And I’m All Out of Bubble Gum

This is a quick note about the diorama after the next one. I will be working furiously over the next week or two to get a Tetris diorama up for an event honoring Italy’s own Nintendo Tetris World Champion. I’ll have more to say about that diorama shortly, but first let me plant the seed for another one my friend Mattia suggested a while back, a shot from John Carpenter’s They Live (that’ll be the second diorama honoring Carpenter for any fans keeping score out there).

Shot from John Carpenter’s They Live

The above shot was the one Mattia and I both agreed would make the most sense. We’ll use cardboard or foam core to build out the cityscape and employ the same kind of perspective that worked so well for The Shining and Halloween. The one piece I wanted to take care of right away was shifting the shot so it’s head on—helping to simplify things a bit. To that end, Tommaso did a quick treatment that centered the shot and also highlighted the various values of the buildings so we can can get a sense of the composition and depth needed to bring this scene to life. Gotta say, loving that Tommy can spin this up for me in a quick afternoon so we can immediately get a sense of what it might look like head-on.

Tommaso’s treatment of the scene that center’s the road and provides a sense of the various grays we will need for the buildings, sky and road.

They Live Trump Poster

I’m not sure what to expect with this scene. Building out a cityscape is exciting, but the fact that it is gray scaled means we’ll have to nail a bunch of different shapes, not to mention the various details of the buildings. It’s gonna be a challenge, but I have to say that’s welcome. hell, that’s the very reason I created this whole diorama thing in the first place. it means the dream is coming alive. It Lives!

Also worth noting is that the city scene will only take up the bottom half of the diorama (about 65-70 cm in height), the top will have posterized scenes from the film. This will be a nod to the pop cultural adoption of this film as street art. Front and center will be a poster featuring some version of the idiot-in-chief, like the one to the right. The others on either side could be something like Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David adjusting their glasses and across from them two aliens calling for reinforcements on their watch phones (that’s Mattia’s idea, and I love it).

So, in short, the city scene above will be the base of the diorama and the various signs/posters will highlight the imagery of the film that has continued to give it so much cultural resonance. It might even make sense to have Tommy and his friends spray paint the various scenes.

Anyway, this is a first pass at explaining the forthcoming They Live diorama, but now I have to backtrack and get ready for some Tetris on the NES.