Music and sound for animation

I looked into a few different options for the music to go with my animation, and I played around with the idea of having something more modern to juxtapose the Victorian setting and make it seem strange and other worldly. Instead I decided to go for something that was a bit ore fitting to the time and the setting of Germany, and found a piece I liked by Schumann. It is dramatic and would go well with the flow of my story, it has moments of tension and moments of calm.

Another reason for choosing a classical piece is because I think it really makes things like murder and gore seem out of place but in a good way. There is almost a contradiction, for instance in the scene above from A Clock Work Orange. It heightens the fear and tension of the scene, whilst also going against the action. I think this would be effective in my animation.

 

Sketches and storyboard

Initial character sketches and designs for the main character

More developed character design

Rough storyboard for the first section of the story when Dr. Kuhne makes his potion successfully, it will then lead on to the flash back of him collecting the body for his experiment.

Animation styles

Quay Brothers

My initial idea for the style of this animation came from ‘Street of Crocodiles’ by the Quay Brothers. It was one of the films that really got me into animation, I love the dark, obscure nature of it. I like the use of found objects and the character design that sets it in a ‘Victorian’ time, but almost a dystopian version of it, although it was written in 1934. The book itself uses ‘old-fashioned and long forgotten words as well as scientific (e.g. biological) terminology’, which is something I have employed in my story. Most of the colour comes from the use of real ‘flesh’ that creates a feeling of horror and revulsion. I think this would be an interesting element to add to my animation, in the use of the eyes and the body.

This second Quay animation employs a stop motion/paper cut out technique that I found really interesting, and has the same creepiness as a lot of the quay brothers work. I like the almost black and white quality, using muted and dark colours. I think resonates with the themes of my story.

Carlin

Another animation that has been very influential to me, ‘Carlin’ by Brent Green. It is more modern than the quay brothers works but parallels can definitely be drawn. It is similarly dark, and much more depressing. I think I want to have a more upbeat, dark humour to my animation, but have a similar stylistic tone. This animation uses a full size, human puppet and combines poetry, photography and narration. It’s use of stuffed animals is interesting and adds another layer of creepiness.

Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud is one of my favourite artists, I have included his as an influence as the raw, bold style is something I would love to be able to emulate in an animated format. I think a painterly style would be fascinating to explore, combining different elements to make something really unique. His self portraits and paintings of older men are kind of what I imagine my main character to look like.

https://www.npg.org.uk/freudsite/

Sin City

The use of black and white in this film is stunning, and creates a film noir style but distorts it to create a thrilling, unsettling film. It also employs the use of red for significant moments, just as ‘street of crocodiles’ used the red of the flesh to highlight certain points. I would like to employ a similar tactic in my animation.

Caravan palace

Again another big influence, ‘Caravan Palace’ often make unique and interesting animations. The paper cut out cross stop motion style is similar to ‘Igor’ but is much more fun and colourful. It shows how a similar technique can create very different styles. I like the fast paced nature, things happening one after the other in quick succession makes it interesting and grabs your attention. The addition of the music of course changes the feel entirely, this element of fun is something I would like to include so that it isn’t all doom and gloom.

Luminous Matter, Andrew Fernandes 2011

http://www.luminousmatter.in

I found this interesting stop motion animation that centres around a ‘steam punk’ robot. I think the dystopian setting and old fashioned machinery is a a really interesting ascetic, it isn’t quite real but is based in real objects. I think I would like to create a setting that isn’t quite real, but is relatable to the Victorian era.

 

Quotes to use in the Essay

Article of the duality of Jekyll and Hyde: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2738358/

My story addresses the duality between what is right and what is acceptable in the name of science. He has become a Hyde like person, uncaring and cruel. Hyde is described as having ‘detestable attributes’ (p. 8), which to a Victorian man would have been selfishness (they were all about charity) and obsession (mental illness taboo). My character is both of these things.

P. 43 ‘I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might, by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change. But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last overcame the suggestions of alarm.’

I think this a key point to my story, curiosity over riding concern.

 

P.9 (Dr. Lanyon speaking) ‘He began to go wrong, wrong in the mind…I have seen devilish little of the man. Such unscientific balderdash’

The fight between what we can do and what we should do.

Link to how this is still an issue today, for example cloning monkeys: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731623-600-scientists-have-cloned-monkeys-and-it-could-help-treat-cancer/

 

P. 19 ‘It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friends quarters; and he eyed the dingy windowless structure with curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness as eh crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager students and now lying gaunt and silent, the tables laden with chemical apparatus’

How I imagine the lab of my character to look like, shows how obsession can change a man. The ‘theatre’ of science, at the time it was almost a show, people were interested in the macabre, links back to the ‘theatre’ of hanging.

