Made-up Worlds Part 2

Creating the physical model was an entirely separate task to developing the idea. Thankfully I had some packaging cardboard to space - slicing this created simple tower blocks with readymade floors.

Gluing these together was a simple and effective way of making unique (whilst still incredibly brutalist) forms. Using pinking scissors to cut paper staircases was also a terribly lucky coincidence - whilst I wish the scissors had created smaller forms, they did in fact create the perfect suggestion of stairs. I spray painted each building and several pieces of cardboard, and then saw about assembling the model. 

My plan for lighting the city relied heavily on what I had learnt from a youtube video explaining the process used to create the model city from the film Bladerunner. As explained in the video, 2D cutouts are used towards the back, 3D models at the front of the shot. Lights shine up from the base, with the wiring concealed below the floor.

Obviously we were working at a much lower scale of production, with the base of the model being composed of two A1 sheets of cardboard. After spray painting the bases, I painted on a vague roadmap that perhaps resembled a circuit board more than anything else. I found that this worked very well, as it suggested a structure to the city without looking too familiar in comparison to any existing place.

The lights I used were in fact outdoor christmas lights, as this meant that I would at least be able to reuse some of the materials I had purchased for the construction of the model.

          

 After I had finished assembling the model, the group and I all filmed the final video. This took the better part of the day, as we experimented with lots of different angles and potential shots. Thanks to the help of another group, we had access to a coloured LED lamp which was controlled remotely, so we had the opportunity to experiment with a far stronger lighting element than originally planned.

The lamp not only let us view and discuss the immediate effects of changing the colour, but allowed us yet another way to manipulate various shots of the video. Switching between blues, reds and oranges, we could very easily dictate the mood without permanently affecting the model itself.

And as an additional bonus, on one of the shades of yellow the centre of the lamp glowed orange and the edge was a green ring. By moving the light we could control the length of the shadows, and the combination of the two created what was by far one of my favourite pieces of footage, which when sped up resembles a time lapse of a city using perhaps a tilt-shift lens.


One element I felt the model was missing was smoke - although the paint work and lighting at the back of the model suggested night and vague pollution, it was not explicit enough without the presence of traffic noises in the soundtrack.

I would have liked to add smoke to the model in some form - a low hanging mist, even a breath of cigarette smoke over the top to create an additional sense of depth and physical air.

If I had more time I would also have wanted to spend more time making smaller and smaller 2D buildings in the background in order to give a greater field of depth for the camera, and perhaps install lighting of some kind beyond the fairy lights in the base.

I attempted to have the top of one of the towers light up by placing it directly on top of a light and have the ceiling constructed of parcel tape (as the windows of the model building I made previously had been) however as you can see (the top of the tower is visible at the very front of the image above) the light was not strong enough to make the tower look anything but brown.

Whilst I didn't manage to create any successful hollow buildings, I purposefully created structures with the towers to have courtyards, through which light could shine and light up several surfaces at a time.

Our group produced three final videos. Below is the one that I created - model made, filmed, sound design and editing all myself.