Yes I Kafkan

My final year project is partially an animation project. For it, I am adapting one of Franz Kafka's short stories In The Penal Colony. It's set on a remote island, where an explorer is being introduced to the strange archaic methods of torture and capital punishment being used in the land. The characters are a zealous Officer of the old regime that is very much behind the process, his soldier assistant, the explorer who is against it but feels torn between his morals and his ethical need to not interfere with foreign cultures and the unwitting prisoner who is to be put to death. The machine that is to carry out to procedure is also a major feature.

A rough storyboard capturing the scenes I see in my head and the major plot developments.

Preliminary sketches of the machine. The design on the right is the one I prefer, but carefully reading the descriptions in the text, it will probably end up looking more like those on the left.