Back to the ... Beginning?

Yes, yes indeed it looks like it may be that way! So I've been home for the extended weekend, a nice one of which concerns banks having a holiday, isn't that great. Surely the world would break down if every single bank had a day off? Maybe that's what went wrong with the so-called economic crisis, managers gave themselves a raise and CEO's a huge bonus and had a day off. Nevermind that rubbish though, on with the show.

So this extened weekend, I've had time to mellow over my final idea, looking to see if there's anything else I would enjoy working on or instead of. I started doodling in my small sketchbook and suddenly thought of an idea I already had: a story. It was only a few sentences and a bit of runic research but it was enough to spur me onto a big thought process. I spent these days just going over other story ideas and what twists I could link into my story. Below are some images of my sketches during the weekend and also some story sketchwork (I don't want to give too much away):









This image below is the start of my sketchbook, what's written here is the ancient runes that will be translated into the now-in-use language of that world (when I figure it out) and then translated into English.

Back to Basics.

Over the Easter holidays we were sent away with the task of thinking up ideas of what to do for the Negotiated project, which could be completely anything we wanted to do. So I sat down and put a lot of thought into it, mind mapping loads of funky things (not neccessarily feasible to start and complete in 6 weeks).

From what I had: 3-D modelling rooms/characters/environments to animating characters, animals, even a few 11 second club animations that would provide me with some good 3-D practice. However I think I'd feel that I would have to spend a week or 2 getting back into the swing of Maya, and with it not always fully functioning on my computer, could cause a little problem. So all that was left then was going back to basics: the drawing board. Literally.

I pitched my idea, well I say pitch, it was more sort of stand in front of everyone and have a small discussion; on what I wanted to do: Design Levels for a 3-D game, probably a 3rd person action/adventure type thing. This would involve all the concepts, art and environment designs to hand straight over to the 3-D artist in order to recreate what I'd drawn on paper, into a 3-D environment.

These images above show the kind-of thing I'd be doing. I'd firstly go out and collect loads of reference images. For example if I were to do a level in a forest, I'd get tree images, forest floor images and research into the verious different forests (certain weather climate, certain plants; certain amount of sunlight, certain places for plants). I'd then draw up rough sketches of what objects or buildings would appear on that level (researched first), and sketch out rough scenes that any character would pass through. Next I would draw many different detailed floor plans and choose one that would best fit the story that would commence in that level.

The reason I chose this topic to explore, is to look into the field of designing objects and environments at the next stage, which is final designs to hand straight over to the production department; to gain a greater in sight into this role and how it works within industry.

3rd Year Work

Okay catch up for over the past few weeks. We've recently been introduced to working on the 3rd year projects with each of us doing small tasks in one way or another. I have been set to work with Cherie on her film Timmy's Gift, as the CG Artist, which entails lighting the scenes. Below is a mood board on the kind of styles of lighting that Cherie would like:



The film will have a feel of the Tim Burton-esque, so something kind of dark and eerie. The story is about a boy called Timmy, who attends a sort of magic school, and he gets put through a few challenges to find out what his magical gift is. During this small film we also see other characters: Rowley, a little tubby kid; Milton, a geeky looking kid; a spider, Timmy's friend and Diederich, the evil seeming teacher putting children through a string of tough tasks so that they can find their powers.

So far I've done the main base lighting that will be referenced into all the shots, relevent to which lighting mood is wanted.

On with the tricky part ...

Over the past few weeks, we've all started to be re-introduced to essays: the reading and writing part of the course more namely known as research and method. Below is listed my chosen three texts I've decided to look at:

'Somatexts at the Disney Shop: Constructing the Pentimentos of Women's Animated Bodies by Elizabeth Bell.' In: From Mouse to Mermaid.

'Putting themselves in the pictures: Images of women in the work of Joanna Quinn, Candy Guard and Alison de Vere by Sandra Law.' In: A Reader in Animation Studies.

' "A Certain Refusal of Difference": Feminism and Film Theory from The Future of an Illusion: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis by Constance Penley.' In: The Future of an Illusion: Film, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis.

For this literature review, I have chosen the topic feminism; and within that the representation of women. The first text as listed above explores the theme of how Disney represents women in their films. The second text, deals with the analysis of female animators and their approach to creating an animated film and how, in turn they represent women. My final chosen text looks at how women were represented in early classical film and touches upon how men perceived women, within the field of working in film.

Over the Easter holidays I will be continuing to study around the subject of feminism and the representation of women, to get a greater understanding in that field and apply what I've learnt to produce a film analysis.

Me thinks this is how a computer virus should be!

It may also provide much more entertainment when a program crashes... yes, I did indeed get distracted for 10 minutes