 

P. 14 (Jekll speaking to Utters about Lanyon) ‘unless it were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies’

Pedant is someone who is overly interested in the details, hide bound is unable to change. This shows the contradiction between tradition and change, some men were scared of it and therefore revealing themselves as ‘not normal’, and this was very important to them.

Jekyll and Hyde and most prominently Frankenstein started the ‘mad scientist’ trope, as a character to fear, who is driven by their own ambition and desire. The opposite of a good christian victorian man really. This began a new genre leading from the gothic horror and the urban gothic, science fiction.

 

Using frankenstein as a comparison, ‘ Frankenstein is set in continental Europe, specifically Switzerland and Germany, where many of Shelley’s readers had not been. Further, the incorporation of the chase scenes through the Arctic regions takes us even further from England into regions unexplored by most readers.’

Having my setting in Germany makes it more creepy, and unknown to a British victorian reader.

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/frankenstein/critical-essays/frankenstein-as-a-gothic-novel

 

Website about optography: https://www.college-optometrists.org/the-college/museum/online-exhibitions/virtual-eye-and-vision-gallery/optography-and-optograms.html

 

 

Third draft of short story

As luck would have it a thick fog lay over the streets of Germany that evening, which lessened my worries of arousing suspicion.

I carefully prepared a vial of my revolutionary potion, using only the purest of powders. Once this serum was applied to the eyes of the deceased, an image would emerge of their last living experience. Mr. Reif’s head lay so motionless, that one could assume he was sleeping, his body lying bruised and still on my counter top.

Earlier that day, before the fog has really started to penetrate the streets, I hailed a coach to the sleepy town of Bruchsal. As I arrived a crowd was already beginning to form, children jostling for their place at the front. I stayed towards the back, but remained vigilant, keeping my line of sight clear above the heads of the burgeoning crowd. Eventually movement began to occur off the side of the central stage, and a quiet fell over the audience. The show was about to begin.

A man, by the name of Ernard Rief, was lead solemnly by two guards up the steps towards the swinging rope of the noose, his head covered by a hessian sack. It muffled the sounds of blood curdling cries, that echoed with a somber futility; only to be met with cheers of enjoyment. After the man lay limp and this charade was over, I swiftly exchanged hands with the Hangman, and procured the supplies that I needed. I returned to my laboratory with haste.

An incision just below the left eye socket and a drain of the Supraorbital artery would allow for easy extraction of the materials that I required. Although I am sure of my theory, the demon of doubt still plagued my mind. I sat a while longer, before I made the first cut. I now work quickly and with vigor, and with a short sharp tug the optic was released from its socket and lay blood soaked in my hand. The body made a sudden jolt, of which I can only assume was an extreme cadaveric spasm, and then shortly subsided, somehow paler than before.

I administered a drop of the ointment to the eye, and stared into the shining bulbous sphere. To my adulation an image began to form, blurred at first but grew ever more clear as the seconds past. That was when my heart stopped for a moment, and horror washed over my body. In the eye I saw a version of myself, but not as I was in the present, as I had been just moments before. I saw in my hands a scalpel not yet bloodied, slowly inching forwards, and with a force that made me jump, the image went black.

It’s such a shame that a body paralyzed looks so much like a dead one.

I have another execution booked for next week, this time a guillotine, maybe I will have more luck then.

Changes I have made

This version is reasonably similar in tone to my previous version, but I used the feed back given to adjust the structure. I used a line from the middle of the story at the beginning, as this is where the story really starts to happen. I think this adds more interest and creates for more tension. I did have to move some of the text from the beginning so that they story was clear, and I think I have achieved that. I actually ended up getting rid of a line that I really loved, but I think the story as a whole now works much better.

Rough Essay Plan

Essay Plan

Introduction- Jekyll and Hyde in general, Victorian era in general (200 words)

Paragraph 1- Optography, its history, how I thought it related to the story, victorian fascination with science, why it interested me (300 words)

Paragraph 2- Victorian hanging and execution, mention how Hyde was scared to be hanged, differences in outdoor hanging and in the prison (200 words)

Paragraph 3- Story technique, how my story has developed, from initial idea to finished, what I would do differently and what was my aim (200 words)

Paragraph 4- How would I turn It into an animation, influences and styles, reason for this choice, sketches, possible story board. (500 words)

Paragraph 5- Conclusion, how I have found the process, summary of what I have found out doing this project (100 words)

Hanging and the death penalty in Victorian England

http://vcp.e2bn.org/justice/page11359-types-of-punishment-hanging.html

http://www.religioustolerance.org/executh.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Germany#cite_note-11

Hanging was used as a punishment during victorian times as a death penalty for serious crimes, although by todays standards what constitutes a serious crime would be very differnt. 60% of crimes came with a hanging sentence, but by the end of the 19th century these were greatly reduced. They were often carried out for the public to see, but this banned in 1868 and was the start of a ban on execution in England.

