A Steampunk Tempest for Christmas

So I just finished my fifth semester a few days back. Before leaving for home, I had one last final, a presentation for my Scene Design class. We each had to present our full color model or two color renderings for our production of The Tempest. I of course did a full color model, enjoying crafting much more drawing. In the presentations we also had to go over our concept for each design. Me, being slightly out there compared to the rest of the class, chose to create a Steampunk version of The Tempest. Please understand thatthe pictures of myproject in this post are of a model. Nothing to fancy here, so please don't judge too harshly.

Now for those who may not know what Steampunk is.... well... its something you can't describe too easily. It's better to glean the aesthetic from pictures and such. Below is an... okay video describing Steampunk.

So... Yeah. I want to reiterate that this is not exactly the best source. Honestly, I would just do a search of Steampunk and see what pictures come up. Or this is another pretty good source, surprisingly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk

Basically the idea of Steampunk is to take the Victorian age, turn

of the century, and put a

twist on it. Take what appeals to your eye and incorporate it in with today's technology and such. What if steam power brought about th

e information age? How could you make a steam powered motorcycle? Airship? You get the point.

Usually there is a bit of the occult or what have you thrown in for good measure. But the core of Steampunk is the gears and steam and pulleys within the machines, not the shiny exterior.

Anyhoo... I love love love the aesthetic. So while reading The Tempest for research on my set,

I started thinking of abstract ways of doing the island or magic and what not. For those not familiar with The Tempest, this is a passable excuse for a substitute. Please read it. It's truly not that difficult to understand what's going on. And it's short. But if you really don't want to read a piece of good literature...

Anyhoo.... Take two.... I found myself imagining, as I read the play, this great machine floating in the middle of the Mediterranean. This machine was state of the art at one point, but, for some undisclosed reason, it was utterly and suddenly abandoned. It lay in a dormant state for years, until the usurped duke of Milan, Prospero, was marooned there. Prospero's wizardry in my interpretation of the show becomes his ability to control the machine of the island. During the many years of solitude, the island-machine was overtaken by nature. Nature and the machine have become twisted and entwined within each other. Thatwas akey idea I wanted to focus on, this underlying tension, war waging between machine and nature. What is truly natural on the island? Machines were built without the presence of nature, yet nature was always their before the machines were ever build. Who actually has claim to the island? This is epitomized in the structure that Prospero lives in, shown to the left. I wanted to try to portray the pipes and tubes of the machine fighting against nature, growing out of the ground haphazardly. This structure would emit bursts and puffs of steam every so often. Moss is growing on most surfaces on the island, flat areas of the machine are being buried underneath a fine layer of dirt. Both nature and machine are not dormant on the island.

Around the heart of the stage I thought it would be cool to have wires and cables emanating radially like veins into the island. These would glow blue as Prospero casts his entrapping circle. I also wanted to have cutouts in the stage for the audience to see the gears beneath

everything. Plexiglass would lay over the holes as to not cause any accidents. The gears would twist every time magic occurred. I would also love for there to be lights beneath the gears that would shine during the magic as well.

At the very beginning of the show, I envision Prospero coming out to center stage, silent with a single spot light on the heart of the stage. As Prospero nears the heart he looks out into the audience and then back at the heart, inserting his staff into the stage's heart as if a key to wind a clock. And he does such an action. Winding the Stage-gear, the gears underneath are slowly illuminated and creak to life. The veins glows a eerie blue. He takes his key-staff out and while

the lights dim, the audience continues to hear the gears turning and the "clock" ticking. The scene swiftly flows into the shipwreck scene. At the very very end there is an epilogue in which Prospero puts down his staff and renounces his magical ways. I envision Prospero undoing his original magic by unwinding the Stage-gear and putting down his key-staff, retiring his mechanical ways. This coupled with the beginning scene set up the convention that: 1 Prospero while somewhat omnipotent, is limited by the machine (being created by man is inherently flawed and has limits), 2 Prospero purposefully set this entire set of events into

motion by winding the Stage-gear.

Of course the costumes would be out of this world! I haven't thought too much about them, since this was for a scene design class more than a costume design class. None the less, there would be plenty of goggles believe you me.

So that's basically the entirety of the project. Below are more photos that I couldn't find a place for in our conversation. Hope you enjoy them. I'm always open to questions, so drop me a line if you have a query.

This piece, which I called Main-gear, took almost three hours to make.

Main-gear turned out quite nice after a bit of antiquing paint.

The beginning of the stage.

Construction of Stage-gear. Lots and lots of floral foam.

Things glued down with a bit of moss for texture.

Proscenium up with Curtain-gears attached.

Everything painted.

