What If?

Metropolis
Online Greenlight Review
Part 1
Sky

What If? Metropolis

Artist Research
Louise Bourgeois (19112010) was a French-American sculptor,
painter and printmaker. Her work was highly symbolic and often
dealt with the unconscious, sexuality and mortality. Bourgeois
used her experiences in her lifetime to create her various
sculptures, often using a lot of abstract forms to create her surreal
and sometimes disturbing artwork.
Spiral Woman (2003)

Fort (Night Garden) (1953)

Femme Volage (Fickle

Woman) (1951)

Maman (1999)

What If? Metropolis

Artist Research

What If? Metropolis

Cerveau Travelogue
Eery, strange and whimsical. The city of Cerveau lures you in, mesmerising you with its surreal
atmosphere the moment you set foot onto its cold, marble slabs. You blink a few times to clear
your vision but no matter how many times you blink, the strange vision will not disappear. You
have no memory of how you travelled here. You slowly but cautiously make your way down the
marble path, empty space all around you, you focus straight-ahead, at the figure of an oval
structure further down the path. As you approach it, you realise the oval structure is the exact
replica of a human brain, but magnified at a huge scale. As you inspect it closer, you notice
that the wrinkled surface gives it the appearance of a walnut, except it has a sickly-pale pinkish
colour and it is glistening with moisture. You circle around it, looking for something - perhaps a
door? As you do this, you cannot help but hear chattering coming from inside of the brain. You
bring your ear closer to it and as you do, low, flat tones reach your ears. You find this baffling,
although you become more and more intrigued.
The atmosphere is making you feel dizzy, you are extremely perplexed. Suddenly, you find a
small door floating to your right. It is made of wood, and extremely old and gnarled and you
realise that moss is growing on some parts of it, leaving bright green marks on the wood. You
look for a doorknob, there is none so you gently push against the door and it gives way. You
climb in but it is dark and you cannot see much except for a faint light shining all the way at the
bottom. Before you can think about this, you are pushed down a long, giant slide. As you slide
down you see glimpses of ghostly figures, but they disappear in the blink of an eye.

As you reach the bottom of the slide, you see a great big building in the shape of an octagon
with two triangular shapes jutting out from the bottom of it, resembling legs and two thin,
spindly arms pointing upwards in a ninety degree angle. Upon closer inspection, you notice the
shape has spider web like pattern and a giant blinking eye in the centre of it. You begin to circle
the octagonal building and examine the structure more closely. The structure itself appears
perfectly shaped however, on closer inspection, you notice the contour of the building to be
imperfect. As you continue moving about the outside of the structure, you notice the eye in the
centre of the building moving each way you move as if watching and observing you. You shout
at it for a reply, but it does not answer nor change in a way you could understand to be a
reaction. As you focus away from the building, you see behind the structure, in the sky, many
eyes.
The sky itself, you find, has a deep blue colour but is overlaid with differing colours that
randomly shift in hue. Stretching across the sky you see a faint, flat web like structure, the only
features that stand out are the large eyes. Each eye being slightly different in shape and colour,
but still has the same endless glare as the central building. As you observe them to see if they
follow you, you find that they do not move at all, as if your too far away to see or perhaps they
serve a different function other then watching their surroundings. Passing in front of the eyes
you see ghost-like beings flying across the sky. From this distance you cannot see them clearly
only hear a quiet chattering emanating from the figures. You make out however, that they are
flying with their hands forward, they have no legs only tails that spiral from their central body.
You move away from the central structure, still with its looming eye staring at you and make
your way to the smaller structures surrounding the central building.