Germany on the other hand (where my story was set) was a few years behind the UK on this front, so still carried out hangings way into the mid 20th Century. There for I think the view on it in 1880’s Germany would have been similar to that of 1850’s Britain.

The British Library says about executions in Victorian times:

“Executions were still public. Thomas Cook ran excursion trains to promising executions. 30,000 people watched the hanging of a notorious pair of murderers, in 1849, including Charles Dickens, who watched from the roof of a house overlooking the gallows. He then famously sent a letter to the Times, condemning public executions and their use as popular entertainment. It took another 20 years before hangings would be conducted within prison walls.”

https://www.bl.uk/victorian-britain/articles/victorian-prisons-and-punishments#

This article indicates the mistakes that happen with Hanging, it wasn’t uncommon for people to survive and die shortly after.

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/The-Art-of-Hanging/

Second draft of story

Journal of Wilhelm Kuhne

Date of entry 27^th November 1880

I stared at my desk and it stared back. I had to work quickly and efficiently otherwise the flesh would start to rot. I really couldn’t have the neighbours complaining again.

When I woke this morning I knew that today would be a day of great scientific discovery, a day that would mark Optography as the finding of the century. I hailed a coach to the sleepy town of Bruchsal, in wait of the day’s events. As I arrived a crowd was already beginning to form, children jostling for their place at the front. I stayed towards the back, but remained vigilant, keeping my line of sight clear above the heads of the burgeoning crowd. Eventually movement began to occur off the side of the central stage, and a quiet fell over the audience. The show was about to begin.

A man, by the name of Ernard Rief, was lead solemnly by two guards up the steps towards the swinging rope of the noose, his head covered by a hessian sack. It muffled the sounds of blood curdling cries, that echoed with a somber futility; only to be met with cheers of enjoyment. I returned later that day once I had obtained the materials I needed, and as luck would have it a thick fog lay over the streets of Germany that evening which lessened my worries of arousing suspicion.

I carefully prepared a vial of my revolutionary potion, that would allow the living to observe the memories of the dead. Once this serum was applied to the eyes of the deceased, an image would emerge of their last living experience. Mr. Reif’s head lay so motionless, that one could assume he was sleeping, his body lying bruised and still on my counter top.

An incision just below the left eye socket and a drain of the Supraorbital artery would allow for easy extraction of the materials that I required. Although I am sure of my theory, the demon of doubt still plagued my mind. I sat a while longer, before I made the first cut. I now work quickly and with vigor, and with a short sharp tug the optic is released from its socket and lies blood soaked in my hand. The body made a sudden jolt, of which I can only assume is an extreme cadaveric spasm, and then shortly subsides, somehow paler than before.

I administer a drop of the ointment to the eye, and stare into the shining bulbous sphere. To my adulation an image began to form, blurred at first but growing ever more clear as the seconds past. That was when my heart stopped for a moment, and horror washed over my body. In the eye I saw a version of myself, but not as I was in the present, as I had been just moments before. I saw in my hands a scalpel not yet bloodied, slowly inching forwards, and with a force that made me jump, the image went black.

It’s such a shame that a body paralyzed looks so much like a dead one.

I have another execution booked for next week, this time a guillotine, maybe I will have more luck then.

 

Changes I have made based on feedback:

In this version of the story I have kept the same character and scenario but hopefully made it clearer what is happening, and I spent less time focusing on the flash back and looked more into the present. I also changed the story to make it a bit more interesting (although not really historically accurate), so I changed it from a guillotine to a handgun exception, in order to change the ending so that the man is actually alive when the scientist performs his experiment on him. I tired to keep the same sense of voice and add a bit more subtlety to what he is saying. I think having it as a journal entry relates more to the time period and makes it clearer the time setting. I tried to include some references from Jekyll and Hyde to keep it relevant, such as the ‘mad scientist’ trope and the dingy, foggy Victorian London (although my story is set in Germany).

