Postmodernism part 9: Psycho 1998 Remake

The next film we watched for Postmodernism is the 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho staring Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates.



The story is about a murder mystery of Marion Craine, who embezzled the company she was working for and was on the run. The police, a detective and even her sister and Marion's lover is looking for her with the leads pointing towards the Bates Motel as her last known location.

This film is considered postmodern for being a shot by shot remake of the 1960's classic. It had some changes here and there to show times has changed but the majority shots are the same from opening credits to the end. A lot of the public did not like this film because it is a copy of the old film with not many new ideas of its own. However there are many ways to interpret this film, one can see this as tribute to the old film for being true to it's source or a coloured version of the old film. As for me I see it as a true remake for being unoriginal and shouldn't be shunned for that but in fact it should be praised for being a proper remake.

Character Design part 16: Mordecai's(Villain) Equipments part 1

For the past week I was designing my villain Mordecai's equipments. The first image is his eye patch, this was pretty fun because I started with a generic eye patch and develop it further by adding tubes, wires, riverts and screws. The main body of the eye patch is meant to be made out of leather. The final design of my villain's eye patch can be seen at the bottom left corner.



The second image has an example of what my villain looks like with his patch on as well some designs for his helmet of his armour. I wanted to give Mordecai a scary appearance for his armour so when he is in battle he can scare his enemies as well intimidate them. I used insects as a reference for his armour to give Mordecai the extra fear I was going for.


The last image shows Mordecai's final helmet design, some how it resembles the Shredder's helmet from the turtles. I chose this design as his final design for his helmet because to me it carries the bug like feel I needed. I purposely made the left side of his face different because Mordecai's eye patch is big and takes a lot of room on his face so I thought the unevenness on his helmet works well for him.


If Justin is reading this or anyone else please please leave some feedback on Mordecai's final Eye Patch design and Helmet design.

Character Design part 15: Felix(Hero) Finished Design

Here are my final designs for my Hero Felix.
The first image shows how he is constructed, it starts with the guide bones first starting with the circle for the the head then placing the guides and markers for the arms, elbow, legs and knee and finally adding the mass for the amount of thickness for Felix's body. For his shirt there should be six buttons two at the top should be unbutton and the stitching on the right leg of the trouser should be halfway below the knee with four stitching marks.


The second image shows how Felix's head is constructed, starting with a circle then adding the jaw. Then add some guide lines for the face, be sure to polace one guide line near the top of the head since which should then resemble a cross, this will be Felix's third eye. The ear should be place near the eyeline and the nose line. He should have three lines on his head the first line should stop atleast halfway of Felix's right ear while the last two should be short and placed on the his left side. Once the set up is done fill eveything in, the two eye's should be ovals that are slanted the nose should sit near the middle of the two eye's, the third eye can be done by following the cross but don't make it too big or there won't be any room for his eyebrows. His hair should all follow the hair guide lines exept the hair at the bottom of Felix's head, from starting near the head make a zig zag line going downwards ending at the chin, there should be three zig zags. Finally just add some details to him, lines to show his hair, a line for his ear and add some eyebrows, he should have only two of them the third eye dosn't have any.
I have also made some of his facil features to show the type of character he is, I think the represent him quite well.


I have designed his alternate outfit, He should wear this if he is in a hot place or if he is indoors.


Here is Felix main outfit, he wears this most of the time when he is going on his journey with his sidekick, Like mentioned in a past post he lives in the slums so his clothes are quite tattered and I know he can see the future but that does not mean his clothes will be alright.


Please leave feedback.

Character Design part 14

Here are my old designs of my Hero and Villain characters. The reason they are old is because they are just rough drafts of my characters, I even did the characters rough drawing construction guides as well.


I have shown them to Colin and he likes them and he also gave me some tips and incite to make my characters look better. As a bonus he gave me his autograph and drew two characters that my sister likes from one of he favorite films Watership Down, Big Wig and Hazel, if only I remembered that my sister also likes Jessica Rabit I would of asked Colin to make a quick sketch of her.


