About Joanna Blonski Production Designer
Beat Eight: Writing Room 3
Guests travel through their journalist's office where frantic pages, notes, and drawings are spilling out of the type writer. In a lighting based effect, projections of a mythical language and a symbol of the Creature flash over the walls, adding to the feeling like the guest/journalist is losing their mind. The idea for this room is to feel like the pages and words are consuming the guest as they struggle to unravel the mystery behind the creature. The projections will flash in a strobing lightning effect as guests walk through before going dark again.
Beat One: The Alley
Guests venture down a dark alley in the slums of London, and witness the shadow of a hulking figure tearing into their victim at the end of the street. To avoid being the Creature's next victim, guests duck into a seedy pub. This space is meant to make guests feel claustrophobic as they journey down the dark alley, as if the walls are closing in on them and they have no choice but to move towards the monster.
Beat Three: Writing Room Sans Projections
This is a view of the writing room without the projections on, the dark to bright creates a sharp contrast that disorients the guests as they travel through the room.
Beat Ten: Portal Room
Guests travel through the sewers underneath London until they arrive at a portal to the Creature's dimension. They are beaconed forward by the ethereal light, but to get there, guests must make it through the remains of the Creature's victims lining the sewers. For this scene, I really wanted to bring the blood and gore to the max as this is nearing the climax of the story. Guests are meant to be grossed out by the bodily remains but intrigued by the glowing portal drawing them into the next room.
Character and Creature Design
Developing the Creature
Initial Sketches
Initial Sketches
The Creature went through a lot of different phases as we nailed down our story and tried to figure out what exactly he was. The challenge was creating something humanoid that could be mistaken for a human, but was grotesque and scary enough to awe our guests. I worked a lot with the team leader and writer to create a monster that that was otherworldly and terrifying while ensuring a human actor could still wear the costume and portray the character.
Line Art
Initial Sketches
The creature's design is inspired by the author H.P Lovecraft's monsters. He has sea creature elements like the milky white eyes and translucent blue scales embedded in his skin, as well as insect features like the mandibles that open in his mouth to devour his victims. We wanted to create a creature that looked sentient but also animalistic; he's ripping apart his victims, but he has a purpose and awareness.
Full Rendering
Full Rendering
For the final rendering, I chose to keep the color palette fairly muted, fitting in with the grim gray look of victorian London. But, his otherworldliness is depicted via the blue scales and glowing cracks in his skin, almost like destructive power is leaking from his body.