by Lewis on January 22, 2012
The latest series of Sherlock has just finished it’s run on BBC1 and got everyone abuzz with how Sherlock faked his death. Lots of theories and bullshit about masks, the H.O.U.N.D. drug and fake bodies being thrown from the rooftop of St.Barts. The probable truth is, as Jim Moriarty would say, a lot simpler.
Holmes does the magicians trick of distraction. He tells Watson to keep his eyes upon him so that Watson does not notice the rubbish truck that pulls up between the building that obscures his view of the pavement and Barts. Sherlock falls. We know that it is a real body, not the dead Moriarty or a dummy in the way Sherlock flails when dropping. A dead body or dummy falls as a dead weight. Neither Watson, the hitman or the viewer see the body hit the pavement.
He falls into the rubbish truck. Watson is then delayed when knocked by one of Holmes’ or Molly’s people thus giving Sherlock time to leap out of the truck which then moves off. Molly’s people then surround him, Sherlock or others spray fake blood/plasma on and around Sherlock to give the impression of a fatal fall.
At this point Watson tries to take Sherlock’s pulse, but remember that Molly is a pathologist/mortician at Bart’s. It would take nothing for her to gain a severed arm that can be shoved up Sherlock’s coat sleeve to fake a lack of pulse and Watson is pushed away quite quickly. Alternatively it may be an arm from Holmes fridge; he does tend to keep things in there (much to Mrs.Hudson’s disgust).
So there we go. Molly, severed arm, distraction.
by Lewis on January 18, 2012
Some time ago, when Ninja Beaver was first starting out, we were asked to pitch for a re-branding of the novels of Charles Dickens. This would involve creating covers and a logo that would bring the ideas of Dickens into the modern era but also show how nothing in society had changed. Ultimately nothing came of the project, but I think enough time has passed to be able to present some of what we came up with and our thought process. Some of the ideas are nothing but mock-ups whilst we actually managed to get into a photography studio for others.
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Great Expectations just lent itself to the National Enquirer style of coverage. Dicken’s somewhat breathless prose and incredible coincidences in plot made it perfect.
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The mock-up for Martin Chuzzlewit didn’t really work. I must admit that I wanted to keep the Bunny as the Statue of Liberty and rip off (/homage. Take your pick) Supertramp’s Breakfast in America cover. I also wanted a lenticular cover. Totally and utterly mad. Try getting that idea passed a publisher today (especially for out-of-copyright works).
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Curiosity Shop was another idea that would have meant extensive re-working. The idea of the Internet being the Curiosity Shop may be cliched now, but it wasn’t when we first did this.
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Twist is one of my favourites. The background is perhaps a bit too large and we did go overboard on the grain filter, but it’s simple and works (even if our models did complain how tired and haggard we made them look).
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Another favourite. Dorrit is nice and pointed. The models pointed stare into camera and folded arms give a “don’t mess with me” attitude. Too much grain again, but it was all the rage then.
And there we have it. Other ideas never made it pass the concept stage, though “Sketches by Boz” was fully made-up to look like a journalists notebook with steel cover. It was interesting to work on and would have been nice to see through to the end and publication. C’est la vie.
