Subject C is a short animation which screened at an animation festival as part of the Summer Re:View 2005 exhibition at BCA Gallery (previously an internationally recognised contemporary film and photography gallery that, sadly, has since closed).
The story centres around an artificially made creature, supposedly unconscious, which awakes hanging in the laboratory. The inanimate creation has inexplicably activated!
Conflict arises when the Head Security Guard (who is also an A. I.) is alerted to investigate. At first timid and afraid, the feline-esque creature – Subject C – gains confidence and overpowers the security boss. Unfortunately, it is to no avail as there are many more robots which come to their leader's aid.
Conflict arises when the Head Security Guard (who is also an A. I.) is alerted to investigate. At first timid and afraid, the feline-esque creature – Subject C – gains confidence and overpowers the security boss. Unfortunately, it is to no avail as there are many more robots which come to their leader's aid.
The security guards' design were inspired by a curtain pattern. I liked to contrast their awkward chunky metallic bottoms against the soft, transparent, flexible upper half. Which could only be the work of a completely crazy inventor!
The Subject C character had its own lighting (rendered separately and composited in editing) giving it an ethereal golden glow, shining mysteriously like the moon it sees through the lab's windows. Whilst the eerie night time laboratory itself is a place filled with reflective surfaces and many shadows cast from the moonlit windows. The shelves inside the lab host a large number of ominous jars – the mad scientist's specimen collections lying within them. Two of which are a strange bug and a creepy alien's head that startle the curious Subject C.
Alien head!
