- Children's Story is a track on the Tom Waits album Orphans (2006) and is possibly the worst bedtime story ever!
I have huge affection for this track as it satisfies my appetite for extremely dark humour and appeals to my developed sense of mischief. It also has a distinct sound and musical accompaniment that evokes an unsettling and intoxicating atmosphere of another place and time. Besides this, there are numerous reasons for wanting to produce an animation to accompany it - not least that it is a narrative, a 'story'. Which is central to, and the most important element (I believe) of any moving image work. Children's Story even begins with the line "Once upon a time...".
- As my planned full animation of Tom Waits' Children's Story will be a major undertaking (full 3D character animation), I've decided to produce an 'intro' sequence to the piece that will function as an intro sequence in cinema - to introduce thematic elements of the wider narrative, establish a visual language that will continue through to the character animation and locate the piece in time and place.
Intro sequences are most associated with avant garde cinema, are usually quite abstract, with a focus on establishing mood rather than narrative grounding. Or they can be deliberately quite unsettling and sharply contradict the tone, pace and atmosphere of the film that follows. One such example is Ingmar Bergman's Persona - here is the montage that precedes the title sequence:
The film that follows has a fairly straightforward narrative about a young nurse, Sister Alma (Bibi Andersson), who is charged with taking care of a patient, the stage actress Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann), who has stopped talking to anyone after performing in the play, Electra. Therefore, for the majority of the film there is no dialogue - only minimal monologues from Sister Alma.
Incidentally, the film concludes with another montage, not as frenetic or visually rich as the intro - all that remains is the recurring image of film running through a projector - all of the energy and passion has been drained from the scene, leaving calm and sterility.
An interseting side note is that during this period of cinematic history, filmmakers where experimenting with the notion of detachment in audiences - in this case by placing the projector on screen reminding them that they were watching a film.
- Upon initial contextual research into Children's Story I discovered that the story itself was written by the German playwright Georg Büchner and appears in his play Woyzeck. Further research reveals that the story of this play is extremely complicated and consequently a rich source potential of contextual referencing...
Turns out that Büchner died before completing the manuscript and the fragments were edited together after his death, so it is an enduring mystery as to how the play might have been different. Also, Büchner's Woyzeck is in part based on the factual account of a murder committed by Johann Christian Woyzeck in 1824.
SYNOPSIS - Franz Woyzeck, a lowly soldier stationed in a provincial German town, is the father of an illegitimate child by his mistress Marie. Woyzeck earns extra money for his family by performing menial jobs for the Captain and agreeing to take part in medical experiments conducted by the Doctor. As one of these experiments, the Doctor tells Woyzeck he must eat nothing but peas. It is obvious that Woyzeck's mental health is breaking down and he begins to experience a series of apocalyptic visions. Meanwhile, Marie grows tired of Woyzeck and turns her attentions to a handsome drum major, who in an ambiguous scene taking place in Marie's bedroom, arguably rapes her.
With his jealous suspicions growing, Woyzeck confronts the drum major, who beats him up and humiliates him. Finally, Woyzeck stabs Marie to death by a pond.
Woyzeck is considered as morally lacking by other characters of higher status, such as the Captain, particularly in the scene in which Woyzeck shaves the Captain. The Captain links wealth and status with morality suggesting Woyzeck cannot have morals as he is poor. It is the exploitation of the character Woyzeck by the Doctor and the Captain which ultimately pushes him over the edge.
The passage used in Tom Waits' Children's Story is academically referred to as 'Grandmother's fable' and appears towards the end of the play as a warning to Marie of her impending demise. I think that the poor child refered to in the fable is Woyzeck himself who is destined to an eternity of purgatory locked inside his deterioratimng mental state.
Woyzeck has also been adapted into a film by German filmmaker Werner Herzog with the title character played by long time collaborator Klaus Kinski.
Interestingly, Herzog also reinterprets the 'Grandmother's fable' by retaining the passage verbatim, but it is delivered by Marie herself, when being persued by the enraged Woyzeck she gives in to the pleadings of local children to "tell them a story".
- In 2000, Tom Waits wrote music and lyrics for a stage production of Woyzeck. It was performed at the Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen before transferring to Paris for a short run. http://www.tomwaitslibrary.com/woyzeck-introduction.html
- Firstly, I need to decide where/when to locate this piece - and I've settled on Victorian London, for many reasons:
1) this is the era in which the play is set and Büchner lived - I like the contextual synthesis of thematically referencing the original text, after Tom Waits' reinterpretation. Also, I think that the tragic atmosphere of the play can only support the conceipt behind the Tom Waits' punchline. 2) the issue of chronology in storytelling: when was "Once upon a time..."? 3) The most enduring impression of both reading and watching Woyzeck is the severity of psychological abuse inflicted upon by the so called superior classes - the Captain and Doctor. Throughout, Woyzeck is provoked, tested, examined and humiliated by the Doctor - he is treated like a living specimen. Victorian London is synonymous with rapid progress, the world was shrinking, the Empire expanding, curiosities began flooding into the city to be examined - all of which reminded me of a couple of my favourite London museums; Sir John Soanes Museum and the Grant Museum of Zoology - both of which house the extraordinary collections of their former proprietors. I have therefore decided to locate the intro sequence for my animation in the parlour room of a Victorian collector. Packed with exotic specimens in bell jars, artifacts from around the world, curiosities...
