Wednesday 16 January 2013

Adaptation: First Ideas

For this unit I want to head in the direction of digital set design for film or possibly game based off a book.

I've got six novels from the author Alastair Reynolds, who writes epic space opera's, comprising the series of Revelation Space. The series is highly detailed in descriptive literature and there's an appearance of a variety of vivid scenes through out all of the books. 
The overall theme of Revelation Space is quite dark and full of perverse views on humanity so my target age would aim for 18+.


One of the main sites revisited often within the Revelation universe is Chasm City located on the planet Yellowstone, a metropolis that was once considered the Belle Epoque of humanities thriving technological advancement and a golden age of economical and social governance. However the city's bright future was destroyed once the Melding Plague arrived on the planet.

"At the time of the plague's manifestation our society was supersaturated by trillions of tiny machines. They were our unthinking, uncomplaining servants, givers of life and shapers of matter, and yet we barely gave them a moment's thought."

"Machines made Chasm City what it was; shaping its amorphous architecture towards a fabulous and phantasmagoric beauty.
All that is gone."

"...the plague went beyond mere destruction, into a realm much closer to artistry, albeit an artistry of a uniquely perverted and sadistic kind. It caused our machines to evolve uncontrollably - out of our control, at least - seeking bizarre new symbioses. Our buildings turned into Gothic nightmares, trapping us before we could escape their lethal transformations.
.......When we buried the dead they kept growing, spreading together, fusing with the city's architecture."

-from Alastair Reynold's Chasm City (pg. 3-4)

Since this book has no adaptation in film or game apart from a sparingly few pieces of fan art I really want to create the city the way I envision it from Reynold's descriptions. 

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