Elena Grossi - Visual Development Portfolio 2022

Elena Grossi

Portfolio 2022

Character Design / Visual Development

the Project

This project imagines the possible life on set during the creation of the movies of 1900 French cinematographer Georges Méliès.

Méliès is one of the fathers of cinema and special effects. His masterpiece is ‘Voyage Dans la Lune’, which portrays a dream-like scientific expedition to the Moon. Former illusionist and engineer, Méliès used innovative techniques, costumes and sceneries to represent vibrant and magical adventures.

Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès is the main character of this story. He is a rel-life movie director and the creative mind behind the movie ‘Voyage sur la Lune’. He is eclectic and visionary. His design is based on star shapes and purple-golden colours.

As a tribute to his other short movie ‘The Four Troublesome Heads’, in this project Méliès sees magical projections of his own heads, with whom he discusses the best ideas for his movies.

Méliès - EXPRESSIONS

Méliès - Gestures

Méliès - Turnaround

Méliès - Costumes

Jeanne D’Alcy

Jeanne - HEAD TURNAROUND

Jeanne D’Alcy is Méliès’s wife, muse and the main actress in many of his movies. She was often presented as an ethereal, romantic and diaphanous character. In ‘Voyage Dans la Lune’ she appears in a dream sequence to the scientists landed on the Moon. In the vision, she stands on a half-moon set prop.

We imagined Jeanne as a two-sided character, as magical on stage as conventional and practical in real life, in contrast to the head-in-theclouds nature of her husband.

Jeanne-Turnaround

Jeanne-Costumes

Mirane - EXPRESSIONS

Mirane

Mirane is a character made-up for this project. She is inspired by another eighteenthcentury masterpiece, Winsor McCay’s comics’ character Little Nemo, a boy living every night a new surreal dream adventure.

Mirane is a handygirl helping on set, and - as Little Nemo - she has vivid dreams at night. During the day, she is impressed by the magic atmosphere created in Méliès’s movies, which she reimagines while she dreams. This way, she also serves the role of Méliès’s creative help when he runs out of ideas.

Rouillé

Rouillé (French word for ‘rusty’) is a stray dog that has been adopted by the film crew. He always follows Mirane.

Rouillé - EARLY SKETCHES

Rouillé - GESTURES

Characters-Interactions

the Stage

The stage is where all the magic happens, and each character has a different relationship to it. During the day props get scattered around - cameras, stage lights, costumes, background paintings - and the set gets ‘dressed up’ in preparation for the film. Two rails allow for wooden panels to create a variety of layered backgrounds.

At night, the stage has a special role for Mirane’s character. As a tribute to Windsor McCay’s Little Nemo, the story features a dream scene where Mirane’s bed walks around a never-ending extension of the stage.

Mirane’s dream

Stage3D Blender modeling

Stage Design

Stage - Different Set-ups

Stage Lighting

Story moments

Mirane meets Jeanne.

The creative process. Tribute to the short movie ‘The Four Troublesome Heads’.

Key Frames

For the story, it was important to represent the main ctaracters working on set, and their different roles and attitudes.

Other Projects

COUP

These characters are related to the circus show ‘LeCoup’ by Australian company Chelsea McGuffin &Co, performing at circus, theatre and art festivals. This project is designed to be a comic book or animated video.

the king cross-dressing barry sally the alley cat

the ugly hungarian the sisterless twin LE

‘CANEBABBUINO’ is an Italian science communication channel which delivers content on physics, mathematics and human sciences. It was created by three phicisists and a social media expert. It presents its content on Twitch, Youtube and social media, and it’s currently a comic book series in development. I designed their mascottes and comics project, and I make explanatory drawings during the livestreams.

MATTEO GIORGIA

davide elena angelo

(dog-baboon)

Karma, good and old

This is a graphic novel project with dark tones. Set between the World Wars, it talks about the meeting of two women (one a cryptographer, one a nurse) with very different values and outlooks on life, who find themselves stuck in a surreal forest where things change looks and are never as they seem. In the forest, they find a wounded enemy soldier and they are faced with choices about healing, independence and freedom, without managing to reconcile their different points of view until the end.

Character Sketches

Life Drawing and Digital Painting