Commentary

I have decided to start this by selecting a piece of content – a text that will generate a process of exploration of how different visual systems can be layered to construct a new adapted form of an original story. As I am interested in exploring the effect of motion and light on type forms – I have planned to create 5-6 ten-second sequences that would function as teasers for Ellroy’s novel “The Black Dahlia”. I selected this novel for numerous reasons – Ellroy’s writing style, multiple plot lines, the era (1947), the location (Los Angeles), and the fact that the novel is based around a true event, the infamous murder of Elizabeth Short.

I plan to build three versions of these 5-6 sequences – each one relying on one visual form to recreate some aspect of the original novel. This allows me to try out different levels of adaptation, moving from highly abstracted forms to communicate information/content, to more literal forms. These letterpress studies were the start of creating the literal alphabet that will be used to construct the skeletal narrative of the sequence. That is, the opening quote Ellroy uses to begin his novel:

“Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator, my first lost keeper, to love or look at later.”
- Anne Sexton

This line of poetry will be broken up over the 5-6 sequences – function both as image and text, it has to be read but also create the viewing plane.