Another week of quarantine means another week of making! I’ve made a scale test of the wall based sculpture of an empty plinth and the cast went well once I managed to get the silicone quantity right. I’ve cut out the footprint of Aphrodite of Knidos in thick paper to mask off those areas and ordered some patina-coloured paint that I plan to mix with water and spray over the model in order to give it that aged look. If it turns out to be too difficult we’ll have to reconsider the idea but we can hope!
I’ve also made another matte painting which is ready to be painted. This one is Clair Noto's film The Tourist. Clair Noto wrote the screenplay and it’s like a darker, sex-charged Men in Black, in a secret alien world in Manhattan, including a secret alien club call the Corridor, where various aliens from all over the universe meet, have sex, and commiserate about being stuck on Earth. We decided to run with the corridor idea and made a new mock-up for a matte painting using a sci-fi style corridor. I feel like we need to do a slightly lighter one – the past two have been quite dark and sci-fi-y so I’m going to try and look more at scenes in greener environments.
The reprint of the sprue model went really well and the work is finally complete! It’s been a year in the making so it’s great to see it done – also now that all the research and development out of the way the work isn’t too complex or expensive to produce. It’s definitely one of out more visually appealing pieces and will be making the rounds in terms of gifts to parents for birthdays and Christmas.
Earlier in the week we thought we’d struck gold when trying to think of new examples of the tabletop tactic works. We were struggling to find examples of the scenes we wanted and I thought about all the times when characters in a film plan a heist or explain a plan with objects on a table. A good example is in Bend it like Beckham when the offside rule is explained using mustard and dressing. Quickly we amassed many examples of when the happens in films and TV; The Spanish Apartment (neurosurgeon explains brain using food), Wagons East (wagon master uses kitchen utensils to map of his course), Ni pour, ni contre (bien au contraire) (robbery planned in a restaurant), Max Manus (raid on a harbour planned with cigarette packets), Yes, Minister (political adviser explains downing street’s strategic worth with teacup and ashtray), it even happens in The Simpsons where the kids plan a strategy with the gun shop owner to defeat the bullies with water balloons, has a tabletop map with salt shakers and stones used to represent each faction. However, after thinking about it for some time we realised that we had moved away from the original idea that was all about movements that appear unintentional or natural in a film but are in fact highly planned and meticulous. This is not that and perhaps the research can be used in another piece but for this work it’s back to the drawing board.
Finally, we’ve started doing some of the outlines of the fictional weapons to get cut out. Hopefully we can see these be made soon enough! Below are the The Noisy Cricket from Men in Black, Harry's Elder wand from Harry Potter, and the Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda.
