Monkey

I have been watching a lot of pretty films lately. Stylish Films like 'Drive' and 'Hero' feature beautiful cinematography and aesthetic have made me interested in focusing on art direction for this project.

These movies are known for using diverse and creative colour palettes in interesting ways. For example, the director of 'Hero' uses colour as a way to tell stories. Colour becomes a theme that tells a lot of the story in the film. The colours white and red represent which parts of the story are true and false. and within other parts of the film colour becomes a set piece as well.

I really like the green fight in 'Hero' where Broken Sword fights the emperor in his palace. For me, there was a lot of imagery with the colour and with the two characters. Broken sword and the curtains are both green and feel swift and mobile. The emperor and the palace is a blackish brown standing firm and resolute. Like Broken Sword, the green curtains feel like they have invaded the palace. The emperor cuts them down in an attempt to regain control of the palace as well defeat Broken sword.

Since I've been looking at a lot of Chinese media, I have decided to try adapt the tale of Monkey. Journey to the West has a lot of really nice and interesting imagery which I would like to try and develop. For the environment, I have decided to focus on the cave behind the water curtain.

Here is an early asset from my environment. I really liked the how the brush strokes in Chinese art flow so I tried to emulate it.