Week 5 Day 2 & 3: Story

As far as the story goes, I sat down for hours and tried to figure out which struggles Marcus should have. This is my final outcome for my story:

Marcus is a lonely troll whom isn't part of any social group. He roams around his lonely world and encounters a Princess with whom he tries to communicate with. They quickly understand that they speak different languages and cannot converse at all. Marcus gets frustrated and gobbles up the princess. The princess is stuck in his stomach. Marcus continues his journey and next encounters people who make fun of him for his physique as he is different and looks like nobody else. The princess realises this and feels his pain. The more upset Marcus gets, the tighter his stomach gets which is a struggle for the princess as she cannot move. Marcus feels even more shunned and sobs in a corner. All of a sudden walls start caving in and Marcus is caught in between two walls which enclose him and continue to squash him. In particular Marcus’ stomach is crushed so much that he vomits, allowing the princess to come out and climb over him to get to the top of the wall. Once she is up there, the princess helps Marcus to safety. She ends up saving Marcus and they walk off hand in hand. Marcus has made a new friend and therefore has somewhat integrated for the first time.

This idea is quite far-fetched but I wanted to represent my concept in a fun way and for it to be visually quite different. For this story I want to focus mainly on the character’s movement and relationship. I want to be able to see Marcus's world and so I am creating an environment with no background details, only a plain colour so that it symbolises Marcus's loneliness and cultural emptiness. There are no items which relate to his past or future, only the present moment which is represented through the characters aesthetic.

Once I had constructed my story I made a rough storyboard.

Week 5 Day 1: Experimentation : Walk Cycle

Over the weekend I worked on creating a walk cycle for my character Marcus. I thought about the way in which he would move around. I thought that if his hand/arms dragged on the floor it would give him more character.

Fig 1 : Marcus Walk Cyle (2014) Authors Own 

Fig 2 : Marcus Walk Cycle Stills (2014) Authors Own

I also thought about my story. I listed all of the things which I learnt from my own personal experience which I wanted to include into the story idea. These elements were:

- Learn how to stand up for myself

- Open mind

- Stronger person

- Fiercer

- Learn to accept yourself even if you are different to others

- develop a cultural understanding and compassion towards others.

- These elements are gained only through experience with different kinds of people and from being the odd one out.

- As I've grown older, I've learnt to embrace this individuality and accept myself for who I am and where I come from.

I then wrote down different potential storylines and different struggles as of which Marcus could encounter. What I found difficult about this part was the fact that I wanted to represent a concept/idea and I wasn't too sure how to convert it into a story. I think that this was the most difficult part of the Final Major Project that I encountered.

Week 4 Day 2 & 3: Concept Art and Character Design

For this week I decided to start thinking about the characters for my story, and in particular what they would look like. At the beginning of the FMP I conducted a lot of research on concept art and various character designs from different films.

I concluded that I wanted to create my animation on flash and so I began designing a variety of characters. I tried different styles however I was not happy with the first style I developed and so I started to look at other animation styles. In particular, the more cartoon style which I thought would be fun to create. It may not sound like such a risk, however for me as a drawer I tend to draw quite messily and sketchy. Using this kind of style, I had to decide on one bold line which is completely different to what I usually produce. I found this extremely difficult and time consuming, however I was pleased with the results.

                                                                                                                  

Fig 1 : First attempt at character designs (2014) Authors Own

For this character style sheet I was not pleased with it as I found it too flat and the colours used weren't bold enough. These characters did not stand out nor do they have much personality. I looked through my character concept research over again and considered further different styles. I found that I could enhance the character by creating it with black outlines. This made the colours stand out more.

                Fig 2 : Concept Character Design (2014) Authors Own

I was quite happy with the outcome of the animation style for this character although I didn’t feel that the character itself was appropriate for my story. I experimented with different faces for this character; I stretched, scaled, drew over and used my imagination to create different looking faces. I was intrigued by the face on the bottom far right as it didn't look as human-like as the others. I thought to myself that maybe my main character can be something else than human however I need to find a way for the spectator to relate to the non-human character. 

I went ahead and thought of all the different things that this person could be, relating to its physique. I liked the idea of this character being a troll and so I went ahead and created another character design for him. 

Fig 3 : Concept Character Design Troll (2014) Authors Own

On Tuesday, I received feedback from my Tutor who told me that this character resembled too much to Yoda. I hadn't realised it until he told me and so straight away I thought of the ways in which I could modify it. I did some research on trolls and what they wear. I decided to make the character taller and wear trousers instead of a cape. The character soon became de-Yodalised!

Fig 4: Final Character Design: Marcus (2014) Authors Own

This turned out to be my final design as to which I spent hours on, however it was worth every hour and I am extremely happy with the outcome. I am excited to begin animating Marcus the troll. 

Week 4 Day 1 : Post Preduction

For the beginning of the week I commenced by writing down every single animation idea I could think of linked to my theme. I came up with ten different ideas as of which I then started to develop and see if I could link a couple of them together to create more rounded stories. However, once I had done this, one idea in particular stood out: The idea of two different people from different countries trying to communicate in different languages and just ending up screaming and shouting at each other in different languages. This idea made me think of Jan Svankmajer's animation work in particular his 'Dimensions of Dialogue' piece where the characters eat each other and spit each other out again. 

I would love to be able to recreate this idea on flash. I also had the idea that these characters could 'tune' into each other like a radio or television to be able to find the same wavelength to communicate however this doesn't work and they just keep changing languages struggling to connect.

