The Suicide King

The Suicide King is the final and most well known of the three. The Suicide King is primarily known for offering shady deals and engaging in bets with mortals for their soul. The Suicide King exists as an immortal spirit that inhabits a monstrous body made from possessed corpses. Due to his vanity and pride, he hides his hideous form under elaborate clothing and carnival masks. Though his inner foulness is well hidden beneath his outer, more jovial appearance, it occasionally seeps through and reveals itself. 

The Suicide King is driven by a love for life and a the simple desire to enjoy himself. In his heart he cherishes freedom, something he fiercely protects. He wishes to help people to be free and despises those who seek to control others. Those who follow him, either by choice or after having lost a bet, exist as deathless spirits inhabiting vessels of rotting flesh and hide their horrific forms under elaborate clothing and masks. Despite his façade of confidence, underneath he is very self-conscious and is very sensitive about his appearance, never letting anyone see passed the mask in case they don't like what they see. 

The Suicide King was once a mortal man who loved life so much that even after death, he refused to let the grisly reaper take him. Desperate to escape the fate of all mortals before him, he challenged Death to a bet, which was accepted. An impossible task was given to him and if he could complete it, he would win his immortal soul. Death was certain that victory would be his but Fate, taking a liking to the Suicide King and wishing to spite Death, intervened and the Suicide King won his soul.  Feeling cheated, Death chases the Suicide King to this day, waiting for his opportunity to take back what is rightfully his.      

The Crimson God

The Crimson God is a messianic god and is the youngest of the three. The Crimson God is worshipped by the warrior monks of the east who's goal is to spread his message and teachings of peace. Unlike the other two gods, the Crimson God achieved his godhood through training his mind and body. He earned his godhood, whereas the Dark Other stumbled upon it and the Suicide King won his. The Crimson God has achieved enlightenment and inner-peace, is in complete control of his mind, body and spirit and is in complete balance with nature.

The Crimson God is driven by a need to help others. He is very optimistic and passionate  having both faith in and hope for humanity. He believes that people are inherently good and can achieve anything they put their minds to. Because of his centuries of training, he is able to achieve impossible feats and there are many tales telling of them, most with a moral message. He dresses in robes akin to that of his followers, however more supernatural in nature. They are made of the finest red silk covered with golden embroidery telling the never ending history of the world. The images continue to move and change as history continues, all that is or ever was can be found embroidered into his endless red silk robes. Long dead plants spring to life and blossom around him into beautiful flowers that only ever exist in his presence.

Below is a myth telling of his origins. 

The Crimson God lived in a time of great suffering. Famine, pestilence and war were common. The Crimson God was a slave, his was a life filled with endless toil and work. He was the lowest of the low, unloved and uncared for by society. One day he looked around at his fellow slaves and his heart broke, then and there he decided that enough was enough, he would stand up against this injustice. The Crimson God began to train, in any way he could.  Anything and Everything that he could, he turned into a training exercise.

One day, after years of hard training, when his masters began to taunt and abuse one of the weakest slaves, he stood up and ordered them to stop. Confused and infuriated that this lowly slave would dare insult them so, they attacked him, attempting to teach him his place. The fight was a quick one.  After, the broken bodies of his former captors lay before him and the former slaves stood in a state of awe and gratitude.  The Crimson God walked away into the jungle, deciding to dedicate his life to training his body and his mind so he may help his fellow man.

The Dark Other

Since a large part of the basis of this project are the fictional god characters I have created, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about them and explain them a little more.

Firstly, these gods are not part of the same pantheon and are not the only god's that exist, rather they are deities of individual ancient religions that have become aware of each other over the millennia. Each is very different in nature to the others, the term "god" here being a very loose term to describe immortal beings of great power and who are often worshipped by mortals. They can be quite co-operative at times and have even become friendly with each other over the course of they're interactions.

In this post I will describe the first of these gods, the Dark Other.

The Dark Other is a dark and mysterious god, and is by far the oldest of the three. He was worshipped by the ancient people of the cold northern lands but over the centuries he has fallen into obscurity and now has taken on a cult like status. Not much is known for certain about him as he prefers to maintain a high level of secrecy  but it is rumoured that he is as old as time itself and that he will live to witness the apocalypse. Those who choose to follow him become part of a hive mind, similar to a bee hive or an ant colony, and then devote they're lives to serving their dark master.

The Dark Other is primarily driven by curiosity, he wishes to understand and eternally seeks more knowledge. Through his followers he carries out grand and complex schemes, taking every factor into account and never leaving anything to chance. In fact, his ability to predict, plan and manipulate future events is so accurate that many believe that he is able to see the future. However, his origins lay deep beneath the surface of the planet and to operate in the world he requires a host to act as his body. Visually, the Dark Other tends to cloak himself in shadow. His eyes glow an eerie cyan glow and his voice is a deafening whisper.

Below is a myth that was written in the hopes of helping people understand the method of thinking that is behind this god and the motives that drive him.

At some point thousands of years before the creation of the Empire, the north was a brutal and harsh land. One day a man with glowing cyan eyes and cloaked in darkness as black as the night sky wandered from village to village telling dark and wondrous tales. The man called himself a prophet and claimed his stories were true.

He told of how while travelling through the dense pine forests and snow capped mountain peaks of his homeland, he came across a dark and foreboding cave.  Curious, he entered and followed the cave deep underground.  Eventually the cave stopped, leading him to a huge and shadowy cavern that stretched down for eternity. This presented him with a dilemma, he could turn around and leave as he had entered and live his life as he had always done, or he could follow his curiosity further and jump down. If he jumped down, he knew he may never see his home again.

