Invention In C Major was a one year extensive project that involved directing, writing, puppet fabricating, set design, filming, and editing.
Promotional art
Original synopsis
Set in the late 1800’s, a psychotic musical inventor becomes infatuated in a beautiful pianist, Eleanor Rose. Entranced by his luring personality she falls in love with him. The inventor has his own agenda; he plans to turn her into one of his own musical devices to play music for eternity. The film takes place years after the events of her transformation when she awakens with a beautiful piano piece playing inside her mechanical chest. Trapped in an abandoned room with only a window, an armoire, and the belongings of her once human self the gramophone lady lives a lonely life with no memory of her past. When an unexpected guest appears she soon realizes the dark fate that became of her.
Pre-Production
The design for the “Gramophone Lady” came from a brainstorming session between Richard D Lopez and long time collaborator Singer/song-writer Alfi Alvarez.
Throughout the project and final building of her, the designed shifted to drop the secondary gramophone devices on her chest. The final character was built using armature, foam latex, scrap metal, and found objects/materials.
Envisioning the human version of the Gramophone took a bit more research and ultimately finalized the 1800’s time period
The characters dramatic features and large eyes took inspiration from classic stopmotion films such as Tim Burton’s Corpse Bird, and Margaret Keen’s large eyed portraits. Her overall “Gibson girl” hair and fanciful clothes where designed to encompass the Late 1800’s fashion.
The materials used for the final character were foam latex, cushion foam, multiple fabrics, and doll hair.
Filming
Because of budget restraints all shooting took place in an Empty attic space above Richard’s Apartment. The dusty and somewhat claustrophobic environment helped Richard to really get into the dark themes of the short.
A vision of the future
With the completion of the short film project. The final version does not truly encompass the final vision, Instead it gives a taste of what is to come. The short piece serves as a concept and foundation of a potential large production project.