Today we presented our work on Thelma and Louise. The presentation went pretty well and although we did go a bit over time, our presentation was viewed highly by our tutors. We got good feedback on it and also some areas for improvement. Our final image of our presentation was chosen between two images and the one we chose got a lot of laughs and rightly so. You can view it both images below.
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Our next assignment for Tuesday isn’t so stressful. We have to sort ourselves into teams of 4 and these will be the teams we will be in to work on and produce a 15 second animated short.
Today we finalised our artifact and I will post the final images of it below. We also go to see the really cool video Cassie has put together for showcasing the artifact which I will also post below.
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List of objects included in our cases:-
Case 1 (Outside)
Silver Bullet Logo
Oklahoma sticker
Vagabond Inn sticker
Arkansas sticker
Bullet hole
Thelma and Louise label
Case 1 (Inside)
Silver Bullet/Homer Home Kitchen Receipt
Map showing route
Cigarette Box/Cigarette/Cigarette Butts
Gun
Wild Turkey Shot
Louise’s head scarf
Case 2 (Outside)
Oklahoma state flag sticker
Case 2 (Inside)
Fuel receipt
Map showing route
Crumpled money
Paper with Peaches written on it
Case 3 (Outside)
New Mexico flag sticker
Arizona state flag
Case 3 (Inside)
Lipstick
Selfie
“Let’s keep goin'” written in lipstick
Our final thing to do for this project is to make a funny but good ending photo for our presentation. We have decided to Photoshop ourselves into Thelma and Louise’s iconic selfie image as we feel this would be a funny, but appropriate ending slide for our work on the movie. We took a photo or two and Cassie is going to do the editing to the image to create it.
Today myself and Claire shared our work to our team. Firstly, Claire shared her sticker design for the state of Oklahoma which included a skyline which symbolises the many cities in Oklahoma as well as the sun setting background which is another key component in what Oklahoma is known for as a state.
We as a team were really happy with the design and it will be printed out and used on the outside of the act 1 case to symbolise that this is one of the locations that our main characters are present in during act 1.
Claire’s Sticker Design for Oklahoma
Claire then proceeded to tell us and present her J.D backstory concept which shows how J.D ends up having a real attraction to Thelma and so when he does wrong to her and Louise he feels bad and spends a lot of his life with the regret of hurting the woman who he began to truly love. Claire used very passionate, love styled colours to emphasise the J.D character in this piece. She also included a photograph of Thelma in J.D’s hand which helps symbolise his affection for her. The heart also adds and is an added feature in making it clear to the audience how he is feeling.
Claire’s background concept for J.D
I was then able to present my background concept for the cyclist character who discovers the police officer in the truck of his car. The cyclist appears to show no sympathy for the officer as all he does is lean over the trunk and blow second hand smoke through one of the air holes that Thelma had put in the trunk. We used this information to make an educated decision that the cyclist had a history with the police and because of this, had no sympathy for the officer who was trapped. We also tried to make sense of why he was in the middle of nowhere. We decided that the cyclist was involved in a race and went of track and didn’t really know where he was. He acts cool about it though and casually blows his cigarette smoke into the trunk.
My Concept for the Cyclist
After presenting these pieces of work, we as a team started to discuss creating a short video of our artifact so during our presentation we don’t have to go all the way through the artifact, we can let the video explain its set up and content. We have planned to make it like a stop motion video and Cassie and mainly taken the reigns on it while the rest of us work on the presentation and other concepts.
Jenny shared a photo on our team page tonight of the final suitcase of our artifact. She thinks it looks kind of bare right now and was looking for suggestions on how to develop or make it look slightly more filled. It currently just has the selfie image of the main characters. We have talked about potentially adding in a quote from the film written in lipstick but we will decide over the weekend about it.
After discussing this, Cassie posted an even further piece of research for us through the use of a final year blog. She shared Mary Stewart’s blog posts of the Hero’s Journey and the Schematic and artifact they had created on Thelma and Louise. This really helped us compare and contrast and start to return to our work and re-evaluate and develop our own work, using there’s as our reference. We looked at there work, checked if our matched and then started to think about how can we do even better. I believe our artifact is better and hopefully when finished, our schematic will be too.
