Final Major Project - The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
So here it is...! My final project of university! What an amazing roller coaster these three years have been! Studying TV and Film Set Design has been one of the greatest choices of my life!
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For this project, we were asked to choose a particularly visual book, that had not yet been turned into a film, and design a set for it. I chose The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, because of its fantastic descriptions, the opportunities for plenty of creative designs, and not to mention that it is in fact my favourite book!
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I chose to design the graveyard itself. I needed to design the landscape, as well as the elements within it, including the falling-down chapel, the creepy Ghoul Gate and the crumbling Egyptian Walk.
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Below are photos of my model. Made at 1:50 scale, I sprayed and carved a mass of expanding foam, and covered it in mod-roc, then created trees from wire, and making other elements from white card and foam board, and such.
The entrance to the graveyard features a turning circle, with an old, broken hearse, a memorial, and of course, the chapel.
My chapel itself was designed as described in the book- made of grey stone, and appears to be falling down. I also created something of my own architectural style- a sort of "wonky gothic," christened, "wothic."
My Potter's Field (unconsecrated ground) lies down at the bottom right of the graveyard. It is a particularly uneven part of the graveyard, with a a broken fence and gate, overhung by Bod's favourite apple tree
The lay of the land creates natural pathways, leading you to want to investigate places such as the Egyptian Walk...
I took inspiration for the Egyptian Walk from the Egyptian Walk in Highgate Cemetery. The walk is curved in appearance, as this would help to hide the "end" of the graveyard when filmed. The entrance to the Walk is overhung with foliage from the trees surrounding it, as well as being covered with moss
And so here's the whole model...! It's a big 'un! The whole graveyard is covered in trees that twist and turn and lean, and the landscape leads up to the burial hill, where The Sleer live inside...
My Techinal Drawings are also a major part of the project. I drew mine in AutoCAD.
I was also required to create a set of storyboards. I decided to storyboard the sequence of Bod and Scarlett investigating the Burial Hill's secret...
Lastly, I created this visual for my project; a colour image of the graveyard, painted in Photoshop.
