. One of the characteristics of Constructivist artworks is that they would be reductive in nature, simplifying everything to the most fundamental level. The fact that the Constructivist art movement emerged immediately after World War One is no coincidence. The movement wanted to sweep away all that had gone before, all that had led to the catastrophic war. - http://www.keithgarrow.com/modern-art-styles/what-is-constructivism.html


Expressionism: is an artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the later 19th and the 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements. - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/198740/Expressionism

filming & final film

We filmed our off site presentation the other day and edited it with imovie. It came out quite well.
Today we beganrecording the full film and got the majority done. We should finish filmin by tomorow and be able to edit it for cd and journals :)

here is the final product after editing on imovie, I did most of the editing while we collaberated on what to do for each section:




I think we worked really well together on this project and that even though the main puppets werent quite as good as we might have liked that we worked efficiently as a group.

puppets finished

Our puppets are finallised. we made all our shadow puppets (14) as well and finished our black and white sided screen with window ready for filming.

I made the sun, earth and moon shadow puppets as well as three mathmatic love shadow puppets. I think they came out quite well and they appear clearly behind a screen.

We filmed our puppets outside for our projection and edited it with Imovie so its ready to be edited later with the full film which we intend to do this week.