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Personal Project - Character Design, Prop Design, Environment Design (2023)
Within the world of All Across Time, there are three main environments and time periods we are focusing on. As this is a historical-fantasy setting, this has to have basis in our real history, design, shape language, and colors, to know where we can exclude things, include things, or exaggerate things. This means heavy research into the clothing of the time for Alma and Claude, what buildings did and didn’t exist in downtown Chicago, the shape language and types of cars in the 1990’s (early 90’s vs late 90’s), as well as smaller things like prop design and set dressing. All of this had to be researched, as some things, such as the famous Bean (Cloud Gate) did not exist until 2004. With other modern buildings, such as the wavy skyscrapers or all glass skyscrapers along the Chicago river, it is important to note they weren’t built until the 2000’s, so that shape language and actual building cannot exist yet.
Next, for set dressing, a lot of research had to be done for car design. As the beginning of the story takes place and features two types of cars, the taxi and the cop car, this needed to be researched well. First was the shape language of the car, which, I decided to go with an early 90’s style, where cars were long, angular, and boxy, versus the late 90’s into early 2000’s, where cars were curved and “bubbled”. This angular look fits into the style I am going for, where everything is vibrant, angular, and sharp. This also helps contrast the shape language of later eras. For signage, logos, and other street designs, like banners, lights, and newsstands, a lot of it has similar designs to today- with more retro, boxy, or sharp angled text, that I have to keep in mind moving forward. Cars and busses in the background also needed to follow this design language to keep it in the historical setting.
I also did some drawings of things the characters would have on them. Their cigarettes, Claude's gun, and the things that Claude steals from the Art Museum.
After Claude and Alma dies, Claude ends up in several time periods. The first I chose to explore was the 1920s of Chicago. This required a lot of research in not only the fashion of the time (accessories, jewelry and clothing of both men and women), but also the decor, environments, and feel of that time. Since the main setting of the 1920’s is not going to be outdoors, most of the exploration is in the speakeasy. What sort of clothing did the characters wear, as well as what did the inside of a speakeasy look like? As the exterior wasn’t super important — as it was mostly hidden in basements or normal shops at night. It was often hidden with a secret code or through referral to find such a place during the prohibition. Not to mention at its peak, there was a speakeasy for every hundred people in Chicago.
While I did want to also explore other important historical events during the 1920s, such as Al-Capone, gang violence, and the taxi wars, that would be too much to add into a short film. In quick cuts, in the BG outside the speakeasy, these events may affect it, but most of the design work for this phase was not that.
Alma, a witty tactician who is the mastermind of operations. A young, lanky woman who is often a person of few words, but expresses her adoration and mild obsession with Claude through physical display. She often is quick to assess a situation and figure out the best way to solve it, however caves quickly when she cannot figure out the solution.
Alma grew up in a small town outside of Texas to large family, with seven other brothers and sisters. As the second youngest, she learned to become more quiet and reserved as to not annoy her overworked mother with any meaningless requests. Because of this, she became skilled at many odd jobs, skills, and learned to fend for herself inside the small town, often stealing food and small trinkets to survive. As she grew older and her mother grew frailer, she wanted to leave the confines of her home, and went to the nearest big town to her. Although this was no metropolis, it was bigger than her two hundred person town. There she worked odd jobs, from making cleaning products for local stores, to security guard for a small shop, a car mechanic, to her final stunt as a local truck driver.
From all her time working throughout the town, she realized there was more to the world than just the small town and took what she had to the big town, ending up in Dallas, where she found the cost of living to be too high for her meager salary as a truck driver. There, she began to pocket extra “supply” from where she would pick up cargo. She learned how easy it was to transport illegal drugs and alcohol across the boarders in her truck. Eventually, she met Claude, a moll of her boss, where they decided to get out of the drug trade and into something they deemed safer - bank robberies. Now they’re on the run from both their drug trade bosses and the police.
As the beginning part of the story starts off in the 1990’s, I had to do a lot of research about it. What would they wear? What was common accessories — and what would what their disguises be? College students? Regular people? For this, I looked at old consumer magazines (Sears), historical photos, newspaper advertisements, and catalogues. This was to assure this was not copying a movie or other people’s research, but instead see what was marketed to the average person and then work from there. As Claude is in disguise, she needed to look like an average college student.
Since Claude is really our only character for a majority of the story, a lot of my time was deciding her outfits, and then finalizing her turnarounds. Since she goes through a lot of time periods (1990, 1920, 1893, and 1870), she had at least four turn arounds, which quickly turned into more once she had layers added onto her clothing. A lot of research went into what clothing people would be wearing at each of these time periods to know what I could and couldn’t dress her in. I also wanted to keep her colors similar so we could always track her— no matter what time period she ended up in.
I had a lot of trouble figuring out which direction I wanted to go with Claude. What worked best with her personality, her chaotic energy, and I could express well with. I didn’t want her to be too flashy, as it would distract from the story — which is more dramatic and serious in nature.
