Climbing the Mountain, Never Coming Down

It’s been a while since I updated and for that I am sorry. I am still getting use to having this additional blog and the teacher doesn’t check it so I currently have little motivation to keep it regularly.

Anyway things in the class are finally moving. We no longer just look at the animatics every week and where told to bring in 3 seconds of animation for out ‘slice.’ (I might be referring this to proof of concept occasionally as that is the name I learned it as first)

First I had to decide what section I was going to animate for the proof. I knew the faculty would be wanting something that had the ice effect in it, but I didn’t want to be rushing the look of other characters. 

That narrowed the choice down to a) when Sephtis and River finally fall in love in the forest or b) when River dies and Sephtis freezes the whole town in rage.

I went with section 'a'.

So far it’s come out nice. The animation isn’t perfect - some motion still needs to be smoothed and a bit more of the background needs to be developed….but I was very happy to show it.

I even was playing with the idea of making this scene taking place at night….

When I went up to show it I was very nervous even though I was happy. Yet after I showed it Kane was so happy he actually said he loved it! 

Seriously one of the best classes I’ve had with him.

Of course next week he is looking for another 3 seconds and a finally pass at the animatic so the is no time for rest. For today though I’m just savoring the good job.

It's Been a Hard Day's Night

It’s been 2 weeks since I had time to make a post, but to me it hasn’t seemed that long.

Don’t get me wrong, these weeks have been extreme, but seeing as I’ve pulled and all nighter nearly every other day my internal clock is totally messed up.

So I’ve been working on revisions of the animatic - some changed camera angles and some different plot explanations.

I’ve also been working off the mood boards I made before and creating the actual character designs for at least Sephtis and River. Below you can see his, River is still in the works.

There are a lot of things I have to think about in moving forward.

Over the past week we have had individual faculty critiques about our thesis ideas. I had three meetings and overall it went well.

Yeah, some suggestions have been dismissed very quickly, but there are many others that are so valid they have to be considered. One teacher when scene by scene to try finding other ways for me to ‘say’ the same things without needing to do as much animation.

That was a great critique. Very long, but great.

This coming week is spring break and I’ll be going home for a few days to de-stress and un-plug a bit. However, shortly after we get back we will be starting on our proof of concept, also known as a vertical slice.

We have to completely animate :10 of the animation, and I have no idea et what part I’m going to pick. I do know that I want/need it to be a section that uses the ice magic….but other than that I’m not sure.

Livin' On a Prayer

As I said, the next would be coming to you quickly.

Now about the video from last week these are the notes:

-there needs to be more fear

-more power evolution

-more depth for bully characters

-…and more

4 issues where talked about the most:

-is the narrator young, old, male or female?

-characters need to show more emotion

-angles need to be more dynamic

-all characters need to be developed more

Add that to what is needed for the faculty presentation in 2 weeks:

-color story

-characters design sheets

-minimum of 7 style frames

-full board-o-matic*

-project pipeline layout

-work samples to prove you have an idea what you’re doing

Basically a LOT needs to get done and all the frames need to be remade to illustrate what the characters look like. I truly do need a prayer to get this done in time.

Now here’s the kicker.

When I make storyboards I always create a generic figure that stands for every person - maybe they have 1 feature different in order to figure out who is who. After that I create character designs, landscape designs, clothing designs….everything like that. The I would start animating. I don’t go back into the boards and detail them out with the new information. 

Thing is, I’m not allowed to do that this time apparently.

Why bring this up?

A lot of the comments from last week revolved around the lack of character design and emotion. Yes, they also talked about the angles - but if I have to re-draw the frames with character I’m not going to re-draw it with angles just to draw it again with character. So the idea is to wait and draw it all together.

(Yeah, they also talked about the narrator voice but as I don’t have access to male voices right now it is as good as it is going to get for a bit)

So here’s the plan: make the character designs.

Now I haven’t had yet actually crated the character designs, but I was able to mostly complete the first step in that process for me - creating mood boards.

