Monday 28 August 2017

Year 3 - Minor and Major Project: Initial Ideas

1) Factory of Fortune (Year One From Script to Screen Project)
  • This would most likely be more fitting as a major project, and would involve refining character/location/prop designs and the story before making a short animation.
  • I would keep the four complete characters mostly the same, with minor tweaks. The location and props could use more thought and finalised designs.


2) Continuation of Adapted Blake Poems
  • Continuing with the second year project to produce three 3D models of the characters I created.
  • Each character would have a small video with minor movement and a voice over reading the poem.


3) A Guide to Cryptids 
  • Covering minor and major project, I would like to create a booklet about different kinds of cryptids and other mythical creatures, going over their anatomy, where in the world they are found, their diet, etc. A kind of bestiary.
  • The art would be a colourful yet simple style (similar to that in my Fantastic Voyage animation), giving the booklet more of a "art of" feel.
  • To go along with the booklet I would like to create 3D models of a few of the creatures (again, very simple in style) and create short videos with a voice over that will go over facts about the creatures. The models will have walk cycles and other movements depending on information given in the voice over (e.g. a creature spreads its wings when the narrator talks about its wingspan).
  • This project could also be a minor project, in which I would be designing and creating character sheets for the various cryptids.

4) Cassie (a story I began writing at 8 years and continued on and off through secondary school).
  • I brought this up with Alan as a possible subject for my Adaptation B project, and was told it might be something to consider for 3rd year.
  • The premise of the story is: in a fantasy world, the Mother goddess (mother nature) is overthrown by a false god created by industrial cultists. Representatives of The Mother (people with an affinity for nature who are called upon by white elk) are exiled or sacrificed to the false god. The Priestess, a woman chosen by The Mother to hear her voice, has been forced to take refuge deep in a forest, protected by the few remaining representatives and their elk. As time passes, more and more of the forest is destroyed and The Mother becomes weaker. As a result of this, plants and animals far away from the forest begin to die out, and towns and villages are slowly abandoned as people move closer to the mother's power, which in turn results in more forest being cut down.
  • The protagonist, Cassie, is fifteen years old when she is approached by a white elk whilst out hunting. Her attempts to shoo the elk away fail, and she realises she has been chosen. She manages to get away from the elk, and after reluctantly consulting her parents, discovers her aunt had been a representative of The Mother, but had been killed defending an altar dedicated to the goddess. Cassie's parents reveal they are part of a group of heretics wishing to remove the false god in order to bring The Mother back to power and make the world what it once was. Her parents and the other heretics cannot rise against the false god without the help of the representatives, but haven't had any way of finding them until now. Cassie is tasked with finding the Priestess and convincing her there is still hope, and that they can defeat the false god.
  • For this project I would like to mainly focus on world building and character design, and eventually make 2 of the characters in maya (or a character and a location), as well as producing an in depth art of. 

4 comments:

  1. Evening Eleanor... okay, well I think 'Cassie' is too epic in terms of a story to be made, but also 'too epic' to be reduced to a premise that just gives rise to some Maya assets and an Art Of. For me, the final year is an opportunity to achieve something that is a complete experience, and my preference is always for work that manages this for other people; after all, a well managed project for a narrative short or similarly 'complete' work should give rise to a detailed art of and some gorgeous 3D assets. I think you've got some strong ideas here (Cassie excepted, not because the idea isn't fascinating, but rather because I think it's too big even for the minor/major combination). Of the alternate 3, which is the one that speaks to you most credibly as something that might sustain you for this prolonged creative period?

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    1. Hi Phil! Thanks for your feedback. The project I'd most like to go into is "A Guide to Cryptids" :)

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  2. Okay! So my first thoughts are around the audiences experience of your 'Guide' - there's a sense in what you write here that what you're making are 3D assets for 2D illustration maybe, but you also go on to suggest there'd be some animation too. I think there's lots of potential in this idea, and perhaps we need to free up the 'end game' a little as you enhance your understanding of some of the ideas in and around your idea, namely bestiaries and zoological illustration/taxonomy traditions etc. There's a lovely visual tradition of classifying animals (and collecting the weird and the wonderful) - some things to look at:

    The wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_illustration
    Also look at the genre of illustrated a-to-zs:
    Bestiaries more generally:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestiary
    http://bestiary.ca

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    1. Thanks Phil! I'll do more research and get posting further ideas :)

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