An Obvious choice to begin to experiment with was a period or genre which lends itself well to the Gothic Genre. When researching this, I came across strong parallels between the gothic Genre and Film Noir . An over stylised and often oppressive genre, I have found this genre quite interesting to watch and evaluate, It shares alot of common themes and elements to the Gothic genre, such as Dark, Murky settings which give a depressing feeling to them . Everything is monochrome and smokey, leading to an air of mystery, this is played upon with long casting shadows and a stylised lighting which defines this genre. Film Noirs are often very high in tension because of their lack of exposition and general feeling of unease brought about by plot and mis en scene.
While looking at Noir I went back even further into cinema, Looking into some Silent Dramas , In particular "The Docks of New York". Although the film shows little Gothic Genre, It has the Associated Romance Genre involved with a murky and atmospheric setting of Docks and a tragic storyline for the two main characters.The film is classically romantic and a good example of early Silent Dramas but in my opinion it also fits into the Gothic genre, there may not be too much supernatural elements or a sense of mystery there, but there are moments of high emotion and the protagonists fit the description similar to those within the gothic genre, isolated and alone and emotionally self imposed. The general feel of the film is very moody and atmospheric due to the location mostly, its very murky and gloomy and often hard to see the run down structures through the thick fog pockets.
[1]
I think what intrigued me most about this film is its set lighting and composition, its very stylised and very similar to that of gothic noir genres . Dramatic lighting and often closed or jagged shot composition seem to give a feeling of disorientation and claustrophobic and sometimes threatening
[3]
The film gives off a moody atmosphere with its dramatic pockets of light and shadow and dramatic outlines of shapes and figures, which made it a very interesting work to research and then use to help with my experiments. By looking at how the film works in conveying gothic elements without being in the gothic genre , I can try to convey this with my own work.
Once I had researched and done some small thumbnails looking at how the gothic elements would look in a noir setting, I began to set out experiments to see how lighting and composition would work in particular, Dramatic lighting was a crucial part of Noir and Silent Films , It was the most effective way to convey atmosphere , drama and mood into a shot by using Dramatic angling of light to create contrasting pools of shadow and intense light which would frame faces, hide figures and information and overall generate a sense of atmosphere. This is what I wanted to explore , I started my experiments with a few thumbnails of a section of my comic drawn out to suit the noir setting.
I then was able to draw some of the images out and experiment with the mechanisms and elements that noir films use to convey drama and high emotion in a gloomy atmosphere.
to do this, I experimented with composition and colour and tone. I explored how If you section off an image and create dramatic angling within the frame can you convey a strong sense of distortion. By not showing all the information provided in the image and by sectioning areas off, does it have a profound effect on the image like it does when used in a noir setting in films and images.
Another experiment involved me changing the colours used , by changing a section to a lighter or more dramatic colour , does this effect the image ? Does it attract our attention to a certain important area and if so , what is a overall mood of the image after doing this.
I feel that by doing these experiments with one panel , I was able to explore how some of the mechanisms of Noir works . By angling light and using a very limited colour scheme, you can generate a very similar feel to the gothic genre. you can highten emotion and drama by framing figures in a certain way, by disfiguring them with light and withholding or enhancing information such as facial expressions and figures.
After doing this I decided to draw most of the thumbnails on a much bigger scale which I then began to finalise and colour using a traditional monochrome colour palette. while doing this experiment I realised that my thumbnails where showing a positive experiment where the characters would fit into the new setting and I could easily convey plenty of the gothic elements in a noir setting .
While experimenting I began to see the characters change a little , they seemed to be a lot darker than they had been before and I started think more about how this setting would change the characters in any way and so I researched into noir films and characters tropes as well as social elements of the period and there was a change present. I found that in a Noir setting that I would often feel that my characters would be more gritty , possibly more violent and less moral than In the Victorian period I had originally placed them . Some characters such as Jack , Dante and Edmund would not have changed as drastically due to the criminal nature already being there but for others such as Nicholas , Lucian and Violet there would be quite a dramatic change in terms of their morals and attitudes towards breaking the law and violence in general. I can see it being an everyday thing due to the social context of the Great depression and the War being present in that time frame and desperate times making them a little less moral and more prone to crimes such as smuggling, gang crime and Extortion and Blackmail.This fits well into the Gothic Character elements of secluded and often troubled characters who have to cope with psychological and physical torments and inner demons which leads to a very high emotional state depending on the situation they are in .
No comments:
Post a Comment