I was recently a member of a group called the Ravens. We united our mighty powers of art-making for a short period of time in order to forge a single project entitled “The Cask of Amontillado.” The work was an amalgamation of different fields, inclusive of the singular abilities inherent in each of us: two actors, an illustrator, and a filmmaker.
“Cask” is an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name. In order to grasp the eerie mood and sense of looming doom, we decided on working with a visual piece of poetic imagery rather than purely mainstream cinematic techniques. The initial step was in capturing the foundational elements of the piece: the environment and its players. I was not personally involved in this step, but, by recounting what my partners have told me, it was something similar to this: the illustrator of the piece took the actors into his basement and took still pictures of them with a digital camera. The outfits they wore were their normal clothes, and the location was not dressed for the period in which the story takes place.
Afterwards, the illustrator imported the pictures onto his computer, printed them out, rotoscoped them (i.e. drew over them), and scanned them back onto the computer. With the illustrations, he added hand-drawn costumes and period piece décor.
My contribution began at this point. I had one of the actors meet with me so that I could record her narration (a bit of dialogue from the original short). I also added sound effects (both found and recorded by me) to the images, then cut the shots together in an editing program, forming an aural environment for the project and making sure it flowed smoothly in regards to narrative progression.
The artists I worked with each did a fantastic job, and I believe the Ravens accomplished their objective: to artistically recreate one of Poe’s most chilling short stories.
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