Paul Wiley's MFA Thesis Proposal
To the Thesis Committee at the School of Visual Arts
Graduate Computer Arts Department
New York City
INTRODUCTION
The easier road to take is simply to do what I do, and not to
question the "why" of it all. Pursuing the completion of a significant
body of work, a thesis, inspires and requires me to delve further. It is with
that in mind that I have endeavored to discover the source of my desire to create
alternative environments.
My childhood was largely spent concocting stories and constructing places where
I would have preferred to have been. Although my family was loving and nurturing
as much as I presume any other average family to be there was
only scant support for the way I wanted to spend my time: drawing, writing,
or composing music.
The "where" of this thesis film will be derived from the imagination
and visual research. The "what" will be a personal voyage that features
these places in a cohesive succession. The "why" will guide the narrative,
and by extension, will pilot the audience through a visual and aural experience,
a journey through time, place, and imagination.
A man might disappear into the stark, unmediated horrors of his own consciousness
without ever leaving the house in which he was born...
E.L. Doctorow
from the Foreward to Franz Kafka's Amerika
The above quote illuminates the backdrop of my thesis film. Using Kafka's approach to work as a model, the film explores what a creative child does to emotionally escape his repressed microcosm. But there is a difference: for Kafka, as Doctorow points out, it was about horror. For me, it is about joy. Nodding to broadly accepted notions of Kafka's association with insects [Metamorphosis], the narrator is an elderly dragonfly who recalls his childhood in a cultureless agricultural village.
THE FILM
The film begins with the narrator recalling his childhood days in such a place,
and explaining what he did to find solace. Drawing pictures of his fantasy environments
in his makeshift attic studio, the camera trucks in to the image on his drawing
board, and the scene comes to life. The viewer is pulled into his world, and
one scene dissolves into the next through such vehicles as staircases, flat
images that become dimensional, futuristic escalators, tunnels and chutes.
As the voiceover of the
narrator fades to release the viewer into his world, the voice of a mezzo-soprano
rises, singing an aria about escaping while being still. This libretto is being
written in an imaginary language. In keeping with Kafka's approach to foreignness,
it is important that the viewer feel the strangeness of not knowing where s/he
is going or hearing. The language utilizes translation software in an unusual
fashion, but the final libretto is trans-syllabolized into a new
language, with a set of rules for pronunciation and syntax. [Please
click here to see the libretto.]
Created using Alias's
Maya and hand drawings, and composited in AfterEffects, this five- to seven-minute
film will carry the audience through a series of about eight sets: beginning
in the dreary grey-sepia village, and ending in the same place, ultimately in
full bloom and intense color. The use of grey-to-color symbolizes the narrator's
epiphany concerning the value of repressed childhood, without which he would
have found no need to escape, and no skill to create the beauty to which he
had devoted his life.
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RESEARCH: A PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHILDHOOD CREATIVITY: THE ROOTS
Amabile, Teresa M. The Social Psychology of Creativity.
Rosen, Marjorie D.. Childhood Revealed: Art Expressing Pain
Miller, Alice.. The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
These books lay, in part, the foundation for further reading on nurturing children
who exhibit talent at a young age, and as exemplified below, for those who develop
into creative adults.
KAFKA SELECTIONS: BY AND ABOUT
Franz Kafka: the Diaries
Franz Kafka, Amerika
Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka, The Trial
These few selections will be used not only to examine Kafkas work and
to develop a sense of his isolation, but also as scenic inspiration.
Ernst Pawel , Nightmare of Reason: Life of Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Blue Octavo Notebooks
Steve Coots, Kafka: A Guide
The above three books will interpret Kafkas work and provide insight into
his process of creating the idea of a place through his imagination and travelogues.
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari , Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature
This work provides significant contrast to the ones directly listed above; disputing
his image as one of self-loathing, negative, and repressed.