 

First Version of short story

 

I stared at my desk and it stared back. The desk itself was once mahogany, a gift from my mother, but has since become stained with chemicals and enzymes, not to mention other less desirable substances. The papers and reports that had been left to accumulate were now pushed aside, as I had to work quickly and efficiently otherwise the flesh would start to rot. I really couldn’t have the neighbours complaining again.

 

I woke up this morning as usual, tired and fitful from a restless night’s sleep, but with a sense of great importance weighing on my shoulders. I knew that what I would do today would change mankind for the better, I would give a voice to those who no longer had one. With a simple cup of coffee lining my stomach, I hailed a coach to the sleepy town of Bruchsal, in wait of the day’s events. As I arrived a crowd was already beginning to form, children jostling for their place at the front. I stayed towards the back, but remained vigilant, keeping my line of sight clear above the heads of the burgeoning crowd. After around a half hour of anticipation, movement began to occur off the side of the central stage, and a quiet fell over the audience. The show was about to begin.

 

A man, by the name of Ernard Rief, was lead solemnly by two guards up the steps towards the glistening blade of the guillotine, his head covered by a hessian sack. My views on this form of punishment are mixed, as on one hand it is greatly beneficial to my work, but on the other I feel that in this modern year of 1880 we should be passed such barbarianism. It was as I was pondering this that I caught a glimpse of the eyes that would soon haunt me so.

 

In a final burst of life, the man attempted to shake free his captors. Blood curdling cries of pity soared over the spectators, only to be met with cheers of enjoyment and boos of condemnation. In this tussle the sack that covered his shame began to loosen and fell to the ground. In this moment of sight his dark, hollow eyes stared into mine from across the crowd, with an intensity that made it impossible to look away. I felt the years of scientific work and sacrifice could all unravel if he had only held on a moment later. If he had only revealed to me in that moment his true humanity, I might not be staring at those dark eyes now lifeless and limp on my once mahogany desk.

Optography

I heard about this on an episode of QI and thought it would be an interesting subject to look into.

‘Optography is the process of viewing or retrieving an optogram, an image on the retina of the eye. A belief that the eye “recorded” the last image seen before death was widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was a frequent plot device in fiction of the time, to the extent that police photographed the victims’ eyes in several real-life murder investigations, in case the theory was true.’

This theory that the last image could be seen in the eye of a dead person was believed by most as fact during the victorian era, even being used by the police. It uses a photo sensitive dye to ‘reveal’ an image in the retina of a person who is recently deceased. I think it interesting to note that this theory was being circulated at the time Jekyll and Hyde was being written, so the ideology behind it would have been similar to that of Robert Louis Stevenson. The scientist who discovered it was Wilhelm Kühne, and he first used it on rabbits to some success. He sat the rabbits in front of a window, then after killing them, using a chemical called rhodopsin and created an image from the eye. Amazingly an image of a window appeared, showing that there is perhaps some scientific basis for the theory.

After this he wanted to test on humans, and in 1880 acquired the eyes of a recently deceased man who was killed by guillotine. There is speculation as to whether this worked, as there are no physical records of it, only a small sketch made by Kuhne himself. Though it does not appear to match anything that the man may have been looking at, and it is further debunked as the man himself would have been blindfolded at the time of the death. Even after this, Optography was used all the way up until 1924, when a murderer was sentenced to death based on the images of his victims retina.

I think this a really interesting story, and I would like to elaborate on it somehow for my creative writing. From this I started to look at it’s uses in literature, it’s first use being in a short story by Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam in 1867 called ‘Claire Lenoir. It is used in a metaphorical sense rather than a scientific one, but it interesting that this was just 9 years previous to ‘Jekyll and Hyde’. I did find an english translation of this story online, but it is very difficult to read, not in it’s language but in the way it is written. It somewhat reflects the first chapter of ‘Jekyll and Hyde’, with a long description of the character and an exposition, but rather than a chapter it seems to be the first half of the book. This may be down to reading as a modern reader, rather than a Victorian.

“They looked. Murderer’s ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered, tenantless, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully condemned. Murder. The murderer’s image in the eye of the murdered. They love reading about it.”

—James Joyce, Ulysses

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Villiers_de_l%27Isle-Adam

http://jv.gilead.org.il/evans/optogram.html

https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc663548/m2/1/high_res_d/1002776001-Lewis.pdf

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bPQgRK7D3i0C&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157&dq=claire+lenoir+short+story+analysis&source=bl&ots=VZJTlfs3u9&sig=wb6brUrbs4dSWS-uIPeVGt-fl_Y&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicuLvti4_YAhXCJcAKHVB1Dq4Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=claire%20lenoir%20short%20story%20analysis&f=false