I spent the whole day here armed with a camera and a video phone taking as many reference shots and videos as I could. What was great about physically visiting the place was that I started to get inspired ideas for interesting shots and angles immediately. I could get in there with the camera and capture that angle or video the path I wanted the feather to take through the leaves and this would ultimately give me perfect, bespoke reference images and videos for my sequence when it came to draw them.
Walking around this room, one of the nicest things I noticed were these iron columns and supports that not only held the place up but also were intertwined with the overgrown natural elements of the room. I thought this integration was lovely and definitely something I wanted in my film. The vines and leaves that had stretched their way around the man made columns were fantastic and so visually interesting. I also loved the natural damage and corrosion that had occurred, the damp atmosphere had caused rust and wear to the iron that I feel looked ironically beautiful and I’m definitely keen to give this same effect to my greenhouse environment.
Another thing I liked here was this idea of the manmade structures fighting to hold the wildly growing nature back and keep order to its chaos. This photo of the railing captures the physical rail being a barrier to stop the natural plants and trees behind it taking over and almost fencing them in. It is also reflected in the contrast between the stark clean white of the railing and the muddled shades of nature behind it. I thought this picture had a hint of poignancy to it and that metaphor is something I would like to hint at in my film.
I also loved these delicate flowers which almost looked like they were dead but for the nice shapes of the outward bloom and the curly trails at the end of the petals. I want to fill this greenhouse with these kinds of interesting variety of unusual and exotic flowers.
This was a different room. This had a much lighter feel to it that was not so much overgrown and oversized. There were more lovely little delicate flowering shrubs carefully dotted around in flowerbeds. I want this nurtured kind of arrangement to appear in my greenhouse as I had the idea to have a gardener character in the scene who tended it. I want her to love nature enough to allow it to grow freely but at the same time she is still a human who strives to control and structure and I think having these smaller dotted around, neater kept flower beds will reflect this nicely
I took some long shots of the room because I wanted to get a good sense of the scale of this place in the reference and also incorporate this into my designs. What I loved about these is those great arched windows not only were a really interesting and appealing shape but also how they distorted really nicely with the perspective and would be a really perfect choice for the outside windows of my greenhouse. Another really nice point is that because this place would be an aviary as well in my sequence, the very shape of those frames mirror classic birdcages and I think that would really tie my design together nicely.
Out in the gardens of the greenhouse I found this really nice old fashioned Victorian band stand hidden away. I couldn’t resist getting some photos of it as it had a really nice octagon structure but I really loved the way that it mirrored the actual greenhouse with its details ironwork around the bottom and the white frames and even the panelled glasswork windows. I thought it had a really nice charm and I wanted to use it to craft a grand birdcage that the main bird would inhabit. I think trying to mirror the greenhouse in the cage like this bandstand does might be a really nice touch.
Through a mixture of my own knowledge and research done previously, I knew that Victorians were heavily into keeping and importing exotic animals and keeping them to show others that they were wealthy and important. The more exotic and rare the animal the more important and wealthy you were. I want to give across the sense that this greenhouse is owned by some wealthy Victorian who has all these exotic plants and birds as a show of his grandeur. Yet the real character of the greenhouse is a gardener who is perhaps employed to keep it maintained as this lord/lady of the greenhouse doesn’t actually care about the animals or the plants but only has them as a folly for the sake of it.
This aviary had a huge range of really exotic birds which were perfect for this idea and I tried to capture as many reference shots as possible. What was difficult was capturing them in a way so as to show all the vibrant colours and exquisite plumage and feather design of these birds that would make for really great designs.
Seeing this Aviary has made me realise it would be valuable to do a lot more visual research into birds for my film. I took down all the names on the side of the cages of the different species for further reference. Seeing the way the birds moved and flew around, I feel I need to study some good reference videos in order to make my own animation more accurate and appealing.
