On Fri, 24 Sep 1999 05:10:30 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

>
>   In my own interpretation of horror however I have an entirely
>different point of view. I expect to see monsters, disfigured humans,
>atrocities against nature, blood, guts, dripping goo, moss hanging
>from forbidding trees and slime covered rock walls, dungeons, tools
>for torture, nooses, guillotines, headless horsemen, Frankenstien
>monsters, mummies, vampires, vehicles smashing together with body
>parts flying everywhere, worms crawling out of eye sockets and bugs
>from gapping bloody gashes in human flesh, dripping oozing boils on
>pretty young faces, death and destruction in every single pixel of
>the image, and you know just plain scary, frightening, horror related
>imagery.
>  I don't think there is a need of making the viewer try to find the
>horror in the image in this round. It should be blatant and obvious.
>You should be scared out of your wits by what you have seen and the
>horror of it plain as the screen it is shown on. It should jerk the
>horror right out of your soul and bare it to the world for all to see
>as you go screaming into the night. Any way that is my own calm and
>gentle interpretation of it.
>
> How do you interpret this rounds theme ?

I think any interpretaion is valid as long as the artist sees it as horror. Whether it
is
blood and gore, or a poseresse's broken fingernail.

My interpretation of horror is where the observer sees that something absolutely
dreadful
is about to occur and cannot be stopped.  Like someone jumping out of a high window in
a
burning building, or something about to happen to the observer, like seeing a leopard
launching itself from a tree right at you, or a T Rex bearing down on you.

 My idea, that I am not about to reveal as it would spoil the effect, has no person or
creature in the scene. The title, I hope, will say it all.  The only difficulty, and
this
is the same for all of us, is trying to make the image convincing and interesting.

Some other ideas; The horror on the face of the Egyptian architect as he realises that
he
has built the pyramid upside down;  A suicidal poser leaping off a lighthouse; An
astronaut on the moon/planet/asteroid as his spacecraft is destroyed by a meteorite.

I think the IRTC is great because it spurs me on to be a bit creative and put in some
real
effort.  I am not in it for the money :-)
 I look forward to seeing your fearsome scene Ken.
David
------------
dav### [at] cwcomnet
http://www.hamiltonite.mcmail.com
------------

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Hi Ken.

Assuming that I actually get an image finished so I get to vote, I intend to
interpret the "Concept, Originality, Interpretation of Theme", component at
least partially as whether the image succeeds in conveying a feeling of
horror.  It can be explicit or implicit, doesn't matter to me.  I am new to
ray tracing and this is my first IRTC, but I find the process fun rather
than horrifying so for me the "deadline" picture you mention probably won't
get a great score from me in that regard, even though it has some degree of
"originality".  Hmm, here's something that might help: on the desk, add a
razor blade and a piece of paper with "To whom it may concern" written on
the top.

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David Wilkinson wrote:

> > How do you interpret this rounds theme ?
 
> I think any interpretaion is valid as long as the artist sees it as horror.
> Whether it is blood and gore, or a poseresse's broken fingernail.

  The artist perception of horror is not the issue here. It is the
message conveyed to the viewer as being horrific that needs to be
accomplished to be successful.

 
> My interpretation of horror is where the observer sees that something
> absolutely dreadful is about to occur and cannot be stopped.  Like
> someone jumping out of a high window in a burning building, or something
> about to happen to the observer, like seeing a leopard launching itself
> from a tree right at you, or a T Rex bearing down on you.

  Is that really horror in the strictest sense ? To me that sounds like
suspense not horror. For example the classic shower curtain scene at the
Bates Motel where you see the silhouette of the knife on the shower
curtain. That was classic Hitchcock the master of suspense. The horror
was when the knife actually started slashing at the woman. You seem
to imply the silhouette of the knife was the horror in the scene and
the other scenarios you described follow that pattern. I say the
action of the slashing is the horror and the silhouette of the knife
was a simple vehicle adding suspense leading up to the act of horrible
violence.
 
