Designing a Newspaper for a Theoretical BioShock Movie!
Let's get into it!
So I'm basing this newspaper in the setting of the first game. The first game takes place in 1960, but in an underwater civilization that's crumbled. There's no real order to this place, and things like newspapers have long been discarded. The city broke out in chaos in 1959, but tensions were rising long before then. I imagine that newspapers were not being printed in the middle of a civil war that, in less than a year, led to the downfall of an entire city.
I'm saying that this newspaper was published in 1958 because that's when huge, plot-driving events started happening AND because I think it will help to get a specific year to look at when researching newspapers. It will help me find the most common layouts, fonts, and other things of the like.
Since Rapture is totally collapsed by the time Jack (the player) arrives, I want the paper to be really roughed up. There can be blood spatters, marks of dirt, yellowing of the papers, ink missing, added textures (like crumpling and tearing), burn marks, and other signs of wear and tear.
Here, I have some pictures of newspapers from 1958:
Here are some examples of newspapers found in the game:
Finally, here is the timeline from the game that I have to work with. I am not going to be taking into account real-world things that happened, as the city of Rapture was, by law, completely cut off from the outside world. If a newspaper were to publish a story about something that happened above the sea, they would probably be in deep doo doo.
And we're back! Let's begin!
I have the textures I used here:
They're both grunge vintage paper textures from lostandtaken.com.
Using reference my reference images of vintage newspapers, I started to put together a format for my newspaper. I tried to make appropriate sectioning, I matched the fonts as best I could (even downloaded some from 1001fonts.com), I found the best quality pictures available in a more realistic form (as Little Sisters in the game are not at all a realistic design), I added a dried blood spatter, and I distressed what would be the ink on the page.
Here are the images I used:
Enough talk! I know you're excited to see the finished product!
I think this is definitely something you would find while walking around a completely dilapidated underwater city! The wear and tear on the paper and ink, the blood spatter, and the added texture all make it feel like it's been around, used, and abused. Especially in a destroyed city filled with people who are completely out of their minds.
There's one last thing I had to do for this assignment! I had to integrate my design into a relevant scene. It was surprisingly hard to find screenshots from BioShock that would allow for me to put this in a particular place or scene. There are a lot of desks throughout the game, and there's always paper strewn everywhere. Nonetheless, I found something that worked well enough and went with it.
Here's the original:
And here's the same image, but with my newspaper added in:
Not perfect, but there was definitely an attempt. I made the paper more yellow to match the lighting in the scene, warped it into perspective, added a small but harsh drop shadow to mimic the other objects on the table, and added a softer shadow on the paper itself. It's closer to the viewer, on the viewer's right hand corner. I felt like, since my paper is flat, it would have a slight shadow that darkens as moves away from the light, much like the table in this scene.
I think in the very least, it looks like it belongs in a video game environment here, which is good because... that's where it is in this scene.
Anywho, hope you enjoyed my project!
