The next paper project I did at the NFTS was Film Architecture where we had to design a set if a specific period and country. For this I chose Tenessee Williams's play 'Baby Doll,' set in 1950's America's Deep South, Mississippi. Failing, bigoted, middle-aged cotton gin-owner Archie Lee Meighan has been married to pretty 19-year old virgin Baby Doll Meighan for two years. Archie impatiently waits for Baby Doll's 20th birthday just a few days away when, by prior agreement with Baby Doll's dying father, the marriage can finally be consummated. However, Baby Doll still sleeps in a crib, wearing childish shorty-nightgowns and sucking her thumb, while Archie spies on her through a hole in a wall of their decrepit antebellum mansion. Archie's competitor, Sicilian Silva Vacarro who owns a newer and more modern cotton gin, has taken away all of Archie's business, and Archie retaliates by burning down Vacarro's gin. Suspecting Archie as the arsonist, Vacarro plans his revenge: he will pursue and seduce Baby Doll and terrorize her into signing an affidavit admitting her husband's guilt.
This was a concept painting of the Meighan's Plantation House 'Tiger Tail' I created in photoshop.
This is a concept painting of the interior of Baby Doll's nursery created in photoshop.
This is one of the first concept paintings I did for this project as an exercise for creating an atmospheric piece of artwork. This was produced in watercolour.
This is an early concept sketch in charcoal of the exterior of the Meighan's house 'Tiger Tail.'
Above is the ground floor plan of the Meighan's house which I designed, I researched a number of plantation houses in the Deep South dated around the 1860s and incorporated elements I liked into the design.
This is the first floor plan of the Meighan's house where a lot of the action takes place in the beginning of the script.
These drawings above and below are the sections and elevations of the plantation house.
