The Raven & 200th anniversary of Poe
iview Author: Shekhar Shimpi (Pune, India)
Email: shekharss [at] hotmail.com
Content: “The Raven” (Making of One Minute Short)& 200th anniversary of Poe
19th January 2009 is 200th birth anniversary of master of gothic, macabre writer “Edgar Allan Poe” (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849)
famous for his work ‘the fall of the house of usher’, ‘the tell tale heart’and many more, his short story“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is considered first story on detective genre.
his tales and poetry are full of mystery and imagination which influence many writers, artist ,musicians and filmmakers.
And I’m very happy to present Making of my One Minute film “The Raven” based on Edgar allan Poe’s great and popular poem of same title.
On the special occasion of Edgar Allan Poe’sBirthday.
I made this film for PFCOne 2008, Thanks for Passion For Cinema for this opportunity.
1 minut film, The Raven, can be seen via this Link
My father introduced me to Edgar Allan Poe, it was my schooldays,
one of those days. once my father was holding a book, I asked him about it, he told me
“it is written by great horror writer called Edgar allan poe, and you will get to know about him in time”.
And then years later, in my collage days, one of the cold december midnight, I was not feeling sleepy,
I randomly took one book out ,and turn the page,
and this poem in front of me like mysterious visitor “The Raven”. I started reading –
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, ”
Gothic rhythmic tone of the poem immediately caught my fancy.
Poem is about Protagonist lamenting his lost love ‘Lenore’,
at midnight and mysterious visitor enter his chamber which is bird Raven.
Responding “Nevermore” every question asked by Protagonist .
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When I heard the Passion For Cinema’s One Minute Film festival, I’ve decided to make this film, my tribute to Edgar Allan POE.
Like last years entry “Terror at the Drive in Show” was in the memory of “James Whale” 1930’s horror filmmaker (famous for Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein)
I’m going to finish my One Minute Horror Films trilogy by third one “Fairy tale” Homage to Grimm Brothers.
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Here it is few thoughts and fun I would like to share with you.
Casting was main thing; best part was there is only one actor, luckily my friend Shailesh was there.
He knows my interest in this kind of genre, I cast him as Protagonist.
We’ll call him Poet.
I showed him rough storyboard. He gave me couple of useful suggestion like placing the desk and books.
Backdrop of the film is set in 19th century, so I started preparing for props.
I made two Gothic arches out of thermacol for windows.
Bought a beautiful triangle candle holder from church store. Long neck bottle of wine
(which we finished immediately after shoot, my ‘Cask of Amontillado,)
I’ve got lots of books I piled those on table, to suggest the line from poem
“Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore”
storyboards: this is rough storyboards, I delete few scenes from the boards as well I’ve added new scenes.
(storyboard-01)
(storyboard-02)
Now costume, Poets collar is made of Odhani and thick white paper.
The decorative shirt sleeve you are seeing is actually a belt to tie window curtains, which I stole from my friend’s house.
The picture frame Poet is holding was a crucial prop in the film, made of cardboard,
I called it ‘Lost Love Lenore’ the girl in the picture is a painting by Rossetti ,
painting title –Monna Vanna.
I cut the frame from the book “The Great Artists”.
For the opening scene; I drew old house with 2 prominent Gothic arches for the window. To match my thermacol windows.
(I should have establish that window more) initially this scene was going to be miniature set, but I’m saving that one for some other thing, and deadline was tight too.
Design of house is hand drawn coloring done in Photoshop; I’ve added few crooked branches and dull clouds to support the lines from poem
“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December”,
Opening scene animated in software Flash.
When Poet character was watching Picture frame of his Lost Love Lenore,
Feeling weak and weary, he startled by sudden tapping at his chamber door,
He opens the door, but there was nothing.
Line from the poem:
“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.”
Line from the poem :
” ‘Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more.”
And mysterious visitor (Raven) enter his room, that entering of Raven animation done by Paul Thomas, key drawings done in Photoshop saved it as PNG format, in order to import those images in Editing software Premier, later on I put those key drawings over the scene, and added few effects. The painting you see in the background in that particular scene is Nebuchadnezzar by William Blake.
Shailesh did framework for the painting(there is no symbolism or metaphor behind it, I just like to put my favorite stuff in the Film here and there) again from “The Great Artists”.
Images :
thermacol arches
frame
lenore
monna vanna
shailesh with set
rough house
color house
crow keys
nebchudnezzer
I shot couple of more scenes but I couldn’t crunch them in One Minute,
so I thought lets do split screen, with decoration, and I did one more decorative scene where you see picture of Poets lost love Lenore,
Poet himself in the same frame and Raven on top of it crowing.
I did this for my indulgence and to add that richness thing which Edgar Allan Poe created with his wonderful usages of words.
Lines from the poem:
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore —
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
images :
decoration1
decoration2
Poem ends with the line:
“And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!
Some says it symbolize the death of the Protagonist, I’ve no idea. But I liked the gloominess of it, that’s why I show picture frame falling from Poet’s hand into the darkness (falling scene is Animated) and skull.(skull should be more subtle)
And thus film ends with famous quote, “Nevermore”
Sound and Music:
I composed 2 theme tunes for this film, in software called Garage band (Mac OS) opening theme is called “Alone” is gloomy using Church Organ and Bells, to set the mood of Poets loneliness,
2nd theme is called “Lenore”, tinkling happy kind of music, it is for the sweet memory of Poets lost love, (music starts when Poet is looking at the Picture), this music and mood of Poet’s interrupted by sudden tapping at the door,
Sound of wind, crickets, knocking at the door and raven fluttering ,crowing are taken from websites provided by PFC.