IDEAS IN ISOLATION, HOPE AND VISION
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
Helen Keller: the Story of My Life
To Love This Life: Quotations from Helen Keller
The Phillip Ward Interviews
Phillip Ward is an artist, curator, author and poet of humble beginnings. Raised in the ultra-Christian hills of Appalachian Kentucky, Mr. Ward had to contend with finding a place for his creative genius in a two-room home brimming with siblings, incest, the Bible and poverty. The interviews I conduct will examine his work as an adult and his methods of escapism to find solace in his own creative forays as a child.
BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN [short list]:
Nonie Niesawand, Lighting
Vincent LoBrutto, The Filmmakers Guide to Production Design
Peter Gössel, Gabriele Läutheuser , Architecture in the Twentieth
Century
Joseph F. Corn, Brian Horrigan , Yesterdays Tomorrow: Past Visions
of the American Future
Rockport Publishing , The Hospitality and Leisure Architecture of Wimberly
Allison Tong & Goo
FILMS [short list]
The Wizard of Oz
Antz
The Trial
Pleasantville
Naked Lunch
Kafka
Toys
Fifth Element
Blade Runner
Hudsucker Proxy
This image may aid in better understanding of how the above references will support the final film.
RESEARCH: PSYCHOLOGICAL
The initial basis of this film is tangential to the study of creative children in oppressed households and institutions. Though the film itself travels far beyond what this may imply, it serves as a springboard to a pool of writers whose work exemplifies the desire to escape the environments in which they find themselves.
Technology specifically the ability to create alternative environments
enables this kind of child to express his/her desire to be somewhere else. This
somewhere else generally grows from a fertile imagination, but is
guided by social and familial constructs, personal experiences, and what the
software and hardware can provide.
RESEARCH: CONCEPTUAL
Inspiration will be drawn from a plethoræ of seemingly disparate sources:
from books on the lives of real people, to films that center around fantastic
ideas, to personal interviews of living artists. The thesis describes a union
of creative people who feel isolated, contemporary technology, and personal
response to environment and architecture.
Readings will largely focus on the work of Franz Kafka, both his personal writings
as well as biographical sketches. There are two primary reasons for considering
Kafka a suitable nucleus for the thesis film: his life and work aptly describe
that of the isolated creative; and the spirit of his writing embodies the surrealistic
and otherworldly quality that I believe will reflect the history of my personal
work, and the film Im in the process of making. In addition to Kafka,
readings will include the Diary of Anne Frank and works by blind and deaf author/poetess
Helen Keller.
Anne Frank is a prime example of creativity in an oppressed environment. Her
will to create and her development of a cohesive statement at an early age parallels
albeit in rather bleak and extreme circumstances that of many creative
children in trying situations.
Helen Kellers writing is an excellent example of synæsthetic interpretation.
Because of her inability to hear and see, her perception of the world was based
exclusively on her tactile and olfactory senses. This should provide keen insight
to developing creative work through the narrow channels of her remaining senses.
RESEARCH: THE ÆSTHETIC
This film begins with recollection, morphs into child-like imagination, and
ends with the epiphany of presence. There is a quality of light that emerges
from memory. It is less saturated, dim, sepia. And there is a definite flight
of fancy that my work has evoked these past fifteen years: it is generally hopeful
and often surreal.
With that in mind, my æsthetic research will be founded on the study of
architecture, natural environments, production design, and utilize some of the
work of Kafka mentioned above. Film will play an important role in discovering
new ways to solve creative problems, especially those that deal with hopeful
colors, or by contrast, the darkness of personal fears and gloomy situations.
RESEARCH: ÆSTHETIC: the Dragonfly and the Architecture of his Hamlet
The story is about a creative young dragonfly's desire to escape his dismal
home-life. The use of the insect-as-character creates interesting challenges
for the sense of scale and methods of village construction. For example, using
catonine tails rather than the trees one might expect behind a house, as well
as tall grasses provides an innate sense for where this story may be taking
place. Initial research on insect architecture revealed that their homes are
generally mound-like, or in the case of flying insects who construct, more like
a bee-hive.
However, in an effort to maintain a sense of compassion for the main character,
the audience would need to identify with something familiar; consequently, research
segued into exploring shanty towns, and eastern European and Chinese rural hamlets.
