Dream Sequences

Mind Map

Commonly, dream sequences appear in many films to shed light on the psychical process of the dreaming character or give the audience a glimpse into the character's past. Other times major action takes place in dreams, allowing the filmmaker to explore infinite possibilities, as Michel Gondry demonstrates in The Science of Sleep. Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett points out in the book The Committee of Sleep that, while the main content of dream sequences is determined by the film's overall plot, visual details often reflect the individual dream experience of the screenwriter or director. For Hitchcock's Spellbound, Salvador Dali designed sharply angled sets inspired by his own dream space. Ingmar Bergman lit dream sequences in several films with a harsh glare of light which he says reflects his own nightmares (though most people's have dim light), and Orson Welles designed a scene of the trial to reflect the manner in which architecture constantly changed in his dreams. Films normally present dreams as a visually accessible or objectively observed space, a discrete environment in which characters exist and interact as they do in the world rather than restricting themselves to the subjective point of view a dream is normally experienced from in real life. In this way films succeed in presenting a coherent dreamed world alongside the diegetic reality of the film. Via transition from one to the next, a film establishes not only the boundaries but resonances between the two worlds. These resonances can reveal a character's subjective observations or desires without breaking away from the objective viewpoint of the narrator, camera, or director with which some theorist, such as Christian Metz, believe the viewer identifies.

In classic Hollywood, the wavy dissolve was the standard way to transition between reality and a dream; there would be a close-up of the character having the dream, which would begin shimmering as we crossed over from reality to fantasy. One of the most common contemporary transitions into a fantasy is to zoom in on a character's face and then spin around to the back of that character to reveal that he/she is now standing in an alternate reality. Perhaps the most common technique today is the post-reveal in which a character is shown in an awkward or unusual situation, the scene builds to an even more absurd or unusual situation, and then suddenly there is a cut to the character waking up.

Spellbound Dali Dream Sequence

Science of Sleep Michel Gondry

Contrast Between Dreams And Reality

Process

explosion cinema 4d from evelyn on Vimeo.

This is my first experimental video of my new project in which I want to create my own version of the dream sequences shown in the movie inception. I was influenced by the exploding city scene, in which Cobb is sitting at a cafe with Ariadne explaining to her the construction of a dream and how people perceive them. Cobb says that you only realize you were in a dream when something strange starts to happen. Then with his consciousness he causes various explosions throughout the streets and houses in order to convince Ariadne they are in a dream.

With my first video I wanted to bring that "scene" to the street of Portobello. My purpose is to show the contrast between dreams and reality. Therefore, i decided to make something solid (in this case the street) to explode while walking over it. "In a dream we create and perceive our world simultaneously and our mind does this so well that we don't even know that its happening" meaning that we don't have actual control of the architecture as we do in real life.

Inception

 " It's the chance to build cathedrals, entire cities, things that never existed, things that couldn't exist in the real world..."

"In a dream you can cheat Architecture into impossible shapes."

Ariadne Learns How To Build Dreams.

Inception City Explosion - Waking Up From A Dream Scene

Paradox Architecture - Penrose Steps - The Infinite Staircase

" You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you can't know for sure. But it doesn't matter - How can it not matter? "

 -Mal's riddle     

The most utopian element of the movie is Limbo-"unconstructed dream space." In this lowest level of subconscious dream space, one can create for oneself an ideal world.

 One way in which we could interpret the film is that it describes what is possible and impossible through the dream states themselves. 

M.C. Eschair

It depicts a man in a gallery viewing a print of a seaport, and among the buildings in the seaport is the very gallery in which he is standing. The gallery is physically in the town, the town is artistically in the picture, the picture is mentally in the person.

"Belvedere" depicts a beautiful scene of the Italian countryside and mountains with a viewing platform in the foreground. One of Escher's "impossible buildings", the belvedere is based on a visual paradox, its two levels being placed at an impossible right angle to each other. The bemused chap at its base in fact holds in his hands a structural replica of the paradox, while the poor prisoner bemoans his fate though no one listens.

The above drawing is called Relativity.  It has inspired many movie sets including Inception, Labyrinth and Tomb Raider.  Despite being a lousy student and receiving no formal math training, Escher used mathematical principals in his drawings to create “impossible structures” that seemed to be going up and down at the same time.

Exquisite Corpse

André Breton, Jacqueline Lamba, Yves Tanguy

Exquisite Corpse surreal art collaboration group on Deviant

Surrealist artists subjected the human body to distortions and juxtapositions that resulted in fantastic composite figures. The Surrealists were interested in the unconscious mind and dreams. They often produced imagery that was randomly put together without conscious thought. The results were often humorous and surreal.

Using The Kaleidoscope Effect Through C4D

Taking Pictures From Google Earth

Taking Many Pictures Of The Area From Different Perspectives

Using The Images From Above And Stitching Them In C4D Resulting A 360 Panorama

Creating A Sphere And Placing The Map From The Image Above

Creating Another Sphere With Different Sides

Cutting It In Order To Place The Camera Inside

Showing How I have Placed The Sphere In Relation To The Camera 

This Is The Outcome, What We See Throw The Sphere

I want to make a video of the camera moving around the area while using this effect. I will try to improve it in order to give me a more similar effect of the device I have made.

Balls - Reflections - Improved Version

Final Outcome

Reflection - Balls - Improved Version from evelyn on Vimeo.

This is the imporved version of the previous video I had made, which my intention was to have in the balls the reflection of the area and I achieved my goal.

Balls - Reflections

Process

Outcome - C4D Video

Balls-Reflections from evelyn on Vimeo.

Since I had the idea of making the magnifying scalpture I wanted to make it in C4D and place it in the picture and see what kind of an eect I would get. But while working on it I changed my mind because it seemed quite boring to me. So I wanted to test what reflections I would get by a movement. I add- ed these balls but I failed to achieve my goal which was to have on the actual balls the reflections of the buildings around them.

Magnifying Glass Sculpture Idea

 Portobello road is a diverse and contrasting space, which has colourful houses that seem to have come out of a children’s book on one side, ethnic shops with vivid colours and fabrics, interesting relief textures found on brick walls and unusual doors and there is another aspect, much more peaceful, with toned down hues of an earth palette that creates a completely contrasting effect with the rest of the area. Significant architectural buildings are present and it seems to the viewer that you are walking from one space to another, almost as though you are walking through time. As I have already made a series of collages that link together these different elements and have worked in Cinema4D to make a video that shows the shattering of glass reflections of the space, I am thinking of capitalizing the idea of reflections in this area. I have the idea of how to bring together disparate parts of the site, so that a person when walking through the street, can experience all aspects of it, without having to walk around the entire area. Taking the idea of fragmentation and collage, reflection and glass, I have come up with the idea of making a sculpture with magnifying glasses that will reflect the area. The lenses will be placed at various heights and will consist of various sizes that will include short lenses as well as long ones, so that “hidden” parts of the area will be revealed and others will be highlighted or dimmed down. As the site already has a rich and colourful palette, I do not want my construction to impose another on it. Glass is reflective and completely neutral, so will be an ideal medium to use for the sculptural intervention. Given the site’s ties with the artistic community, having a sculptural construction, fits in with its history and cultural context.

 

Portobello Drawings-Collages