Finally I have also made the height differences of all three of my characters. To help me with this I made a model so I can roughly figure out where should the head start and the feet ends. The height range goes as followed, the Sidekick is the smallest, the Hero in the middle and the Villain the tallest.

Character Design part 13: Jetpack Jones & Grok

Last week in Character design we did something different, we had to get into a group and design some characters for a toy series called Jetpack Jones. What I last remembered I think we had to make the Hero, Sidekick, Love Interest, Spy, Villain and Villain Henchman.
I designed the Henchman named Grok, a dinosaur alien who was experimented by the Villain. I based his design around a raptor because his height is roughly around a outhouse and I added a big mechanical arm, a laser gun for his tail and a headphone attached to his head to show he had been experimented on. For his costume I was going for a futuristic warrior look to show he means business.



I also designed the Hero Jetpack Jones, he is a galactic law enforcer who was wrongly accuse for, I think, being a spy or a traitor so he is on a quest to clear his name.
For his appearance I was going for a bird motif mix with a rocket because of the name jet pack. I have also gave him a big laser gun so he can fire at his enemies. When I shown his design to Justin he said that he likes the design but I needed to make his jet pack more appealing and need to make his gun look more futuristic.


I have even designed his logo which is a bird flying downward, may not look much on it's own but when seeing it on Jones' chest it looks just right.

Postmodernism part 8: Dancer in the Dark

The next film we watched for Postmodernism is 'Dancer in the Dark' staring Bjork as the main character Selma Jezkova.



The plot of the film is about Selma, a struggling mother who is going blind, getting money for her son's operation but it wasn't easy because she had to go through a lot of obstacles, one of which is to keep her job while hiding her condition form her boss, attending her play recitals and saving up the money.
The reason this film is considered Postmodern is because it is a musical within a musical, focusing on the main character's fixation on musicals that it always makes her happy and she wants to be in one herself. However unlike other musicals this film ends in a sad ending instead of the typical happy ending.
What I Believe also makes this film Postmodern is how it feels like a play, the way it transitions from one place to another and how the actors act. What else gave this movie theater feel is how the ending ends, when the curtain closes on the Selma with the camera panning upwards, having the actors stop moving with no sound playing, helping us suck in the atmosphere that this moment is meant to be intense.
I like this film because it has us feeling sorry for the main character Selma that a lot of bad things happens to her but she is an innocent character that it seems no good rewards come to her, but it does when she got the money for her son's operation. Thats why I like this movie because even though it ends in a sad note you can still feel a bit happy for her knowing that she was able to help her son.

(On a personal note, the other reason I like this film is that how tough having blindness is and I could relate because someone dear to me is going through that soon which is my sister. To get an idea of the level of blindness she has, get a straw from the nearest shop and look through it, thats whats going to happen to her soon until she sees nothing but darkness. No need to worry because she is strong and is also looking for solutions to cure it or at least finding new ways to see thing.)

Narrative Lecutre part 7: Them! (1954)

The next film we watched for our Narrative lecture is 'Them!'



The plot of the film is about a police officer investigating the disappearance of the public which turns out to be mutated ants who are spreading across the globe, this involve the military and its up to them to prevent the ant from spreading even more.
This film is considered as one of the first atomic aged movies as well as one of the quintessential monster movies. It was also meant for 3D but the producers stopped when they broke the camera, so there are scenes that are meant to poke at you.
This may also be considered as a big budget movie because the giant ants are animatronic and there are a lot of them.
This movie might be playing on the public's fear on the uses of nuclear power that it might mutate a creature and turns them into a monster, showing that using such energy is dangerous that there must be alternate and safer ways to get energy.
Even though the movie was long it was quite enjoyable seeing the type of special effects used in the 1950's, even now I believe the effects are pretty good because at that time they had to create their own monsters and make them look realistic.