Analysing My Chosen Character

Analysing My Chosen Character

 The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

My chosen character is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde because they are one person but just different sides, good and evil. 

-Dr Henry Jekyll/Mr Hyde

The good side to this character is the presentable gentlemen Dr Jekyll. In the beginning of the book the audience are led to believe that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are two different people, Dr Jekyll comes across as very prim and proper, an upper class member of society, which is an extremely important part of his character.  He is a very well respected man because of his status and wealth, he has a circle of friends which include Utterson the lawyer, and Lanyon another doctor.

His character starts to change as you continue the story and he starts to act erratically at times. At this point he was experimenting with his ideas of seperating your good and evil side or 'releasing the creature within'. He says that he entered this experiment with pure motives which could be questioned as he also says that he was motivated by dark urges such as ambition, pride and temptation when his first experiment worked, this was the start to Mr Hyde. 

After this, Hyde seems to start to take over the body and mind of Dr Jekyll more often and this persona becomes more dominant as the book goes on. 

After Mr Hyde takes complete control over Dr Jekyll, Stevenson is conveying a very strong message about human nature, which made a lot of people question morality. Does everyone have an evil side to them which could emerge at any point whether you like it or not? 

Stevenson describes Hyde as a creature, which brings us back to the argument between religion and science. Have we evolved from animals or did God create us? And if God created us did he create the evil that could be inside us?

I believe that in Victorian times, society was ruled by religion and law, however it was also greatly affected by wealth, class and which sex you were. In this book, is Stevenson trying to say that despite all our laws, education and breeding we have not evolved from animals but animal urges are still present underneath. 

I think Stevenson is suggesting in this book that every human has this dark side to them and if you let this side even start to tempt you, then it could take over. 

Ageing Special Effects Makeup

Theatrical ageing: The skin on the hands and face.

Equiptment List- 

-Barrier Cream
-Neils Materials Latex
-Old Age Stipple Latex
-Illamasqua Powder 
-Charles Fox Foundation Pallet
-Charles Fox Concealer Pallet 

-Acetone 
-Cotton Buds
-Hair Dryer 

Health & Safety - 

-The first health and safety measure that you need to take into account when working on a model with chemicals like Latex is to make sure you test it on the skin first. The best way to do this is to test the Latex on the inside of the wrist and wait for it to dry and see if there is any reaction on the skin. 

-Another safety measure to protect the skin is to use barrier cream. This works to protect  the skin from the latex.

-Another safety measure is to not put the latex on body hair as it clings to it and hurts when removing.

-Models eyes need to be closed when using the chemicals near the eyes. Need to make sure you tell your model this and wait for the latex to have dried before they can open them again.

-Remove the latex with warm water.

How to apply

-The first step to creating this ageing look is to use 
the barrier cream on the part of the skin that you will be placing the liquid latex on. I decided to start with the skin near the eye, where your temple is. Firstly need to stretch the skin so you can place the latex on the stretched skin.
Next  you need to use a stippling sponge to dip into the latex and then place onto the face. Make sure you put the latex on so its even and also not too thick or will take a while for it to dry and also create a harsh line where it starts and stops. Keep the piece of skin stretched while you dry it with a hair drier. The latex will be white while its wet and then change to clear once it is completely dry.
Once your first layer is dry can then add more on top if you want to make more of a dramatic look. As you add more laters of latex is starts to get quite thick so if you want a more natural look I would suggest 2 or 3 layer of the latex, once you start adding more than that it gets very thick which can sometimes look very fake.
If you have any harsh edges you can use Acetone on a cotton bud to blend away the harsh edges so it blends in with the skin better. After looking back at my images I noticed I should have done that on a bit which started to flake off just at the end of the eyebrow.
After your happy with the results which you can see on the left I done 3 layers of the latex. I then powered it as it has a slightly plastic look to it after its completely dried.
After I had done that I then used some of the Charles Fox Foundation Pallet to make the latex look more realistic, in the photo's I have taken it made it look darker than my models skin but in person it looked fine so need to take that into account that the camera might pick up things the eyes don't see.

I then moved on to doing the latex on the hand which I used a different product which is slightly thicker and got a sort of skin colour tone to it, its called old age stipple which is another form of latex.
First started by stretching the skin out on the back of the hand then adding the latex to the skin using more of a thicker sponge. Then the same process again by drying it with a hair dryer till you loose the tackiness as it doesn't change much in colour. Can use this to create a dry skin look as well by rubbing it slightly.

