Narrative Flow

Still reeling from the 260 images needed to fulfil the London sketchbook, I felt up against it with this brief. A story came to me early on but constraints of time meant that I did not really have sufficient opportunity to explore other ideas. It leaves you with a sense of compromise - the best you can do under the circumstances.

I was interested in the idea of the lions in Trafalgar Square having a story to tell. They've been there a long time. What would they have witnessed? What do they have to put up with?

The potential increase in the London congestion charge was topical at the time and I guess the two ideas collided in my mind. The lions have been long suffering victims of all types of pollution, how would they feel about this issue? I envisaged them coming to life to seek retribution from the most grevious offenders: 4x4 owners. The media and London Authority were already singling them out as an obvious target.

Initially I conceived the narrative almost like an animation. As I story boarded it, I could see it playing out in my head. I realised that, as it stood, it would take too long to develop into a piece with sufficient clarity. I therefore decided to reduce it to a a simpler form and to introduce Ken Livingstone as Admiral Nelson with the lions working at his behest. Lampooning Ken in this way gave the piece a bit of ambguity, which I like. It asks the question: Is this an environmental or a power issue?

The piece demanded a somewhat powerful or sinister style: it's quite a serious topic and the lions are not too cuddly in appearance. With the addition of Ken as the Admiral it leant itself to a kind of period drama. The work of the illustrator Charles Keeping became a reference.

I'm quite happy with the individual images within the piece and the mood created by the tonal illustrations and collage. However, I don't think it works that well as a whole at the moment. I need to work with the scanned illustrations to produce a more effective arrangement of frames and a better relationship between text and image.