Secondary research - Edward Curtis
One of the biggest influences on the character design I have is the early 1900's late 1800's North American photographer, Edward S. Curtis. When I first thought that I wanted to do an animation on the Native American peoples, I knew I would need some source of imagery that can depict their appearance and culture. This is where my research lead me to Curtis. His photography captures a beautiful moment in time. The images for me, are almost surreal, they give off such a strong presence. This is what I thought would work great to take character inspiration from. One of my goals with this project that I mentioned in the project proposal was "visual storytelling" which means I want to be able to tell most of the story, through what you see. His images sport whats called a "sepia tone", which gives it an adventurous feel.
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Lets take a look at some of his images and I will talk about what kind of visual storytelling I can get from them.
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Immediately for me, what I notice is the sepia tone. Firstly this tells you that the Image is probably stylised or taken on an old camera. In this case it is the later. With the character details I then notice what he is wearing. He seems well dressed. Rather well groomed. This would tell you he is a well kept man, probably from a wealthy family. Notice this is one of Edwards photos but it isn't of a native american. This means it is probably someone from European heritage. The look that the man gives to the camera, still calm expression with a soft stare would tell you he is relaxed; possibly even inferring that he's welcoming and polite, but also timid or shy.
I also get a sense of "youthful hope", he seems eager to explore or go on an adventure maybe.
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This I saw all in one, old fashioned sepia toned image. The reason I am including this image of a non native american; despite those images being what I want to take design inspirations. Its because I then found out that this is actually a self portrait image that Curtis, took of himself.
What this meant when I found this out, was that I could find out if the visual storytelling I personally saw was actually correct.
Reading an article that explains some of Curtis's motivations behind the photography, gave a good insight into this. The article was written from a documentary that was made about Curtis's life. The documentary is called "Shadow Catcher", which was the name some of the natives gave to him.
According to the documentary Curtis was quoted as capturing "The Beauty", in the way of life that these natives had. He knew their culture was limited and thought assimilation was inevitable. And he was right. Many of these traditions are not practised today, they are forgotten as laws were made for natives to stop practices and so the tradition died with the Elders that never got to teach them to the next generations. And that is what Curtis, tried to preserve with his photography.
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In that one self portrait, you can't tell his life story obviously. But what you can see, is his character. My initial thoughts were not too dis similar to who Curtis actually was. Which is amazing considering it is just a still picture.
This photo, is a native american woman. Without knowing her backstory, you can already get a lot of character from this image, and Curtis obviously knew this. First of all she is old, indicating she is probably important to her tribe. She has a stern ,unimpressed expression that appears as if she holds resentment for something. I also notice the more humble clothing. Many other of Curtis's images include extravagant outfits, but here this lady has a bandanna, perhaps she has been working?
Well this is a bit more tough. This is actually a chieftain of a tribe. She had been collecting clams all day, and she was happy to be paid for her photograph taken. I certainly don't get the impression that she's happy.
But this is a good example of how her character overshadows her situation.
She is a chieftain of a struggling tribe, traditions are slowly fading and the city of Seattle had been built upon her tribes original native land. And that is what Curtis was capturing. Not that she was happy to have her picture taken, or because she was a chieftain, but he could see the pressure and struggle in her that the Americans had caused.