Practical Research
"Real Monsters Art" by Toby Allen was sent to me by a fellow animator and looked incredibly interesting due to the fact that I will possibly be creating my own creatures or 'hallucinations' for my practical animation(s). Toby Allen creates monsters that represent different mental disorders and exactly why their appearance reflects how they manifest and show themselves.
M.C Escher's work will be fairly relevant as I plan to look at the ways he uses perception and perspective to create a sense of uncertainty and surrealism. His works feature highly mathematical-based geometry which could reflect the way a delusional or hallucinating mind uses heavy symbolism, often featuring numbers, geometry, and personal imagery. German Expressionism, which inspired Tim Burton seems have a very macabre feel to it and would be good to analyse and use as inspiration for some of the environmental design in my animation(s) as I would like to represent how it feels to live with hallucinations and a sense of reality being taken away. The idea of distortion and playing between what is real and what is confined within the mind is incredibly hard to interpret to an audience whose versions of reality are fairly unclouded, so using German Expressionism as a means of inspiration (we can all agree that Escher's and even Burton's re-worked version of the style challenges reality and makes us wonder if our mind is playing tricks (Metamorphosis II by M.C Escher cleverly plays between 2D and 3D perception.)
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| Left - Drawing Hands (Escher) Right - Relativity (Escher) |
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari could also be analysed and looked at from this point of view with the means to understand how camera angle and distortion of the backgrounds can create an alternate reality and mess with our heads. Nosferatu is another German Expressionist film that uses similar techniques and would be useful to watch.
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| Still from 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' |