> I think the IRTC is great because it spurs me on to be a bit creative and
> put in some real effort.  I am not in it for the money :-)

 I agree and I'm just hoping that it does not turn into just another round
of spaceship and pyramid images. There are so many variations on what horror
can be that I want to be scared to death when I am viewing the submissions
for this round. This round is not supposed to be passive in content. There
should be a lot of action and the room for creativity and artistic license
is great.

>  I look forward to seeing your fearsome scene Ken.

  I certainly do not lack in imagination I just hope I can get the creative
juices flowing enough to get something done :)

-- 
Ken Tyler
1100+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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On Fri, 24 Sep 1999 05:10:30 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

>   In my own interpretation of horror however I have an entirely
>different point of view. I expect to see monsters, disfigured humans,
<snip>
>etc...

I've seen about two dozens of horror movies. The only one that
horrified me (read: gave me two nights of hard sleep) was "The
Exorcist". It's about a little girl being obsessed by the evil one. It
was the idea behind it and the way she played her role (there should
be an Oscar Jr. for such cases) was what was scary.

The line between horror and gore is almost as thin as the one between
erotica and pornography or bewteen thrill and disgust. I remember
reading an article which compared gore to porn, and I must say the
author had a point. I also remember what my psychoanalysis teacher
told us, that the primary sexual organ weighted about 2-2.5 kilos and
was called brain. I also remember that I wasn't disgusted at all when
doing dissections in Biology but I get the goose-bumps at the mere
thought of a knife penetrating my skin. Lastly, I recall my Creative
Writing teacher who said "Show, don't tell" as opposed to my Fine Arts
teacher who said "tell, don't show." 

It's all a matter of imagination. Art is about perceiving,
contemplating and relating. A horror picture doesn't necessarily have
to show gore or monsters. Giving a hint and leaving the rest to the
audience's imagination will not only achieve the desired effect better
but will also spare you the trouble of being accused of showing bad
taste.

One last thing. Life offers such dreadful pictures that no one can
ever reproduce them. I once hit a site which had real photos of things
so disgusting that I almost threw up. Car accidents, autopsies,
executions... (if anyone is interested, let me know by e-mail; I'll
never post the url here). I certainly don't want to see such things in
the IRTC.


Peter Popov
ICQ: 15002700

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On Fri, 24 Sep 1999 17:16:29 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

snip 
>> My interpretation of horror is where the observer sees that something
>> absolutely dreadful is about to occur and cannot be stopped. 
snip
>  Is that really horror in the strictest sense ? To me that sounds like
>suspense not horror. For example the classic shower curtain scene at the
>Bates Motel where you see the silhouette of the knife on the shower
>curtain. That was classic Hitchcock the master of suspense. The horror
>was when the knife actually started slashing at the woman. You seem
>to imply the silhouette of the knife was the horror in the scene and
>the other scenarios you described follow that pattern. I say the
>action of the slashing is the horror and the silhouette of the knife
>was a simple vehicle adding suspense leading up to the act of horrible
>violence.
> 
Yes it is just the different interpretation of the word "horror" that separates us. 
Like
Peter Popov I tend to go with the idea that the important thing is what a picture
evokes
in the mind, rather than it's actual content.  Fabien Mosen's calm image of Anne
Frank's
room for a previous IRTC  had this powerful evocation (for me anyway) of man's
inhumanity
to man - and perhaps this is the ultimate in horror.  You, Ken, seem to prefer the
interpretation of horror as the actual scene of carnage, which is a perfectly valid
view
and which will probably prevail in the IRTC.  Ther great thing is that all these
different
ways of looking at a topic bring a diversity to the IRTC - in spite of the "spaceship
crashes into pyramid and sqashes hundreds of nude poser females" genre.
>
>  I certainly do not lack in imagination I just hope I can get the creative
>juices flowing enough to get something done :)

I can vouch for your imagination - but how you can find time to do any tracing given
the
effort you put into helping and commenting in these newsgroups, to say nothing of your
mammoth links collection, is beyond me!
David
------------
dav### [at] cwcomnet
http://www.hamiltonite.mcmail.com
------------

