Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Bristol's Stunning 'Ultraviolet' Illustrations Have Bite

U is for Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet (2006) was one of those movies I really wanted to like, but have to admit was a little muddied. Brilliant visuals and a very unique story helped create a powerful female character.

The man that helped bring Kurt Wimmer's amazing vision to life was Mark Lambert Bristol (Memento, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Tree of Life)

Synopsis
In the late 21st a disease called Hemophagia has genetically modified nearly an entire race of people, leaving them with such enhanced speed, intelligence, and strength that they resemble vampires in nearly every way. Fear begins to breed within the power elite as the disease continues to spread and those infected prove to be truly superhuman, and now, a civil war is brewing between uninfected humans and those altered by Hemophagia. Caught dead in the center of it is an infected woman called Violet (Milla Jovovich), who is bent on vengeance and has little left to lose. Provoked beyond reason by powers that will not rest until she and her people are dead, she will become everything her persecutors feared her to be. 
In an interview with equilibriumfans.com he talked about how he worked with Kurt and his approach to the designs.
Kurt is very precise with the exact angles and compositions of his shots. As a matter of fact I have never worked with a director that was so intimately involved with recreating the exact vision he had in his minds eye. Sometimes I would have to revise a drawing a couple of times to capture exactly what Kurt was after. The painting of Ultraviolet sliding up to camera on her motorcycle required numerous passes before Kurt signed off on it.

He first sketches out his very, very rough composition of the shot. We discuss it and I go off and flesh it out. I next show him my pencil sketches so we can check the composition and then I ink them in, scan them and got to town in Photoshop.  
Here are some designs from his sight. The flow of the lines are stunning.




Here's the official trailer.
 


What do you think of the concept art and storyboards? Did you see the film?