Choosing content

This exercise is about choosing content to produce a simple portrait of the character represented in the following exerpt of text.

The room was void and unquickened; it was like a room in a shop window but larger and emptier; and the middle-aged man who sat at the desk had never thought to impress himself upon what he entered every day. Comfort there was none nor discomfort; only did the occupant deign to qualify the pure neutrality of his surroundings, it would surely be austerity that would emerge. The spring sunshine turned bleak and functional as it passed the plate glass of the tall-uncurtained windows.

The windows were large; the big desk lay islanded in a creeping parallelogram of light; across this and before the eyes of the man sitting motionless passed slantwise and slowly a massive shaft of shadow.

Perhaps twenty times it passed to and fro, as if outside some great joy wheel oscillating idly in the derelict amusement park. And the man rose, clasped hands behind him and walked to a window – high up in New Scotland Yard. He looked out and war-time London lay beneath … on his brow was fixed a contraction; this he carried from desk to window, and now there was neither hardening nore relaxation as he looked out … during 15 years he had controlled the file of police papers which dealt with the abduction and subsequent history of feeble minded girls. Here lay his anger as he looked out over London … year by year the anger had burst deeper until now it was the innermost principle of the man.

Michael Innes Adapted from The Daffodil Affair.

Questions

If this were to be made into a film what would the main character be like?

Male. Middle-aged. Serious. Pensive. Angry. British. Detective.

What clothes would the character be wearing?

Trilby/fedora hat. Suit, shirt, tie. Shoes. Trench coat.

What furniture is in the main area where the action takes place?

Table/ desk. One or more chairs. Maybe a filing cabinet. Very little furniture. Plain, functional furniture from the 1930s/40s.

Collect visual reference material for the items on your list

Textural and visual brainstorming and idea generation

I created a moodboard for the word ‘pensive’. Interestingly this moodboard highlighted quite cold colours, pale blues, greys and brown. I also quite like the idea of incorporating the crumpled paper, or old typed text into the image in order to convey the frustration that I think is present in the text. Maybe using old newsprint to fill in the image with collage, or alternatively as a background.

I used part of an image of paint flaking off a wall for the background and made a rough sketch of the character in front of this. I wanted the character to be shadowy and blend into the background somewhat. I think that it is quite a bleak image of the character staring out of the window down onto wartime London.