Over all I loved practising this technique was really interesting to learn how they do it in the film and tv industry as I have never done anything like this before. I was extremely happy with my outcome from using this product, to improve next time I think I need to be more careful around the edges of the latex as I think they could have been tidied up using more Acetone. I think this is a technique that I will defiantly be using in my final assignment.

Mood Board Based On Character

Mood Board Based On Chosen Character

I created a mood board which shows images which link to my chosen character. By using visual images on my mood board I wanted to create a mood and feeling of the personality and appearance of my chosen character from the book Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

I presented my mood board to the class as well as talking through about some of the ideas I had, talking a bit about the book its self and some of the main characters and going into a bit more depth of my chosen character which is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as they are one person.

I started talking about some of points I found really interesting about the book and that was the description Mr Hyde about how they say he's deformed and doesn't look normal. This is really interesting because in Victorian times they didn't understand deformities and people with disabilities they just thought there was something wrong with them and didn't quite understand, when now we wouldn't bat an eye lid at someone that had deformities or had a disability but thats because we understand them now. This is another of my ideas that I could start researching into is deformities.

I also discussed other ideas I had which were going down the route of a human being possessed by something evil or to do with Satan. I really liked the sound of this idea as I think there is a lot I can work with by going down this route and also I'm really interested in spooky, creepy stuff like being possessed. I think it links to the book really well because Mr Hyde starts to take over the body of Dr Jekyll because Dr Jekyll cant seem to control the changing of personality after a while and manages to take over the body completely. This is the same thing that happens when a human gets possessed because something evil is taking over the body. I think this could be really fun and effective way to play with special effects. 

Gothic Horror - The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Gothic Horror 

For the next term of uni we will be studying the unit of Gothic Horror. For the first part of the research for the unit Gothic Horror we had a choice between a few books which were gothic horror novels.

The book I have chosen to use as a base to this unit is called The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. I read the summery of this book and it seemed exactly the type of book I would normally read, something with a bit of mystery, crime and horror.

We were also to whilst reading the book choose a character that draws our attention, while reading the book The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson my attention was taken by the Character called Mr Hyde, who I have decided to base this research on his character. 

Throughout reading the book i gathered a few quotes which describe Mr Hyde's appearance- 

Mr. Enfield - "There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable."

Mr. Enfield -"He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary-looking man"

Mr. Utterson - "he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice"

Mr. Utterson- "the man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say?"

Mr. Utterson-  "if ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend."

"must have secrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him;”

“Haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.”

"Did i ever tell you that i once saw him, and shared you're feeling of repulsion"

"is a tall fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf" 

These are a few of the quotes from the beginning of the book which is ways that the characters described Mr Hyde to look like. They repeat over and over again the word "Creature". "The creature was so doubled up" page 41. They mention creature throughout the book to describe Mr Hyde. Victorians saw animals as beneath them, saw them as dirty creatures, they use this description to create imagery of Mr Hyde and how it could look almost animal like. There is also another quote quite far towards the end which relates Mr Hyde as ape like, this comment in the book is quite interesting because when Robert Louis Stevenson was 9 Charles Darwin wrote a book which questioned religion and said how we have evolved from animals throughout the years. This made many people question religion and most people felt like they had to choose between the two. So maybe Stevenson was questioning if science was the creation of animals/creatures not religion and this was a part to the story that isn't made as obvious.

Hyde is also described to be "dwarfish" but young this might have also been an attraction from Dr Jekyll's behalf because he might have felt more alive and young as Mr Hyde.

There is one thing that I find slightly strange about the description of Hyde in the book is that there is no specific feature about him that mades his appearance horrifying. For example there are a lot of quotes above and throughout the book which explain Mr Hyde as unpleasant and when people see him they are in discuss but never see a word that actually describes exactly what he looks like. Its as if there is something about his presents that emotionally affects people.

Another thing I learnt about Mr Hyde is that he has no guilt for anything that he does or any of the crimes he commits. He's emotionally unconnected in a way and I think this also links back to the animal like because when a lion kills his pray they don't feel guilty for killing because it's to survive but the difference between Hyde and an animal is that he kills because he cannot because its in order to survive. 

At the beginning of the book, Dr Jekyll liked and enjoyed being Hyde, giving in to his urges and evil side. Then in the end it changes to Dr Jekyll trying to fight off the beat within him but Hyde started to take over Dr Jekyll. Stevenson is trying to point out the every human has a bad and good side but the choice is yours if you decide to let the evil out or not.