08.15.01 Cityscape

In this clip, we're playing with a nighttime palette. The previous clips have been daytime or inside clips—the teaser, the brochure and the poster followed that brown palette as well.

The basis for this particular pan shot can be seen below

Step#1

The original pictures were taken from a boat on the Chicago River (as part of the Chicago Architecture Society's river tours—highly recommended). This is right where Michigan Avenue meets Wacker Drive, as you can see from the Wrigley Building on the right.

The pictures were taken with a Canon Powershot S-10, which has the ability to take multiple images designed to be stitched

together with Canon PhotoStitch software.

Since Menda City is based on Chicago, many of the cityscapes may be either based on the actual Chicago skyline. Of course, we intend to take a lot of liberties, so maybe it would be better to say that Menda City is "inspired by" Chicago.

From there, the image was cropped and converted to grayscale to make it easier to outline and select which building would or would not be emphasized.

From grayscale, the skyline was tried in both the brown and blue palette. With the extreme angle, which the photostitching software exaggerates even more, the image become very reminiscent of the 1934 World's Fair posters.
And the appearance of dirigibles, in the clip itself, emphasize that connection.

That 1930's design vibe is one of the major influences on EC. (It also references William Gibson's story THE GERNSBACK CONTINUUM, which is as much an influence as NEUROMANCER). That Art Deco style translates well to simpler forms which can make for faster downloads.