If you don’t know what a mood boards is, it is a collection of photos/drawings that have been found and all illustrate a tone/theme/style one wishes to get across. It is also really helpful in understanding the different aspects of a character: body type, hair style, clothing, coloring, mental state.

So these are some of the boards I collected/made over the past week.

Town/Ruin    

Forest/the Clearing

Magic

General 

River

Sephtis

I know my teacher is most likely not going to be thrilled with the amount - or lack there of - work I’ve done. And unfortunately my set-back has put me behind. But this needs to happen for the presentation anyway so it might as well be happening now.

Before I forget, there is a few more things you need to know in order to understand what/who I’m talking about.

-This class right now is called Graduate Seminar II (aka Seminar) and sometimes it is just referred to by us the students as “Kane” since the class is taught by Kane.

-The main boy’s name is Sephtis which is Persian for: eternal death

-The main girl’s name is River.

-The story was created first as just a back story for a different character for another class. The original ending lead more clearly into it.

That should be everything now. I hope to be updating this blog regularly before my class so keep a look out Wednesday nights through Tursday lunch.

What's the Tale Nightingale?

In quoting Disney: To all that come to this ‘happy’ place, welcome.

It will be oh so happy, for you at least, as you get to watch - read - me kill myself with thesis.

Some of you might be new to my blog(s) and to you a very special welcome. To you whom’s returned, thanks.

Now….why another blog?

Answer…..thesis.

Simply put I need to keep a blog for the next year-and-a-bit to help document my progress in making my MFA thesis. Admittedly I am starting this a bit late - it will all be explained shortly.

Backing up a bit for the newbies:

My name is Christina and I’m currently studying at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY for my MFA in Animation. Last year I finished a BFA in Motion Design with a minor in Sculpture from Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota FL. I like 2D and 3D animation, but am much more comfortable with 2D. My biggest influence is Disney (LOVE Disney). Anime is also an influence particularly in design.

Honestly, if you want to know more about me, my life, and my experience outside of this thesis you should check out my other blogs.

Moving on.

Unless told otherwise by my teachers I’m not going to change my writing style for the blog. I write what I think and how I think it - I won’t classy it up unless told to since that isn’t me.

I also feel that, since this is a blog, there should be actual writing. So you’ll see actual words on my blog as opposed to some of my classmates who might just post the video with the name of it in the post title.

Next, I started a thing for my other class blog where all the titles are that from songs be it titles or lyrics. I’m going to do that here too and try not using repeats of the 2 - but who knows. So keep an open mind when reading on and try figuring out where everything is from. (I’ll most likely add ‘answers’ to a post at that end of each term.

Finally, because I will more than likely want to submit my final thesis to festivals - and some demand that the video’s aren’t available online…….so this means that you won’t see the final product unless you are at my school. There might also be occasions where videos won’t be able to be viewed as they will be password protected. I will limit this as much as possible, but it might have to happen every now and again.

Okay. now that all the technical stuff is out of the way we can begin.

As I said I’m starting this blog a bit late. The reason is this:

Last semester in Seminar class we began writing possible thesis stories and carried one to storyboards. Over break I edited and changed the story quite a bit - keeping the basic idea but changing most everything else. Upon returning for the spring we quickly had to create board-a-matics* so I did - for the new version. After 4 weeks, over 120 storyboard panels, 5 story edits, and several late nights to get it finished I was told by my teacher that all the old version was the best and I should scrap all the new stuff. Of course my classmates quickly agreed.

It was a big set back.

(*Quick side note: In reality we where told to make an animatic but based on what I was taught at my previous school an animatic is when you have a good scratch audio, low-res models, all camera moves, and the most basic blocking animation. A board-o-magic is when you take the storyboard panels and put them to music and time - at most the the picture will me moved on screen to help illustrate the motion. Therefore, we where actually told to make board-o-matics.)

Getting back to the story.

So last week I created the following board-o-matic with what I had from before break - adding only a few new frames to illustrate the new beginning and ending.

With that I think I’ll concluded this post - it's really long already. What I’ve done in the past week will be posted shortly after this one and you can continue the journey with me.