Storyboard Fix and continue

this are some changes I made to the story board and some of the new thumbnails I've been working on.

Last week Drawings

I wish they were prettier...

These are the drawing we made in class. In the the first ones I'm trying to use the figures  that help with the construction of a story board: X, O,L,S,N... (they are written in the paper)

I applied it in my ants' cave.

The second drawings in the same picture, are about a character that opened the cupboards, found no food and turn around surprised.

And the third one, is like an action movie scene... in the last picture the man is supposed to have a gun in his jacket... tough the drawing is not very clear.

Layout and Storyboard

This are draws I made to represent some of the ideas I have for this project.

The ant world, probably will be made as a 2D world.

And this is the first part of the story board

Agents + behavior

Sometimes one of the most difficult things to achieve when you create an animation or an interactive application, is to make people feel related or somehow connected to the environment and characters that are being displayed on the screen. As developers and animators there is always a deep intention to generate links between our work and the audience and most of the times this task may become harder than we expect.

to create a connection we may draw upon the user's likes in music and esthetics, what they feel curious about, their memories and opinions, their beliefs and we may even explode their deepest needs for company and comprehension. As long as we can create a new experience for them that satisfies a particular purpose, there is almost no limits to the media and tools we could use.

It seems that the closer the interaction is between the user and the element that compose an specific application or animation, the easier it is to become attached to a particular agent. This is being stimulated by the use of innovative technologies, such as virtual reality, immersive media and augmented reality, that actually converge the use of images, sound, touch and sometimes smell to create interactive multimedia experiences. 

Since this is a field which is in continuous development, some of the research made in this area is still experimental and by this, some amazing and really creative results are developed by artists, engineers and programmers who use different resources to engage the users into a new experience. They create agents that have no specific shape, others may have a cartoonish look and some try to simulate in almost every aspect the human figure and behavior. Like these examples there could be as many types of agents as they are of users.

Depending on the target and the purpose of the interactive application, animation or any media that is being used, the developers try to attract a specific grout of users, and the behavior of the agents is driven by a variety of  elements such as sound, movement,  pre-arranged instructions, random behavior and many different values offered from the environment.

An example of the use of smell to create a more interactive and immersive experience is the Sensory Acumen's gaming product GameSkunk. Though this may be a technology that is still in development and has no common or regular use, it might be a new step in interactive applications that encourages the link between the users and the agents of the application.

Note: I apologize for my English. I'm Working hard to improve it.

Script

DELIRIOUS

screen play by
Angela Pinilla

screen story by
Angela Pinilla


based on the declarations of
J. Robert Oppenheimer talking about nuclear bomb

In a dark space all we see is an ant farm, an then eyes open in the dark.

LUCAS:

Equality? ...
Equality is not an easy word to define.
Are we equally intelligent to others?
are we equally valuable?

who is to decide in this world who is more relevant?
who is prepared to make the sacrifice and step up for others?
who else but a brilliant mind?

In a deeper and darker voice.

who else but me?

LUCAS

A few of them may laugh, some may cry. And then I'll hear nothing but silence once I start my divine task.

close up to the ant farm.

For are those who behave as animals, who are unable to stop their most primitive instincts, the ones we have made slaves. Slaves by choice, they surrender their reason and the voice of their conscience to become nothing but a tool .

close grim smile

LUCAS (O.S)

A dispensable tool that I am eager to eradicate.

He starts to  kill the ants until only a few are left

LUCAS

Now I stand in the edge of total destruction. I might have only accelerated the natural course of nature, but for what is worth there is no way back now.

LUCAS

This...
This is a cursed position in which I am standing in. For any man in history, who reaches my greatness is absorbed by it's consequences.
This evil is consuming me now and I can't stop the complex mechanism I have started. who is to stop me, when with all my might and strength is focused on my divine task.

In a deeper and darker voice.

'Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.'

MUM (O.S)

Lucas?!

Mum opens the door and comes in.

Oh dear lord, Lucas! why do you keep closing the curtains?!

LUCAS

Mum?!

MUM

Change your pajamas and go out to play! I need to clean this mess you have for bedroom.

she walks towards the curtains

LUCAS

C'mon mum.

she open the curtains and illuminate the bedroom

MUM

And STOP killing your sister's ants! she needs to bring them to school on Monday.