As you walk upon one of the smaller buildings you notice at first glance that it seems to be
made out of some web-like material, forming into what looks like a beehive with a bluish hint.
Large tendons of webbing spread out from the structure near the ground which seem to
keep it standing as the building itself juts out and enlarges in certain sections. The tendons
themselves seem to connect to other structures that stand across the city not just at the base
but in the sky as well; large tendons of webbing connecting all the structures except the
central building. As you look up at the building in front of you, you notice just like in the
previous building an ever watching eye exists in the central section of the building, always
keeping a steady gaze as you walk closer to the structure. In front of the building there lays a
staircase of the same material leading to some sort of entrance.
As you get closer you begin to hear chattering. Too subtle to be actual talking but it strikes
you as if there could be someone to talk to. After reaching the top of the stairs you peer into
the small opening finding the source of the chattering, seeing ethereal-like human forms
floating about the inside. They seem to not notice you nor each other as they seemingly
wander inside the building. The building's interior appears to be a maze, with many doors
and many paths leading to seemingly impossible lengths as they outstretch the outside
geometry of the building. The architecture you notice, has a certain flow to it that seems
aesthetically pleasing to look at. The ghost-like figures seem to pass down the halls and up
the narrow stairs to different rooms. You look at their faces, which to your shock have no
mouths and have only one eye however are still able to make noises as you continue to hear
the quiet chatter among them. Each however you notice experiencing different emotion and
different states of being as you notice some chatter to be more aggressive then others and
some to be quiet and calmer. The chattering seems to be not directed at each other but to
themselves, as to what they are mumbling, you cannot ascertain. Inside the rooms you notice
there being familiar objects that remind you of a home. Shelving, books, a bed all appear to
be laid about in random patterns. Peering into the room, you notice it has a strange orange
hue to it making you feel calm and at ease. The ghostly figures who inhabit these rooms also
appear to be at ease and are more quiet then the ones wandering the halls.

You take your eyes away from the beehive-like building, to observe what looks like trees of a
kind of nature. The trees themselves, however, do not have naturalist designs - the shapes
are geometric. They have rectangles, triangles and differing polygons straying about a
cylindrical shape which can only be described as the trunk. The colour of the polygons that
form the bush are green with hints of orange and the trunk is a familiar brown. The ground at
which the tree like structure stands you find what looks like dirt in colour and smell, but
looking more closely you find the dirt to be made of paper mache. Looking closely, you find
the trees material cannot be deceived, you find the closer you look the more it seemingly
becomes blurry as if fading out of existence. The more you stare at the tree in trying to
understand it, the more nauseous you feel, so you turn away from the tree to explore more of
the city.
There is another building that stands out across from the central building that you had not
noticed before. It stands the same height as the the central building, however, it is made of
the same beehive-like material as the smaller buildings. Stepping over the webbing laid
about its base, you come to notice there being an obviously large egg-like structure forming
the top half of the building. However, there appears to be no eye staring down at you as
before. The webbing is unique in that it spirals around to form the egg structure seamlessly
looking wrapped. Similar to the previous beehive-like building, there seems to be a staircase
leading to an opening inside the building. Coming to the entrance, you see more ghostly
figures and an even larger interior structure. The building interior differs however, as the
design is more straightforward and less elegant in design as the homely buildings. The
ghostly figures in this building move very quickly, and their muttering is much faster than in
the smaller buildings. You also notice that instead of muttering to themselves the ghostly
figures are interacting and chattering in groups. The hue in colours are also very different as
they are a greyish blue colour. You notice once again the impossible geometry of the inside
being larger then the structure itself, however the endless hallways feels more to you like a
hive as they are all very similar and there is little to no difference. You feel anxious walking
into this area and sense a need to accomplish a task- but you do not know what.

You become agitated as you see ghosts in certain sections become very angry and
chattering loudly, almost yelling at each other. Other ghosts appear in turmoil, the hue
shifting depending on the emotion each one is feeling.

You want to leave this building and a moment later, to your surprise, you find yourself outside
standing on the marble floor, overlooking the brain structure. You walk up to it and settle
down on the cold, marble floor, thinking about all you have observed. In light of the
differences of this world, you felt something similar in all the places you explored to the life
you have lived, and perhaps in all feelings that were felt, you came to consider that perhaps
you had not travelled at all.

What If? Metropolis

Thumbnails

What If? Metropolis

Thumbnails

What If? Metropolis

Thumbnails

What If? Metropolis

Thumbnails

Links
Film reviews:
http://pyrobat.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Film%20review

CG Artists Toolkit
work:
http://pyrobat.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/CG%20Artists
%20Toolkit