Writing in Colour – Vessel Colour Script

Posted by on Apr 14, 2014 in LoVR, Vessel | No Comments

There are many ways to tell a story. The most obvious way is with words. The classic cliche of a campfire tale springs to mind when I think about story telling. But, it’s actually telling stories by other methods that has excited me for many years.

Loetzinn, back in 2004 was my first proper attempt of telling a story without words. It’s simple, but stripping it back to it’s most basic story elements removes all of the unnecessary complications that can come along with language and focusses on what’s important. Just like watching people in the street from a coffee shop window, it’s possible to understand a story without any words. So how far can you get away from the words? What are the other things we can use to tell the story? Will it still make sense? Does that even matter?… Is it possible to tell a story on a subconscious level, without even knowing really what is happening, can a story be impressed on someones psyche? That sounds like some next level shit but this sort of thing (subconscious impressioning) happens to us continuously and maybe it’s not such a huge leap to choreograph a number of subconscious triggers to leave a story in someones heart. Or is that pure nonsense. … It probably is. Or is it?

A Love Story.

With Words: The first time I saw her. I saw her and time stretched out in front of me like a fine nylon string. A single moment in time that lasted minutes. I saw her coral red lips. I watched her long lashes brush against her peach blushed cheeks. Her eyes, that felt so close, were locked to mine. And the moment stretched out into the future of everything. The first time I saw her was instant and infinite.

With Music: A monks bell rings out with endless resonance forming a single note that flows unchanged throughout the story. Soft low piano key arpeggios phase in swells and the high keys flutter in with a beautiful melody. Several violins draw out long notes leading up to the pitch of the monks bell. Reversed reverberated crystals twinkle in the background as all the separate instruments form into one continuous sustained note.

With Wind: A blustery wind defines life before. A busy turmoil. The moment he sees her the air freezes. The branches of trees seen in bullet-time. Ripples of wind flow over her dress like distant rolling ocean waves.

With Colour: It began with soft shades of green. Greens that rest upon the eye without vibration. But then a deep and vivid red bursts into view, saturating every corner of his mind. It explodes into a plethora of colours, neon pink, electric blue, sunflower yellow. Piercingly bright and dancing, changing.

The story of vessel is told primarily with text, and I don’t think it would be the same without it. But the text is carried with music and colour and movement and form and a myriad of other things that push and pull the emotional connection the words have on the viewer. Just capitalising words make you say them BIGGER inside your mind. And when colour is added to the equation they can also take on a different meaning. As well as writing a text based script for vessel, I’ve been continuously refining the colour script that runs alongside it.

ChromaScript 09

This script is a visual timeline that runs from left to right. It shows the chapter markers for the important moments in the story and what colours will be used within those chapters to tell the story. The changes in colour will also be affected by the amount of colour that is used, so even though the moment when he looks into her eyes will carry a similar vibrance and variation to the moment she returns his gaze, the amount of colour that will be visible in the earlier chapter will be much less, so the affect of the later chapter moment will be much stronger. There are also some impossible colours that will be introduced to add to the intensity of the experience. These will only really be visible in the stereoscopic version as the colour will vary between the left and the right eyes creating a phenomenon where new colours are formed in the brain.

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