Tonight our discussions ended after Cassie shared a really amazing piece of information with us. She shared the full relation between Thelma and Louise and how they relate to Vogler. These were awesome bits of information for us as it meant we could piece together and finalise our presentation in a more informed and professional way.
Post by Cassie:-
1) Ordinary World:
Thelma and Louise are introduced as characters, Theres foreshadowing at the start of future events, backstory and exposition are revealed to indicate thelma and louise are going on a road trip.
2) Call to adventure:
Thelma despite not telling darryl sets off willingly with Louise (Due to her lacking something within herself, tired with life). Louise herself when Thelma wants to stop off at the silver bullet is presenting with the call as her plan was to continue driving. (This leads to refusal of the call)
3) Refusal of the Call:
Louise herself is hesitant about entering the silver bullet and later when she doesn’t want to drink and dance with Harlan (Letting the audience know something risky is happening) After leaving no options she follows thelma.
4) Meeting mentor: (this is where i could be wrong)
Louise is Thelma’s mentor, in the bar we see more backstory of Louise’s past unfold, We see thelma learning from Louise through partying and smoking. (This is also evident in the car before the silver bullet)
5) Crossing the First Threshold:
Louise shoots Harlan, changing the course of the story, Louise and Thelma now have to cross to the special world (Mexico) to seek freedom. Events internally triggered by Louises past. After the shooting both Louise and thelma appear bruised and battered from the incident
6) Tests, Allies, Enemies:
Characters such as JD, Jimmy, Hal are introduced appearing as allies, police officers, darryl and max appear as enemies, Now the girls are on the run there are new rules, (They must avoid the police, avoid being detected) They arrive at different watering holes and pit stops.
7) Approach:
The centre of film, loves scenes appear, the motel being a break in the story for thelma and louise to relax.
8) Ordeal:
Their greatest challenge, thelma and louise hit a crisis when JD steals the money leaving thelma and louie with no hope of reaching mexico and abandoned. Tensions are high and louise hits a breaking point (The wounded hero is broken) the audience has sympathy for her.
9)Reward:
Thelma robs the convenience store (becomes trickster) in order to gain the reward of money (Elixir Theft) however this will have consequences of it’s own. The police have now evidence to convict thelma and louise.
10) Road back:
Thelma and Louise are determined to reach new goals but are set back by state troopers (The police consider them villians) Thelma and Louise escape running for their lives.
11) Resurrection:
The moment Thelma is reborn, becoming the hero. She and louise sacrifice their future by continuing to run however Louise drops the ball by letting their location known to the police, Louise changes by saying they are innocent, trying to open up to hal (her last chance) The trucker is there to show thelma and louise have changed.
12) Return of the Elixir
Thelma and Louise choose freedom and drive over the cliff. leaving the end open ended for other characters. They have their reward of independence.
This weekend we will finalise our presentation and come in on Monday to add the finishing touches to our artifact, just in time for the presentation on Tuesday.
I began today by finishing off my title page for our presentation. It is based around the cliff jump but also features our main police character, Hal, chasing after the car in the closing images. Central is the title of our movie and bottom left we have each of our team members names written. We also have a hot Arizona sun lighting up the skyline.
After showing this to my group, we moved on to thinking about the back stories of our characters. Cassie was able to bring together all of our notes on the characters and type out a rough idea for each characters back story.
Hal: Goes home to console with wife, emotional turmoil due to lost daughter.
Jimmy: Goes to buy ring to surprise Louise, after he gets interrogated he feels either sad or shocked at the realisation of Thelma and Louise’s murder…thing haha.
Cyclist: Is actually lost and was originally in a race, he’s been in trouble with police before hence aggression.
Waitresses: they go home and do their shit…idk (at their jobs)
JD: haven’t thought of yet.
Major:???????
Old man: Waiting for his friend to get cigarettes.
Harlan: at home and work miserable, hits on ladies at bars.