One of the best angles I was able to get of it.

The man, as in the earlier picture, does not represent costuming or what-have-you, but merely gives a sense of scale and size. As you can see Main-gear is quite a sizable object.

The Dream is Real

Inception.

Need I give more of an introduction? If you have not seen this movie yet, you should. I would advise against seeing it, though, if you hate good thrillers, mind puzzles, incredible acting, original plots, brilliant dialog and/or leaving the movie theater feeling completely immersed in the world the director and writer made for you.

Honestly Inception is one of the best, if not the best, movies I've ever had the pleasure of watching. The world they create is so... immense. Each level they go into in the dream is a completely new world full of different imaginative twists and turns. Each level is so wonderfully flushed out and retains incredible depth. Never before has a movie made me so nervous throughout the entire film. Nervous not because I was scared but rather I was so jacked up on adrenaline that I could not physically keep myself calm. As soon as I stepped out of the movie theater I couldn't stop smiling. I also did not feel connected with reality for quite some time after. It probably sank in that I was out of the movie while I was eating dinner with Jennifer in between shows (we also saw The Sorcerer's Apprentice, but that's my last post. If you didn't read it all, conclusion: great fantasy movie offering something for all ages).

The movie revolves around Leo DiCaprio's character, Dom Cobb, and his unconventional profession; dream extraction. In short, he became an reconnaissance agent that goes into people's dreams and steals ideas, secrets or other personal information from his victims. His unorthodox career has stripped him of everything he loves in his life. His home, his wife, his children. But suddenly an employer offers to set everything in his life back to normal for one last job. Inception. It's never been done (supposedly). Instead of extracting an idea from a victim's mind, the employer wants Cobb to plant an idea. He needs to assemble the best team in the business to do the impossible. But there is a complication even more dangerous than the task itself. Something is hiding in Cobb's subconscious that could sabotage the entire mission. Something that has been hidden for a while. Something he must confront to get out of this alive.

Wow... just rereading this makes me think I should get a job writing the synopsis paragraphs on the back of DVD cases. Maybe I just have a huge ego. Whatevs....

The cast is absolutely superb. This movie oozes with terrific acting and amazing subtleties that will make the movie new each time you watch it. The plot is nothing short of elaborate. This means that my dad will probably turn it off half way through because he has no idea what is going on. But that's just him. I honestly think that if you can follow the Star Wars movies, you'll be able to keep along with this one. While elaborate, the plot is perfectly twisted. Nothing is out of place in this movie. Every rule Christopher Nolan (writer, director and one of the producers) creates for his movie is followed to a tee. The cinematography is also fantastic, creating intense shots of action, touching shots of emotion between Cobb and his wife, Mal, and, quite frankly, dreamlike shots of Joseph Gordon-Levitt floating weightlessly in hotel elevator shafts and such.

It's logical, brilliant, and every so tasty. I tried to think of adjectives to describe this movie, after seeing it. My instant thought was that it was juicy. I wanted to say that the movie was like candy, something you could just eat up. The thing is, candy has the connotation that it is simply surface, one-level satisfaction. And Inception is anything but that. Thinking for a while, I realized that this movie was like a thick juicy steak. Everyone can enjoy it but connoisseurs will savor the taste a little more. And just like a steak has many dimensions of flavor, taste, and succulence, so does this movie. Thus the movie is a wonderfully prepared juicy steak for audiences.

This is just a little interview with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page. No particular purpose other than I love these two in the movie and I think they're pretty great behind the scenes as well.

That's about it for now. I said it once, I'll say it again. This movie is amazing. Literally one of the best movies I have ever seen. Please go see it.

Apprenticeship Never Sounded So Good

Please take a look at this amazing clip!

After seeing this clip last night (courtesy of Jennifer), I am so pumped for this movie. Not only are the action scenes wonderfully imaginative (so far) but the special effects look wonderful! Last year I saw "Push," a wonderful movie about those among us who have the ability to manipulate objects and minds around them. The effects for that movie were subtle enough that they looked quasi-real, yet still fantastic enough that it retained its fantasy/sci-fi core. These effects emulate that same philosophy; make it look like it could happen but still make it badass.

Normally I'm not one for Nicolas Cage (save for "Moonstruck") but this looks absolutely amazing. I'm also fascinated by the use of "science" in the second clip (below). I myself love when sci-fi/fantasy authors use science to explain why things happen in their world. Of course most times the science is more of a pseudoscience at best, but it means so much to me that they try.

All in all this looks like it's going to be a fantastic film, and I cannot wait to see it. Hopefully it won't be as much as a flop as "Airbender" was. I shudder as I think about the epicness of that fail....