Controlzeta Lab
When we first found the artist's call for this workshop, we just jump right in it. The subject is very appealing for us, considering that we would always wanted to do some work about social justice, to use our medium to talk about things that we feel very involved in or shaked by.
We are sure that partecipating to this workshop will be a great opportunity for our collective to grow from a human point of view and personal growth, knowing so much talented and involved artists, sharing differents point of views , and, of course, an exeptional opportunity of professional growth, working with the help of such passionate and experienced tutors.
In the summer of 2017, a large area of Italian territory was devastated by fires. Before they developed on a national scale, fires in Campania had not had much media coverage: the Vesuvius park burned in silence for a week, before it became actual news. So many questions, few and weak answers. The reported facts are varied and conflicting. Rumors and rumors are confused and overlap with testimonies and investigations: nobody is able to shed light on the story or give explanations and everything seems destined to remain wrapped in mystery.
Precisely from this last reflection, the idea of using Mythology to explain such a serious phenomenon arises; specifically, we want to tell what happened in the summer of 2017 through a dystopian tale set in a future or in an absurd universe. A world where the emergency has become normality or even popular tradition, rooted in the culture of the inhabitants. Every summer, in this universe, the "Season of Prometheus Fires" occurs and people celebrate it exaggeratedly. And so, as the ancient Greeks created myths to explain the inexplicable (such as natural disasters), in this universe, over the years, a myth was created to explain the continuous summer fires that follow each other year after year. With this narrative exaggeration we allude to the indifference that characterizes our present society, to today's incapacity or unwillingness to get to the bottom of the issues. In this dystopian and grotesque universe, this attitude, with the passing of the centuries, has caused catastrophic events caused by man to be transformed into mythology, equating them with natural events inexplicable for ancient civilizations and thus sanctioning their inevitability.
From a directorial and narrative point of view, we will use irony to recount our point of view, drawing on our direct testimony of how we experienced the majesty of the catastrophe from the city of Naples, overturning it in a grotesque way. For example, in our dystopian universe, in Naples, during the summer days of the fires, we celebrate a sort of tradition of the "Ceppo" (ancient Neapolitan popular tradition in honor of St. Anthony during which fire from small wood are light up) mixed to the Easter tradition: people gather in the street and organize parties on the terraces of the palaces where they roast sausages on the smoke of the stakes scattered throughout the city. We gather under the slopes of Mount Vesuvius to watch the fireworks ignition in honor of Prometheus, the highest titan that gave men the gift of fire, as we gather today to witness the Olympic torch lightin up.
We want to create a product for the web, which combines text with illustrations and 2D animation. So , first we will create some concept art to estabilish the style, then expand and elaborate the story trought storboards. After that, illustrations and 2d animation loops will be produced.
It seemed to us an interesting coincidence, to see another parallel between the events of summer 2017 and mythology, wich is that the fires of 2017 have hit particularly places such as Vesuvius, the crater of the Astroni and in general the volcanoes of the Mediterranean Sea, where they were believed to live the Titans. And it was precisely a Titan, Prometheus, who gave fire to man. From this , it came out the project name "where giants sleep", to underline the irony of burning the houses of the creatures that gave us fire in the first place.
