Sleeping Pod
Prop Design. Spring 2020
Sleeping pod after design brief “Overpopulation”. The brief described a 2100 sci-fi setting where the earth’s oxygen level has reached a critical low, leading to placing parts of the population in temporary hibernation. The brief defines three important parameters for the design:
1. The pod designs have to be space-effective.
2. These specific pods are intended for the poorer people of society, thus are very archaic and unreliable compared to the ones used by the wealthy minority.
3. Waking up hurts, but trying to avoid hibernation is punishable by death.
2. These specific pods are intended for the poorer people of society, thus are very archaic and unreliable compared to the ones used by the wealthy minority.
3. Waking up hurts, but trying to avoid hibernation is punishable by death.
The location the pods are stored at is described as a dormitory in a building that was possibly built for the express purpose of housing hibernators. The building is referred to as an hotel, and there’s mention of the pods being falsely advertised as a restful vacation. The possibility of dying while in the pod is a constant threat to the poor sleepers, as whole chambers filled with people seem to occasionally fail. The chambers that have failed are simply sealed off, resulting in what the story excerpt refers to as a “grave”. The script also describes the environment as having heavy iron doors and tin sheet walls, with faulty fluorescent lights. The POV-characters mentally compares the place to a slaughterhouse, and the sleepers to pigs.
In my horror-themed design, inspired by server halls, lungs, and the iPod nano, the pods are placed in even rows, creating narrow corridors and filling the room from floor to ceiling. On each pod there's a number identifying the hotel, the chamber, and the individual pod. Next to the label, there’s a simple display, moving in time with the sleepers cardiac rhythm. The saccharine vacation posters are a remnant of some lackluster directive to present the pods in a favourable light, probably put there by some tired government employee.
The pods only come in one “average” size, a tiny detail missed in an all too hectic need to get the pods on the market, resulting in vastly hightened health concerns to anyone outside the approved ‘measurements’ using the pod.
The pods only come in one “average” size, a tiny detail missed in an all too hectic need to get the pods on the market, resulting in vastly hightened health concerns to anyone outside the approved ‘measurements’ using the pod.
Each row of pods is connected with tangled wires and cords providing the life-sustaining systems for the sleapers, all leading to a common, suspiciously fleshy, power generation unit at the end of each corridor. The Generator pulsates calmly, lung-like. If the generator fails, the sleepers will suffocate on the feeding- and breathing-tubes shoved down their throats. Still, statistically, most people survive and get to wake up to breath the thin air of the city
Development Images