Darryl: cheating on Louise , miserable or angry over losing her.
After discussing this we left our schematic work for half an hour and proceeded to add ‘natural damage’ to our suitcases to try and capture some attitude and give the case an appearance of having gone threw the wars so to speak. The below video is an example of one way we decided to add this so called ‘damage’.
Jenny had painted and varnished the cases to give them a realistic feel, we had then punctured the cases to signify bullet holes and Jenny rubbed the cases with sand to give a rough, worn feel to them. We put in a lot of effort in to achieve the right look for our cases. Now it’s about trying to fix our cases were we got a bit carried away with the damage and start to organise where we plan on putting the items we have made.
Battered look on suitcase
Bullet hole created with pencil
Painted Suitcase
Tag on suitcase
I created a cigarette box and receipts for the case. I used a template for the cigarette box and added in my own details and deleted out the guides so I could put together a better appearance for the box. I found a logo for an American cigarette company and proceeded to add this in to add another level of depth and detail.
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The receipts were to symbolise the stops the had made along the way and included puns and movie quotes within them. I created a receipt for ‘Homers Home Kitchen’ which was a link to the character who features in the movie at the beginning of the film and is verbally abused by Daryll as he leaves for work from the house. Daryll shouts at him for leaving work supplies around after Daryll loses his balance and falls before entering the car. Daryll then proceeds to shout at Homer, telling him initially to finish work by 5pm but then changing his mind to 3pm. This is the inside joke on the Homers Home Kitchen receipt were we see the opening hours are from 7:30am-3pm everyday. This is then clarified at the bottom of the receipt where again it reminds us of their closing time of 3pm.
I also created receipts for fuel and for the silver bullet bar which also included puns from the film and events from the film such as the death of Harlan and the constant, ‘Fill ‘er up’ phrase that Louise makes every time they stop at a gas station.
I also added an additional tip line on the silver bullet receipt as it is mentioned in the film that Louise left Lena the bartender a large tip. So I wrote in a tip of $50 into the space after printing which you can see in the image below.
After these pieces for our artifact, we moved back to discussing the back stories of our characters and creating concepts of what these back stories might look like in a single visual reference. Below is Cassie’s back story concept for Hal who we have decided has recently lost his daughter and holds a strong passion to protect woman and stop unnecessary violence/death.
Cassie’s Concept for Hal Backstory
Myself and Claire will be working on creating a backstory concept of our own. Claire will be focusing on J.D and I will be focusing on the cyclist who discovers the police officer in the trunk. Claire will also be taking on the design of a sticker for the cover of one of the cases. She will be designing a sticker for the state of Oklahoma.
Today we had another team meeting and began by sharing our work from the last few days with each other and where each of us are in regards to the project.
Cassie showed us a link she had found which shows all of the recorded locations that Thelma and Louise was filmed at. This will allow us to find out the name of the bars, convenience stores and motels that they stop off in along their journey – Thelma and Louise Locations.
Cassie also created a logo for the silver bullet bar which is the location that Harlan gets shot after attempting to rape Louise and saying crude things to them as they were about to leave. The logo can be viewed below and will be used as I create various components that are going to play a big part in the make up of our artifact.
Logo created by Cassie Galloway
We have narrowed down our ideas for our artifact and have decided on creating a Russian doll effect with suitcases. We we able to purchase cardboard suitcases from Craftworld and managed to get three suitcases that complimented each other in a way that on would fit inside the next. We have also decided that around each suitcase, within each case, we will have various pieces of memorabilia from the movie that will tell the story as it progresses. Our plan is to have the big case as act 1, the middle case as act 2 and the final case as act 3. We feel this is a really cool way to tie up the film in a physical yet effective way.
After Cassie had created this logo, I went on to create another scene from the film in my own MS Paint style which can be viewed below. It is an image that has a slight sense of graphical style but still holds onto the depth and lighting of a normal cartoon image. It portrays one of our main characters, Harlan, straight after being shot. Within the image we can see Harlan, his injury, the car he is resting against, the moonlit sky and also the barrel of the gun used by Louise to kill Harlan.