Emphasis is placed on avoiding parallel and perpendicular lines, to keep the
general æsthetic organic. Using pebbles, pieces of wood and grass stalks
for the material of the structure makes a connection with insect architecture.
The overall gestalt of the building uses lines from the cultural references
mentioned above: flowing rooflines, ground-touching eaves, and rounded window-
and door-frames.
:AND BEYOND
As I continue to develop more environments as described above, sketches will
evolve as a natural part of the ideation process. Research for these places
will depend on their themes: some will be spiritually dark or soberly realistic,
and others will be tranquil and occasionally playful, or speak to an optimistic
future. It could be noted that this light against dark serves to illuminate
the contrast between the dark history of the main character and the hope he
finds in retreating within his own thoughts.
Sources will include books and images from the NYPublic Library Picture Collection,
the Fashion Institute of Technology Library, the SVA Library and online searches.What
follows is an inconclusive list of environments and loose chronology:
Opening scene: camera leaving the very edge of a small town, where the buildings begin to diminish in size and eventually the greens and browns and yellows are all we see. Flyover from the edge of this town, over corn fields, trees, more fields, then cross-fade into:
Hamlet described above [see
Architecture of His Hamlet]
We enter his room by way of home movie on screen
[see storyboard]
His bedroom feels womb-like. One can tell he is comfortable
here, and has made it his sanctuary. Everything is rounded and wooden [or leafed].
He has a few creature comforts: a victrola, some cushy pillows, a make-shift
celery-stalk based drawing table with paper and pencils, and illuminated by
a bare bulb that was formerly the tail of a firefly. Despite its appearance
of warmth and ease, there is a note of gloom and despair in this room. This
may be achieved by the use of proper lighting, desaturated colors as well as
through camera angles and composition.
The first scene that takes place (in his head/on the
drawing table) is a spiral staircase from a medieval castle keep. Darkish browns
and greys, with occasional shafts of light from outside, opens up onto:
The Glorious Garden of Bubble Machines: the music changes
to mirror the abundance of color which was heretofore quite absent: rolling
green hills around infinite slabs of glistening white marble. These are the
foundations for bubble machines. Bright plasticky bubbles pop out of the wonka-esque
orifices in the ground, and float to the skies.
The Wheel Room: a neo-Victorian/post-post-Apocalyptic
industrial space that has a series of churning gears and wheels jutting out
of the metal-plate flooring.
The Eatery: Is it 1955? Or is it what they thought
2055 would have looked like, a hundred years before? Surfaces are smooth and
reflective, but there is a warm patina of wear over the Bakelite and chrome.
The Opera Set: made of amber and oxidized copper,
these angular horns jut out from stony hills. Think: Sydney Opera House meets
the Flintstones. They are translucent, and lit from within by warm yellowish
flame. There will be about forty of these at varying heights and shades of yellow-gold
hue.
The Garden of Heroes is based on the crisp edges
and grandeur of English formal gardens in the 18th Century. The camera will
employ a Kubrick-like symmetry as it trucks through statues of dragonflies [in
granite] on either side and approaches the Grand Hero at the head of the reflecting
pool.
The Hall of Stairs: M.C.Escher gets a boost as moving
tinted light sources create curious shadows on his classic Vaulted Staircase.
Intense color will be used, and camera angles and direction will re-enforce
the sense of confusion concerning place and orientation.
Hells Bathroom: a descent down to the sewage Styx,
it gets dark enough not to worry about what you may run into. Surrounded on
four sides of a repeating bathroom rusted, dry, in disrepair
the camera falls into a pit of black, and opens (possibly) up onto:
The Transport Station: Fast, efficient, vast, and
colorful, with walls of windows that look out onto a city of the future. Flythrough
of this city, which will borrow from a multitude of architectural sources, including:
Aztec, Belle-Geddes, Art Moderne, George Lucasian, Edwardian Skyscrapers, Futurama,
and many other influences.
The city recedes into smaller buildings, and we come to realize we are where we began, and then flying over the fields, to the narrators hamlet, everything in full color the epiphany.
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