ARIADNE'S FATE

'GRAPHIC NOVEL |  Currently in Production
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Sci-fi-thriller set in a future society which has been decimated by war and rising sea levels, a world in which women have become extremely scarce. So scarce in fact, that being a woman becomes the most dangerous thing you can be.

Screenwriter Geraldine Martin had this project selected as one of ten for ScreenACT's Low Budget Feature Initiative, where the story was developed. Director Marisa Martin received an artsACT grant to turn the script into a graphic novel utilising her illustration skills.
THE PROJECT
We began by gathering visual material to help inform the visual look of the world. We had to develop a logo/look for the Protectorate, the uniforms for the soldiers and guards. We went with a militant, male, North Korea meets Nazi Germany feel. Strong logo presence and narcissistic Presidential propaganda. The logo for the Protectorate is like a new Australian flag of sorts – the seven pointed star representing the states and territories as one and used red as a colour of strength, violence and the desert, on a blue background (girt by sea), with a black Kangaroo in the middle and a strong black border. 


Then we looked at the look of the Labyrinth itself. We took a tour of Parliament House and looked at some service corridors as well as the formal corridors and entrances. We spoke to people who work at the House about the entrances used by staff, how the basement is used and looked at maps of the floor-plan - which is labyrinthine itself!
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We also looked at the brothels of Pompeii and the Kara Prison in Morocco for the lower levels of the living being that is the Labyrinth. 
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Parliament House underground carpark and basement entrance
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Our entrance to the Labyrinth
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Turnarounds of Ariadne
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Mouths, eyes, eyebrows for different expressions
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We start with a thumbnail, then motion capture, then add lighting and texture.
THE METHODOLOGY
After this initial work, we looked into methodology to streamline the creation of the graphic novel. Since Geraldine and I both have a background in animation, we wanted to see if there was a way to utilise those skills and animation software to help create the images for the graphic novel – if there was a way to do it so we didn’t have to draw every single image, we thought it was worth looking into. We used a 2D Animation software that utilises motion capture to move a puppet around into poses and faces into expressions. We could see that we could make a small number of turn-around drawings into any pose or expression we needed and use motion capture to pose the puppet.

So the process has beome:
  • Draw character is complete turnarounds in full height and close up (using Procreate on iPad)
  • Cut each drawing into the required puppet pieces (using Photoshop)
  • Put into Adobe Character Animator and rig each puppet so it worked with the motion capture
  • Draw each scene as storyboard/thumbnails as a rough template for the motion capture
  • Add the text so we can see how much of each pane we can fill with the character and background
  • Perform each character in Character Animator using the motion capture as required by the storyboard
  • Export the required still image from Character Animator
  • Take that image back to Procreate and add shading and lighting as required by the scene
  • Take this ‘rendered’ image into Photoshop to place it into a final layout page
  • Do background drawings as required and put into Photoshop final layout as well

This might seem more involved than ‘just draw it’ for each page, but after the initial investment of time drawing the turnarounds and various mouth and eye shapes, it makes completing each page very much quicker than drawing each frame and we are pleased with the result. We wanted to make sure it didn’t look like a cut-and-paste job, so the motion capture that allows for parallaxing features and nuance in eyes and eyebrows etc means that each capture does look different.