Jenny was able to show us the first glimpse of the schematic that she has put so much work and effort into the last several days and it is simply great. We as a team love its quirkiness and style and especially the small graphics she used to add humour and effect to the diagram. We will work together now to add information to the diagram and push this schematic even further but it is safe to say, Jenny has done an awesome job.
First Glimpse at Schematic
I am currently working on a title page for our presentation. Cassie has set up the presentation along with Claire and they have started to add information into it. Jenny is continuing to develop both the schematic and adding details and effects to our artifact.
Cassie uploaded a list today on our group page detailing our characters and what their roles/archetypes would be when introduced to the Vogler descriptions found in ‘The Writer’s Journey’. She provided us with this list:-
Louise: Hero, Shadow (not sure, was more thinking of all the references to Texas)
Thelma: Trickster, Shapeshifter
DJ: Mentor, Shapeshifter
Max & Hal: Herald
Jimmy: Ally
Lena, waitresses: Ally
Harlan, Truck Driver, Darryl: Shadow
Police Officers: Threshold Guardians
The ones I don’t have a clue : Homer, Old Dude, Cyclist
This is great for us as a team in regards to helping each other. We now have a good indication of how to relate our characters to Vogler’s book but also have areas we can help each other in to solve problems. Cassie is unsure of a few characters archetypes but as a team we will work together and make informed decisions on what label we should place on these characters.
Jenny then informed us that she had recorded one of our lecturers first talk on narrative and storytelling and had taken important notes down that could help us throughout this process of creating our artifact and schematic. These notes can be viewed below.
Jenny has taken on the role of using her technological skills and notes to make a dent into the design of our schematic. We have all discussed what we would like style wise and what we would like included within the schematic. Jenny will now create a draft and then present it to our team throughout this week so we can discuss improvements, developments and edits that may need introduced to enhance its appearance or content.
After these notes that Jenny had uploaded, she also found a deleted scene from Thelma and Louise which showed an alternative ending to the movie. She posted this within our group and this helped us in two ways. First and foremost, it made us laugh, a lot. And secondly, it allowed us to see where the director was also considering taking the movie and this allowed us to understand in a deeper way, the thought process of the director and the decisions he was making as the film was edited and pieced together.
Cassie then uploaded a link after we discussed earlier splitting the movie into 3-5 acts. Cassie researched and found an article that pieced Thelma and Louise into a 3 act movie and this really helped us start to understand the story and give us some ideas and thoughts about our artifact.
I began to try my hand at creating image concepts from this project. Looking at key scenes and events throughout the film and using my own style and abilities to create humorous but effective pieces of work. My first image was to create the iconic cliff jump performed by Thelma and Louise. I started by researching their car, the 66′ Thunderbird and how in was designed and created. I gather images of its front, side and back and started to create an angled image of the car within MS Paint.
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Initial Drawing for Scene
From here, I then looked at the characters, the scene itself and the weather and started to add to the image. Below is a slideshow of the development of my image from simple plans up to finished images.
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I presented the image to my team afterwards and they thought it was good. They suggested adding in miniature bottles flying out of the back as these are common throughout the film and Thelma consumes many of these miniatures and then leaves them in the back seat of the vehicle. I have never been one to disappoint my team so went back into the images and added the bottles into the final image which can be viewed below.
Final Image
I will continue working on images and drawing up some concepts for our artifact. Jenny says she has a draft schematic done and will show us it tomorrow in our team meeting.
Today we met as a team to run over our research and findings from the last couple of days in regards to both the schematic as a whole and the background and content of our movie. We were also able to share our thoughts and feelings of the movie as we had all watched it by this stage.
One of our team members Jenny, had done great research into timelines and and character encounters in various movies and plays such as The Great Gatsby, Interstellar and Romeo and Juliet. From this research we were able to start to piece together what it actually meant to create a schematic and what would it really look like. Jenny gathered the below images and shared them on our group page and these will prove really useful as we begin to develop ideas for our schematic and piece together information that will be implemented into it.
