The Raven.

 

The filmaker and screenwriter Michael Eaton commisioned me to produce a set of painted sides as illustrations for The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe. These were projected as part of a performance, with a specially commisioned musical score and a sung version of the poem., for the Shots in the Dark film festival in Nottingham.

The slide sequence was projected onto a screen behind the singer. The sequence is a slow zoom in, then out, which illustrates the narrative of the sung poem: the repeated motifs of the raven tap tapping at the door and the repetition of the word "Nevermore". Eventually the narrator within the poem is left broken as the Raven continues to stare down from it's perch on top of the bust of Pallas Athena. The drawn figure is based on a photograph of Poe himself.

I've added the images as a slideshow here and a link to a sequenced version with fades. There's no sound on this version, so I've set it to run in only about half the time of the poem. 

There's a link below to a You Tube film of the sequence.