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Ken wrote:
>    In my own interpretation of horror however I have an entirely
> different point of view. I expect to see monsters, disfigured humans,
> atrocities against nature, blood, guts, dripping goo, moss hanging
> from forbidding trees and slime covered rock walls, dungeons, tools
> for torture, nooses, guillotines, headless horsemen, Frankenstien
> monsters, mummies, vampires, vehicles smashing together with body
> parts flying everywhere, worms crawling out of eye sockets and bugs
> from gapping bloody gashes in human flesh, dripping oozing boils on
> pretty young faces, death and destruction in every single pixel of
> the image, and you know just plain scary, frightening, horror related
> imagery.

On the surface, I find very few of those 'horror' -- and note there's a
difference between 'horror', 'disgust', and 'fear', though 'disgust' and
'fear' can certainly be elements of 'horror'. I suspect you equate 'horror'
with fear, whereas I think there's a subtle difference. I'm afraid of
heights, but a picture of the street from, say, the Sears Tower would not
qualify as 'horror' for me.

Blood? Doesn't scare me. Guts? That either; I watched open-heart surgery
once on PBS because I thought it was fascinating. In the right
circumstances, I might be disgusted by either, and with the right
/additional/ elements I might consider it horrifying, but not in itself.

Monsters? Okay, there I'd mostly agree with you. But I don't need blatant
monster imagery to give me that sense of horror. A vampire, viewed
attacking a victim, is a blatant horror image. The barest glimpse of a
cloaked, pale figure on the periphery of a perfectly average night-time
street down which walks Miss and Mr Joe Average would be subtle horror of
the "what lurks in the shadows?" type -- and that's just as much an
expression of horror as the first.

In other words...

>   I don't think there is a need of making the viewer try to find the
> horror in the image in this round. It should be blatant and obvious.

I disagree. Sometimes, the subtle and almost-normal is far more horrifying
than the blatant and obvious. I certainly am not going to be disappointed
by images that are blatant and obvious, provided they are well done, but
the /contrast/ of 'absolutely normal' with 'nasty horrible thing' to me has
more impact. Not just "there are terrible things here" but "there are
terrible things in a scene which should otherwise be pleasant and serene".  

A good correlation to how I'll be inclined to view images in this round
will be how I feel about role-playing. A game in which the horror is
expressed as a band of zombies in a cemetery is not all that gripping to
me: I can see the enemy, and fight them. A game in which the horror is some
shadowy enemy striking at times and places I can't predict, in an otherwise
perfectly normal town, is going to fascinate me: minute by minute, I don't
know what's going to happen, and I can't tell what it would take to stop
the enemy.

Just a matter of perspective, I guess.

I predict, Ken, that you will not like my entry. :)

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In article <37EB6A36.38735512@pacbell.net>, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:
>How do you interpret this rounds theme ?

I think I went pretty much about-face from your view. I'm not going to
finish this one (I'm going to be doing a reading on late October, so it
would be good to have at least part of the book finished... anyone in Los
Angeles stop by the Brewery ArtWalk), but it was going to be a Greek
temple, and Pandora and Epimetheus meeting for the first time, Pandora
holding her vase...

Jerry

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Ken wrote:

> Hello,
>
>  So far I have seen two preliminary previews of what are allegedly
> going to be submitted to the horror round. I'm not going to name
> the artists just the concepts. The first is a scene where you are
> supposed to be witnessing the last desperate hours of work on an
> IRTC submission. The second is only hinted at yet so far and is
> comprised of a contemporary electrical outlet and modern bindings
> on a book. I can only imagine where that one is going.

hehehehe... wait and see, my friend, wait and see.... :)

(PS: You forgot the swiss army knife, and the bookmark labeled "Pain?")