 I carried on watching a couple of animations on video in order to be inspired by different animation style ideas. In particular I absolutely loved 'My day' (2008) by Eamonn O Neill. ( http://vimeo.com/6253749  )

Fig 2 : My Day (2008) Eamonn O  Neill

What I liked mostly about this animation was the look and feel; the 2D and watercolour design. I loved the aggressiveness put into this animation which is what made it original. A lot of it came from the character. I admired the framing and change in proportions of each character to symbolise how they feel and to accentuate the theme of personal space. The story is easy to relate to. The situation of the man in the bus has surely happened to most of us before. What I found interesting was the way that the situation was placed in a public space, however through the different frames it feels placed in a private space. This piece inspires me to accentuate lots of different frames in my animation in order to show my story more. I think it will also help get convey the notion of frustration to the spectator.

Week 3 Day 1& 2 : Bank Monday and Crits

Because of the Easter weekend and the bank holiday the weekly crits changed to the Tuesday. These crits consisted of checking our blog and the research work we had gathered together for our final major projects.

After all of my research work my ideas started to change. I honestly had thought about my first idea so much that I started to not like it at all. The creative week helped me to think of different ideas and take a step back from my project which I really needed to do. I went back to the basics and started to think about HOW to integrate and what you need in order to integrate. For me the major points of integration are communication: language, body language and culture. I decided that I really wanted to focus on these points and also the feelings you have while integrating. I want my animation to send a message to the spectator which is that we all need to integrate however the process of integration can be a frustrating and long process; sometimes it's never ending.

Instead of creating a whole entire story I thought it would be more fun to create a short sequence and keep my animation simple.

During this week I saw two different films: '' Planet 51'' (2009) and Spirited Away (2001) Studio Ghibli as I want to visit their film festival at the British Film Institute next week.

Fig 1 : Planet 51 Collage (2013) Authors Own

This film is based around the theme of integration. The idea that humans are the aliens and that the aliens are good. What I enjoyed the most about this film was the fact that the aliens had their own lives and that we view how they live in a humanized world. They own alien dogs, alien cars and they have their own culture which I found interesting and amusing to discover. It gave me a whole new point of view on our own culture and world. The aliens have their own different types of personalities and what I found intriguing about this inversed situation is the negative view on the humans that the aliens attributed to us. I was fascinated by the inversed idea of this film however I did not like the story. Throughout the film, the interaction between the main alien character and the human, we view a share of culture which links in perfectly with my theme.

Fig 2 : Spirited Away Collage (2014) Authors Own

I had seen this film as a child and so I thought it would be interesting to see it again. I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I found the animation astonishing and I am in awe at the storyline. This film links in with my theme through the way that they have integrated Japanese culture into this animation through the bathhouse and the idea of spirits, also the main character Chihiro has to integrate into this whole new world full of spirits in able to stay alive and save her parents. At the beginning of her forced integration she is miserable, however little by little she discovers new people and learns how to behave like the spirits. She learns their culture in order to survive. Throughout the film she becomes happier. Chihiro becomes stronger and a more rounded character throughout the film development, as of which we could compare to a real life person integrating into a new country.

Week 2 Day 3: Creative Week Final Crits

Unfortunately for this day the graphics girls were unwell and unable to assist our crit however we still managed to get sent the final image and decided to project the veil image.

Fig 1: Man under Veil (2014) Authors Own

Our crit passed really well; we explained to everyone our technique and how our project idea developed. I really enjoyed this week as it helped me to take a step back from my final major project. This project helped unblock some further ideas I have had for my Final Major Project.

Week 2 Day 2: Creative Week

On the second day we edited the fire pictures that we had taken the previous night, and which had turned out better than we had expected. Creating this was something that I had never done before and so it was extremely different to what I usually do and I thoroughly enjoyed creating something physical with my hands. Matt had used this technique before and so he was able to guide us in what to do and how to hold the lit sponges.

I am delighted with the outcome of the images. Creating these was exciting, different and fun. I will definitively keep this technique in my mind for if ever I need to use it in the future.

Fig 1: Steel Wool Photography (2014) Authors Own

Fig 2 : Steel Wool Photography (2014) Authors Own

We then sent the pictures to Natalie and Alice who put the pictures together to create a fire man. They edited it in lots of different ways to decide how we would project it and in what way the image looked the most powerful. 

Fig 3: Man of Fire Idea 1 (2014) Alice Parker

Fig 4: Man of Fire (2014) Alice Parker

As a group we really loved the second design and decided that this would be the design to project upon a veil over a mannequin. 

Our final image would look like this:

Fig 5: Man of Fire with Veil (2014) Alice Parker

Week 2 Day 1 : Creative week

For this week we were given a one week project where we had to collaborate with the graphics pathway. We were paired up into groups. My group consisted in Lea (LBM), Jason (MP), Matt (MP), Natalie (Graphics) and Alice (Graphics).

We began by watching a presentation of different ideas and materials to inspire us with this weeks' project. The idea was to create something physical and by using means which we do not usually use. Our aim in this project was to combine all of our different ideas together from our Final Major Project and transform it into a 3D object or indeed something created with our hands.

For our group, this day consisted in sharing our FMP ideas and trying to figure out in which way we could link them all together. We wrote down our main themes on a piece of paper and tried to find common links between them.

The major themes we had to work with were:

Feminism- Lea

Relationships - Matt

Integration- Louise

Shape and Form- Natalie

Mythology- Alice

The main link we found between these was the idea of a character. Our first major idea was to create a sculpture while integrating all of these themes together. However, as we discussed these ideas further, our project idea morphed into the idea of projecting fire onto the sculpture itself to make it more powerful ( spurred in particular by the ideas of mythology and shape and form).

We liked the notion of projection so much that we decided to turn the idea upside down and project our final piece onto a mannequin to keep the idea of a character made out of fire.

We divided the group to perform different roles: Matt, Lea and I would create the fire through photography, whilst Natalie and Alice would create the piece. They would add on anything as they went along which would enhance the reality to their themes.