Lazarus Rising “Dead Inside. Rise” Production Artwork. ©2012 Artwork by Dulani WIilson. All Rights Reserved
This was the first image I dedicated to paper after writing Lazarus Rising. When I was sketching it out, I wanted to show the image of the soldier, with gas mask, in this no mans-land. But as a first image I wanted to create something striking. To do a WS, much detail would be lost and with a gas mask, it is hard to create an image that instantly stands out as, of course, all facial features and expressions are covered.
Then I thought, Lazarus Rising being a zombie flick, what stands out the most on these ghoulish creatures? From 28 Days Later (2002) to that episode on the highway and the earlier episode with Marv and the undead in the stairwell - Walking Dead (2010) the striking thing is those wide, scary, souless eyes. So I incorporated that with the gas mask image and it worked perfectly. The embers, smoke also added a sense of ethereal, base animality to the image which I quite liked.
The manufactured design of the gas mask, mirroring the contours of the face, taking into consideration its use, took on a whole new meaning when you consider how similar the mask is to the human skull. And the evolutionary reason why we would fear such things is the only time we see skeletons is when something is dead or dying, and the initial fear that brings when our own survival is put to the test.
In the end, after playing with the image in photoshop, adding light and texture, the end result also helped me focus on how I wanted the final film edit to look like in terms of colour grading.
Frankenstein has no idea on how to really bring dead things to life. I should know. I am an animator afterall.
#deadinsideRISE,
Dulani
