Sunday, September 4, 2016

A Sketch of Early 'Graveyard Shift' Design Text

Lately I've concentrated on posting samples from my recently rediscovered sketchbook. Upon leafing through the somewhat yellowed document I came across a neatly folded piece of lined writing paper:


It is a page I scribbled early in the production of the old Canadian horror film Graveyard Shift, in which I had the role of set designer. The main set, the only one, really, was of a graveyard featured as part of a music video within a film. I also illustrated some "wild" flats which appeared in a party scene.

I blogged about my role previously, here. The experience was a good one. Everything counts.

Here, in the picture below, are some bits I noodled in late September or early October of 1985:


"Jerry" refers to the film's director, Jerry Ciccoritti. "Gilda" is, I'm sure I'm not remembering this correctly, the main vampire lady.

The list of cemeteries is something I listed since I wanted to check out the real thing in preparation of my mausoleum design; a structure which would be central to the music video's graveyard set. Examples of the resulting sketches are posted here and here.


I've long been fascinated by the creative process; even my own. The above examples demonstrate how a first meeting leads to the completed job.

Check out a post I did on a contact sheet of photos I took of the completed graveyard set.

2 comments:

Tibor said...

I think I rented a Steinbeck suite from Jerry for 2 weeks in '93. Slept on the floor as I remember!

Simon St. Laurent said...

Good stuff. His company was Lightshow Communications, although I'm not sure if that was still the name in 1993.

The "Graveyard Shift" office was on Sullivan Street here in Toronto. The memories....