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Aspect ratio of my film is a wide, it got stretched vertically here, I don’t know how,.
I shot this in midnight, in between there was a power cut ,
so I shot entire film with candles, that was a bad decision, that’s why it look badly lit.
Shailesh worked hard for this One Minute film. Thanks Shailesh.
Next morning when I saw entire footages, I was not happy with it, and that was thelast day of submission,
I was feeling like something is missing, that’s when my friend and colleague Paul Thomas came,
he encourage me and edited my footages nicely, according to my story boards.
and thats how we wraped it, (Paul paid 15$ late fee ,Thanks Paul)
So This is it,
Thanks to PFC for this wonderful opportunity.
Enjoy
(working on more stuff)
Link to the Poem, with lots of Information.
Some of the Influence: pictures and music
Illustrations by Gustav Dore and Alan Parsons Project (British Rock Band) music on Edgar Allan Poe’s tales.
Images:
dore
dore
poe and verginia
music
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Shekar, fantastic post man, really great to see the effort you put in here. The Raven is one of my favorites, and i myself am a big time fan of Poe. After a deluge of Ghajni posts, it is refreshing to see this kind of post, which celebrates the real passion and joy of movie making. Great job dude, you sure are going to go a long, long way, mark my words.
Shekhar, Amazing work. Reminded me of those days , when instead of Movie Bashing, we used to do really some creative work about our passion for movies, Preety evident that u r still doing the same.
Loved the deatiling and the work ethics.
Thanks PFC Editorial Team,
You guys did great job on layout for my article.
Thanks a lot Ratnakar and SKS for encouragement.
Awesome! Let me revisit this in a few hrs.
Good work, man! I enjoyed the film and a nice write up too. I admire anyone who can make a one-minute film work, as I think it takes a lot of focus. As for the lighting, I guess the duration of the piece means that it goes by before anyone has a problem with it. Oh, and I love the costumes! Very innovative.
smackalicious……whatever that means……Shipmi to Sahi Hai
amazing shekhar bhau ….the hardwork you have put in the raven is tremendous…best of luck for you future films and keep the fire burning…..whenever we meet up the treat is on me ….
“there is no symbolism or metaphor behind it, I just like to put my favorite stuff in the Film here and there”
Way to go!
Question: do you feel when you spread yourself over all these aspects of film making, you do some injustice to those aspects? I mean would it be better, in your view, if you were to just concentrate on the fields you love the most?
I have seen both your films and feel that without understanding the process that went behind them, they tend to look ‘all over the place’ for the uninitiated audience. I hope you understand what I mean.
Not that I want you to change(you won’t do it anyways!), just thought would butt in with an intellectual sounding analysis/comment.
Saw the film again after reading the making, and must say the process is more interesting than the film.
shekhar bhai.. charan kahan hain aapke? i was blown away by “terror at the drive-in” last year.. and just when i thought you couldn’t possibly outdo yourself, you presented “the raven” to us this year.. and that too, with my guru edgar poe-ji. ditto what vasan said.. smackalicious this is. a great tribute to poe, this, and i know somewhere out there he’s smiling.
i’ll be attending poe’s bicentennial celebrations in baltimore, the place where he died. actor john astin will be making an appearance and a performance of the tell-tale heart is in the works, which i plan to attend. i’ll be taking pics of the event and will share them with you offline. needless to say, looking fwd to it.
thanks again for this post. your effort clearly shows, and looking forward to more from you.
Mazaa aa gaya. I have reread your terror in the drive post many times.
Compared to this, apni picture to ekdum tp hai.
Yeich saala difference hai, picture mein thoda jaan dalne ka phir raven jaisa impact aayenga.
Sahi hai bhidu..
I am listening to Alan Parsons Project for years now but never knew about the Poe connection!
Shekhar, a question- When you zoom on to the house in the first shot, do you move the branches a bit(around the 7 sec mark)…like to give the perception of depth…like is it that the branches are on a different layer and have been animated separately…like sort of parallax motion…or is it just a zoom in…like i have seen this sort in many times when they zoom the trees appear to move sideways….dunno whether I am clear..btw very nicely done…..njoy…..
Shekhar, after reading the making the story got more interesting to watch. We would have never came to know on the minute details that you worked on, from the background sound to the collar of the poet…It was also educational for illiterate people like us who have no knowledge on photoshop and editing….
Great Job!
I enjoyed it very much.
Yes Tushar, I agree with you,
It is kind of allover the place,
I was kind of hyper and impatience while doing these films.
@axw11
The Sky, the House and 2 branches on different level,
So altogether there 4 elements.
And I zoom each element with different timing,
Means zooming sky is very less, and I moved those 2 branches little upwards while zooming, to give depth in the scene,
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Same thing goes with scene where you see characters silhouette through the window, walking towards the door. (Branches on the foreground)
I hope you understand what I’m saying.
@Striker
you lucky,attending bicentennial celebrations in baltimore, I’ve joined their online community.
take some photographs man.
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Quoth the Raven “baltiMore”
Thnx Shekhar…got it sort of…need to try :D