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We decided today that whilst sharing our research we would also sit down together and watch the film again but this time as a unit. We decided we would note down together, every character we seen that we would like to use within the schematic and also note down when a key moment or event took place so we could begin to create a rough plot line of scenes and acts within our schematic. Below is a meme from the film that we found and includes one of the many funny phrases and quotes that are portrayed throughout the movie. This one is from a character by the name of J.D played by none other than Brad Pitt.
J.D Meme from Thelma and Louise
Cassie posted on our group page tonight, sharing the entire script for the movie that she found. This is great as it allows us to go back, read over and analyse areas that we maybe missed within the movie. This will ensure we fully analyse each scene and event in a more effective way and don’t miss out on any key information.
This film has taken us by surprise and we are really enjoying studying it and laughing continuously about it in southern american accents when we meet as a team. It is a film that appears to have a good meaning behind it but is filled with little gold mines throughout that can send you into hysterics. Jenny is doing unbelievable amounts of work and is proving to be a really key member within this team. She uploaded a clean up version of her notes from today’s movie viewing which includes times, character entrances and exits and key moments throughout the film. These are amazing pieces of information for us moving forward as we now has clear, written down statements detailing where and when certain events happening and characters appear. Below are her cleaned up notes that she posted onto our group page.
Jenny also took all of our suggested characters that we are thinking about using within our schematic and organised them in a more clear and professional way and shared these onto our group page which can also be viewed below.
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From here, I then helped assign each member of our team their characters to analyse, note down their scenes and create potential back stories for these characters outside of the main plot. The assigning list looks like this:-
Jenny: – Louise, Harlan, Albert, Motel Clerk, Old Dude
Cassie: – Thelma, Hal, Lena, Waitress, Cyclist
Thomas: – Darryl, Max, Officer, Trucker, Homer
Claire: – Jimmy, J.D, Major
Cassie brought a new angle into our work tonight after posting a statement from an article she had found online stating a potential alternative ending to Thelma and Louise. It states that the actress who played Louise (Susan Sarandon), stated that she didn’t want the ending changed as she felt passionate about its current state. Director, Ridley Scott however, felt that the ending could be slightly altered to show that Louise had pushed Thelma out of the 66′ Thunderbird before it had plunged over the cliff edge.
We intend to have another team meeting tomorrow where we will discuss more of our findings. I will upload an update blog post on Monday to give an insight into how we have developed, what we have found out and where our project is going from there.
Today each team was told that we would remain with the same people for the next two weeks. I was pretty happy with this as my team work well together and has great and skilled members in it. Each team was presented with a movie to watch, analyse and study and from this research into the film, go on to create a schematic and an artifact. Our team was given the film ‘Thelma and Louise’. We were left lost and unsure as to what our film was never mind what it was about as none of us had ever even heard of it. Other teams in the class were given films such as King Kong, Terminator, Star Wars IV and Star Trek so as a team, we felt we had drawn the short straw.
We will be expected to give a 6 minute timed presentation on both our schematic and artifact in two weeks time to the class and our tutors and this should show our research and our ability to show the meaning of the artifact through the content of our schematic. We should also be able to relate this work to Vogler’s ‘The Writers Journey’ book and its descriptions of the archetypes of characters throughout a story.
Jenny has created a team group for us on Facebook so we can monitor what each team member is working on and where we as a team are trying to reach in regards to this project.
Our first main obstacle in this project was to understand what a schematic was…so we took to Google to see what we could find out. It is described as ‘a diagram or other representation) symbolic and simplified.’ So basically a simplified, diagram version of the film and its characters. We found out that a schematic diagram is quite often used to portray electrical systems and circuits so this gave us some rough visuals of what this diagram would look like. We also started to think about the London underground and the style and set up of the maps for it.
We are meeting as a team in the next couple of days to bring together research, ideas and out thoughts on where we want to take this project and what style we will try to adapt. This will also give all team members an opportunity to watch the film once or twice and make their own notes in regards to this. Myself and Jenny have found links to watching the film online and posted them on our team page so Cassie and Claire can also watch the film.
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