He stood for a moment, his foot hovering indecisively over the edge of the abyss. He savoured the moment. He was calm. Closing his eyes and taking one last deep breath, he stepped over the edge and let the darkness of the chasm envelope him. 

"It's all smoke and mirrors..."

Recently I took part in a Lighting Workshop and I was tasked with the role of observing and reflecting upon events as they unfolded, however what I found most interesting about the workshop was not how various people's roles worked or how to best organize a shoot etc. but rather the results of the shoot and how they were achieved.

The goal of the shoot was to create a scene of a criminal cornered in an alleyway by the police. The shoot took place in a studio environment and we did not have very much in the way of set and props at all, however by the clever use of lighting, black boards and a smoke machine we were able to create a very convincing scene that had a style that appealed to me greatly, very dark and shadowy with bright  vivid colours. As I watched the group work I was amazed by how much they achieved with very little.

This is very interesting to me and I am eager to pursue this approach further, as this not only solves my budget issue but also creates a great visual style. Unlike the Dogville approach, which also has it's merits, this approach does not require me abandoning my desired epic visual settings, rather it changes them into a more achieved able and interesting visual style.

Another example of this approach would be one of last year's Lighting workshop which achieved the same inspiring effect and visual style, I find the name Neo-Noir to also be very apt. Perhaps looking into last year's influences would be useful?

"This town is rotten from the inside out..."

I recently watched Dogville directed by Lars von Trier. To say that I have mixed feelings about this film is to put it mildly, this is with out a shadow of a doubt the most challenging and draining film I have ever watched. I could, and would certainly enjoy, ranting about this film for pages and pages but that isn't relevant to my project. All I will say is that the film is pretty much flawless and works brilliantly, which is exactly why I never want to watch it ever again.

One element of this film, indeed the reason I sat down to watch it in the first place, is, however, extremely interesting. Rather than film on a realistic set or on location in middle america or somewhere akin to that, the film takes an extremely minimal approach to the set. The small town of Dogville is created from a blue-print like layout on the ground, complete with white outlines and labels, for example "Ben's Garage" , "Elm st." and the "Gooseberry Bushes". The setting is made real by use of lighting, sound effects and ,of course, the actors' performances. In addition, the film is told from narration, performed by the amazing John Hurt, that feels more like that of a novel than it ever does a film.

During the first few minutes the set is somewhat of a novelty, it is very interesting to behold, but soon enough the minimal set design is forgotten and the town becomes real, only to be reminded of once in a while, but only ever for a short time. I for one, expected that the set would continually remind me of the fictitious nature of the piece, but it actually worked extremely well, in fact the somewhat unusual editing techniques seemed to break my immersion more than the set ever did. More so, the set design meant that a number of wonderful shots could be used, bringing the whole town together despite being in separate buildings as well as giving the whole film a theatrical feel, which I find is one of the more charming aspects of the film. Anything that the use of lighting, sound or performance could not create was described to the audience by the narration, completing the illusion of a small town.

This approach provides me with what maybe a good solution to my problem of not being able to afford epic sets, elaborate costumes and stunning effects. With this minimal approach, although I'm sure that lack of funding wasn't von Trier reason for taking such an approach, means that these things are unnecessary. All that is needed are the actors and a fair but of creative thinking. For example, why bother having gooseberry bushes when you can just draw an outline on the ground and act as if they were there?  In fact perhaps I could take this approach one step further, why have fancy costumes when simplistic black costumes are enough?

This approach to sets and props is certainly worth investigating further, maybe a look into more theatrical techniques is needed?

Below is a bird's eye view of the set, to give an idea of what I'm talking about.

The birth of gods.

The story I wish to use for this project is one that has interested me for a while. Sometime ago, whilst in a creative mood, I decided to challenge myself to create a number of fictional gods for a steam-punk fantasy world of mine. This project was mostly inspired by my love of ancient mythology, in particular ancient Greek,  as well as various fictional works, such as the "Chaos Gods" of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise.

I attempted to create gods based on the elements, on emotions, on concepts such as death and justice etc. but all I ended up creating were gods similar to those that either already existed in mythology or fiction. So in an attempt at originality I decided to create gods based on people I knew. More specifically, I created gods based on my friends Isaac, Ben as well as myself, and from these gods entire mythologies surrounding them were created.

It is these gods that I wish to use as the basis of this project.

In the beginning...

One of the things that truly delights and amuses me is creating fantastical stories in my head. Stories with strange and interesting characters, with wondrous and impossible locations and deep and meaningful story lines. These characters and their fictional lives constantly fill my head, and I attempt to jot them down in a word document or a script whenever possible. It is these stories that make me want to make films.

However, much of these stories have never come to anything more than ideas in my head and abandoned, uncompleted scripts. This is largely because I will move onto another story or change the story and start it over again. But, the main reason is because the films in my head would cost a lot of money, and I mean huge budgets, and the sad truth of the matter is, that this is money I simply do not have.

So, after two years of honing and improving my film making skills, I have decided to do something about this problem. If I wish to make these films then I will need to find a practical and realistic way to make them. This is what my research project is about, finding a practical and realistic way to realize my fantastical stories and ideas.

I am much looking forward to this project and am eager to witness it's, hopefully pleasing, results.