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David Wilkinson wrote:

> On Fri, 24 Sep 1999 05:10:30 -0700, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

> >   In my own interpretation of horror however I have an entirely
> >different point of view. I expect to see monsters, disfigured humans,
> >atrocities against nature, blood, guts, dripping goo, moss hanging
> >from forbidding trees and slime covered rock walls, dungeons, tools
> >for torture, nooses, guillotines, headless horsemen, Frankenstien
> >monsters, mummies, vampires, vehicles smashing together with body
> >parts flying everywhere, worms crawling out of eye sockets and bugs
> >from gapping bloody gashes in human flesh, dripping oozing boils on
> >pretty young faces, death and destruction in every single pixel of
> >the image, and you know just plain scary, frightening, horror related
> >imagery.

	The issue here is as always the many meanings of a word. Horror
as a movie genre is what you describe. According to the
dictionary, Dennis the Menace is a horror, and when she was good
she was very, very good, and when she was bad she was horrid. All
three are legitimate. Even being horrified at a D in History on a
report card is legitimate. 

	I would also point out that outside of Hollywood, Halloween and
horror have nothing in common yet that was the intent by the
scheduling. The dead may have walked but they did not come back
to kill. 

	If I were king I would have stated the theme as a traditional
Halloween theme. But even then, trick or treating, pumpkins and
such started in the 1930s in the US if I remember correctly and
does not exist in Europe. Sort of like when Queen Victoria
married a German and the Christmas Tree replaces the English Yule
Log. In one generation Brits were telling their children the tree
was an English tradition. 

	My own cockroach theme was simply my desire to create images I
have never seen with POV. I'll fit that into any theme that comes
up. I knew it was a no-win when I had to model a cockroach, too
organic. But if the animation theme is ever "Famous Science
Fiction Scenes" you will see him again. He is pre-animated. And
the title of the book on the mantle is a pun on where most people
first heard of the six foot cockroach. (Not to embarass anyone
but it was a 60s movie. Most would hear of or see the movie
before knowing of the book.) 

	With all my wordiness, that is not horror. What I originally
conceived was partially reflected skeleton and a real skeleton
arm reaching to touch the cockroach leg at the mirror. At least I
learned what I have to learn to do that right but even all those
months were not enough so I did not bother. But that would have
been approaching being horrified at looking in the mirror. (And a
body on a bed in the background. To make up for all that I
settled for a cross on the background wall.) And for anyone who
was curious, there is no mirror. Such was the extent of the
cheat. 

	Bringing it all back home, the problem is still setting the
theme. I mentioned this with Landmark which sounded fine until
the explanation included the blue fireplug. Why not "A man-made
or natural structure which when it is seen most people will
connect with a geographic location on earth"? Of course there
would have been many "This is Sherwood Forest"s and such and the
inevitable pyramids and space ships from Hollywood World in
Orlando. 

	But every renderer baselines on monuments. That would prohibit
no one. 

	As a parting shot, creativity grows from restriction not freedom
despite the modern slop that passes for art. 

	If the theme were the Washington Monument (to keep it easy) or
the Arc de Triumphe to make it a challenge and the competition
would be much more interesting. !20+ ways to view the same thing. 

-- 
http://www.giwersworld.org/artiii/

Oh my God! They've rendered Kenny!

How to profit from the end of civilization as know it available 
here soon.

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Peter Popov wrote:

> One last thing. Life offers such dreadful pictures that no one can
> ever reproduce them. I once hit a site which had real photos of things
> so disgusting that I almost threw up. Car accidents, autopsies,
> executions... (if anyone is interested, let me know by e-mail; I'll
> never post the url here). I certainly don't want to see such things in
> the IRTC.

	Which is what we call repulsive. As one who finds a hypodermic
needle entering the skin repulsive as in recoiling from the scene
... ask my dentist with novacaine. That is not horror whatever
horror is. 

	Also I tried a scene for this which was a view from a great
height as in 
http://giwersworld.org/artiii/jumpera.jpg which was at best
phobia exciting. I have a stereo version of that around some
place which is better but neither are any version of horror. 

-- 
http://www.giwersworld.org/artiii/

Oh my God! They've rendered Kenny!

How to profit from the end of civilization as know it available 
here soon.

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