LUCAS

Lucas lets himself fall in the chair and sights.

Delirious

Proposal analysis

As I started to analyze in detail my minor project proposal I realized that this idea would probably need more time and work that the one that is available, and though this is something I want to create when I have the opportunity to do so, it might have to wait to other time.

So from this decision I took, I have developed another idea that could be constricted in a smaller period of time allowing me to fully develop an animation containing an equally interesting theme.

This short animation is a monolog between a child with several Delusion of Greatness and a very dark inner self and the entire world represented by a small ant's colony.

REFERENCES AND INSPIRATION

The basic Idea for this animation came from a video of J. Robert Oppenheimer talking about the construction of the nuclear bomb and his participation in the Manhattan Project.

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

And as I imagined this coming from a child with attitude and personality issues it seemed to me as an interesting idea.

Some how I relate this child attitudes as an negatively evolved Calvin, from 'Calvin and Hobbes' as in his selfishness and rudeness but also in his ability to imagine different scenarios that encourage his view of the world.

I recognize a different production by Tim Burton with some similarities with my idea and take it as a small reference to develop and give some potential to my animation. trying to assimilate some of the characteristics that make it so appealing and interesting such as 'an interesting look' and a very good script.

Since I want to use a dark and dim tone in most of my animation I decided to choose a dark palette that doesn't constrict to only black and white but also uses some tones of blue and bits of red/orange.

from the previous Idea I also would like to preserve the idea I had for the textures and details for they correspond to a style that I really would like to implement. this focus specially on the textures, the use of textures in the characters and the general look for my animation.


CHARACTERS

the characters involved in my animation are basically a child, the ants and his mum.

Lucas: he is a sensitive and very intelligent child, who creates alternative worlds in his imagination establishing an alternate reality with him as a self sufficient and superior being.

These are my first sketches.

These is my Final choice for Lucas

These are my plains for making the 3D model.

Ants:  they perform as the representation of the world in Lucas imagination. They are perceived as weak, unstable and worthless creatures shaped only as a diversion for a higher power to play with.

Mum: she doesn't perceive Lucas behavior as unnatural and doesn't try to over-Analise his activities. For her Lucas is just a disorganized child with a healthy imagination.

During the animation, I probably wont show the face of the mother, so facial gestures wont be  needed for this character.

These are the sketches I made for the mum, I decided to use the second.

These are the planes for the 3D Models

References and Inspiration

The Backwater Gospel

The inspiration for my minor project came from a song I was listening one morning in the train. - A song about boxing.

This is the song, it may be in spanish but still is the source of my inspiration:
El club de los imposibles - Bunbury

I decided to do a short linear animation, about two characters in a boxing fight.

The idea of working on something related to this activity has come to me before but for some reason it was never fully developed in something concrete. Now I want to do a short animation telling a story about this, but mostly my story is about how physical weakness can be turned into a strength.

In my search for inspiration I started by watching some of my favorite short animations.
And then I made a list about what I like and what I find interesting about them so I could start classifying some of the aspects that I want to have in my own work.

TEXTURES
I took the Idea from two main animations, though I've seen this kind of effect in some other videos.

 

CHARACTERS
About the characters, I like the idea to keep them simple (mostly low poly count) but still attractive mostly counting on the textures to achieve a good appearance.

 

About the characters this is another idea that caught my attention, basically keep sharp shapes and very textures with defined lines and details.

 

COLORS

In this aspect I still having some problems defining which way I want to go, or even if I want  to obey a single palette during the whole animation or if I want to change it while the story is developed.

doing an image search for this purpose I found some color combinations that interest me because of the contrast they provide.

DETAILS

By watching some other videos I noticed some other details that added and unique look to the animation, of course some of them are dynamics, simulations, hair and so. But some other are light effects mixed whit textures and filters added in post-production.

OTHER STUFF
This is just another link of a 2D animation that inspires me to achieve a good animation, to go beyond lights, textures an fancy 3D effects, this makes me think about natural looking animation, about smoothness and somehow well achieved simplicity.

This is a links that I think will help me to go trough the whole production process:

Blog: The Backwater Gospel


And finally, this is an image I found looking for some information about boxing, and I post it to remind me where I don't want to go, and if I reach this point I would know that I have to give step back and find what I really want to achieve.