The Grant Museum of Zoology
Note book pages from visit - no photography allowed
Sir John Soanes Museum - As an extension of this, I plan to locate part of the full animation narrative in the back streets of an apocalyptic Victorian London - around the sideshow culture that was so prominent a form of entertainment - The Elephant Man territory. So I've already been researching the bold graphic style used in the day. I've even put together a poster that will feature: advertising a performance by Tom Waits!
I will loosely base the parlour room design and layout on features of the Soanes Museum. But in order to get organised before I commence modelling, I need to plan the dimensions, layout and arrangement of furniture.
This is a nice floor plan illustration I came across of Sherlock Holmes house at 221b Baker Street I plan that the parlour will be in two halves, with the front half more sitting room and the rear a more formal space. As in John Soanes house, the rear space will have a dome skylight.
- As this piece is located in the Victorian era - I will be using period images as reference - in particular, early photography and the very first films. - I really like the quality of these prints, especially the bleached, blurred vignette that is so synonymous with the period. - - - - - Motion references will be very early cinema - not only the aesthetic that happened as a consequence of the equipment, but also the style of montage storytelling pre-sound. A favourite example is that of the abstract sequences of the surrealist film Un Chien Andalou by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali
Another contextual reference (though more contemporary) is the work of the Brothers Quay, in particular the largely live-action Institute Benjementa, which adopts a similar abstract montage structure and also a similar dream-like quality
- The intro sequnce will comprise 2 parts, distinguished by seperate soundtracks
PART 1 | LIFE CYCLE Will show images of mourning (two coffins side-by-side, one of which belongs to "Frau Woost" - the real life murder victim of Johann Christian Woyzeck) accompanied by a soothing, music-box lullaby (echoing the overall conceit of being alone surrounded by death - before we know it's just a cruel story)
PART 2 | RHYTHM OF LIFE In part a reference to the era of the mechanism, in part reference to Tom Waits' rhythm driven music, a reference to the beating heart of humanity and also a device to derive tension and increase expectation - a rhythmic montage of mechanisms in the parlour room: Metronome, gramophone, grandfather clock, turning cogs in big close up, that ends with the needle dropping on the gramophone record, which begins to play Tom Waits' Children's Story.
Next, the camera will move amongst the many curious specimins in the display cabinets until the line "...there was a poor child", where the camera rests on the perfectly preserved upright corpse of a little boy in a bell jar.
- A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage. At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is "seamless" and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible to film. - The government warehouse in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was painted on glass by Michael Pangrazio and combined with live-action footage of a government worker, pushing his cargo up the center aisle. - I know that digital matte painting is used in the production of 3D animation but at this stage I'm not sure to what extent and in what capacity - how much is accurately modeled and textured and how much is matte painted - ? I guess it depends on how much lateral movement there will be and proximity to the camera.
I decided to jump in and do a few visual tests. I knew that I wanted to use locations where the architecture that would have been around in Victorian times is still in place and just remove all traces of time since - phone boxes, bus stops, street signs, etc. First I took some quick photos of various buildings around London; below is Burlington Arcade on Piccadilly and Admiralty Arch on The Mall - and 'painted' directly onto them in Photoshop. - Original - Matte painting - Original - Matte painting - A notable expert in this field is David Luong. - The process of introducing these images into 3D scenes is called camera mapping and involves 'projecting' the image onto basic geometric shapes that a camera can navigate, generating the illusion of 3D space. Grabbing a couple of images from iPhoto, I tested the technique.
It works fine on simple, flat planes but falls down when there is significant detail in the scene, like the hand rails. The test below in a tunnel is more successful because there are no extruding objects.
In terms of where to use this technique in the production process, I think it would be on flat planes in the middle distance - like buildings, or in a production situation when there is little or no camera movement. An extremely successful example of this is Morgenrot by Jeff Desom, which uses archive photographs of New York streets and buildings for mapping and composites 3D elements and adds shadow casting lights.
- In conclusion, it seems that because I want total freedom of movement around my Victorian collectors parlour room, I will need to model each object in the room - walls, floor, lights, fireplace, everything! Who said this was going to be easy...
I've planned that the intro sequence concludes with a gramophone needle dropping on to a record with Woyzeck on the label. This is my process: - Start with a scan of an old 7" single Remove the existing label Replace with scanned old and stained piece of paper Add another stained paper scan - tea on kitchen paper Drop in title and 'composer' in period style font - Cleaver's Juvenia Heavy Drop in cropped illustration by John Tenniel from the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Paint in some colour on a new layer Create a fancy pattern in Illustrator and 'place' smart object into Photoshop Apply Bevel layer style to decorative pattern Paint in some dirt and add some detail text around edge Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (-25 saturation) in front of all layers and paint in some dirty thumb marks and brush erase signs of wear Add hand written names of Children's Story writers Waits and Brennan and album name Fade the ink a bit at random
