Thursday 27 September 2012

Concept 1: Cattle slaughter house

This is my influence map for my first concept, the passage I chose describes my character stumbling upon a cattle slaughter house. And below is the passage that I am basing my first concept piece on. 


"Eventually they drove their mobile market into a fenced-off area like a sheep-pen and from there directly into a high-vaulted building. Budai forged ahead of the others here, partly out of curiosity, partly carried along by his own momentum, but once inside noticed that while most of the cattle had already ambled a long way into the great hall he could no longer see the head of the herd which must have been accommodated in spaces further off. Men and cattle completely filled the hall, beside the drovers there were men in canvas overalls too, bustling about while the mooing and bellowing noise grew ever more baleful, each sound echoing off the bare walls, the air thick with warm, living-sickly smells. this must, no doubt, be the slaughterhouse.
The whole noisy melee was goaded into one vast hall lit by a great skyline. The floor here was running with slippery scarlet blood. The animals must have scented the danger because the smell of blood, if nothing else, made them hault and resist though there was no way back, no where to run, because ever more cattle were being driven in behind them. when it came to their turn each was suddenly surrounded by a group of strapping men, one holding it's horns, another tying it down with a rope, until it was forced to stand astraddle. Then, whoever had the cleaver brought it down on the nape of it's neck. It's poor legs gave way and collapsed. At the moment of collapse another man delivered a blow to it's brow, cutting it open. But the beast must have lived a good while yet for it fell sideways and carried on kicking on the stones, throwing it's head back now and then, even when they buried a knife in it's throat and drained it's life blood, at which point the sad martyred look on it's face very gradually glazed over."

7 comments:

  1. Fascinating... lots of images of cows on here, but from a spatial point of view it's the 'high-vaulted building' and 'great hall' that spikes the interest here; actually, there's not a huge amount of info re. the environment itself - is this 'enough' of a space? Your thoughts?

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  2. I think so, the high vaulted hall with the blood splattered floor and fenced off area, with all the crowding of the cows and people. Doesn't all the people and cattle in the environment count towards being part of the environment?

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  3. But I'm not sure now ha ha ha

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  4. The advice around this project is often to 'discount' people and populations - that your essentially dealing with an 'empty' set in the first instance. When people are used, it's often to convey scale. This isn't, however, a hard and fast rule, but rather an issue of emphasis. Some expressive, communicative thumbnails may clinch the deal (and perhaps an influence map dealing less with moo-cows and more with architectural identity?) :)

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  5. ok I see so in the project the focus should be on the actual environment and if there are people or animals in it then great but the passage shouldn't be focused on them, but the structures around them?

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  6. yes indeedy - character etc. is addressed in other units and in other projects - for now, you're focusing on spaces, environments, things and the mise-en-scene - that's why I'm wondering - out of all the many, many descriptions in Metropole - if this one has enough rocket-fuel for a suitably filmic space - the answer might yet be yes!

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  7. Well I was kinda going to focus on the characters rather than the building they are in so it's probably not the best passage to chose for the brief requirments. but the passage before it describes the environment he is in before he enters the building I think that one would be better.

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