Night Life Blog
Month
Since the backgrounds will be publically submitted, resulting in a mis-matched and diverse range of imagery almost reminiscent of a scrap book, we have decided to make the other visual assets (characters, props, etc.) follow suit by utilising a paper cut-out style similar to the following:
Although that artwork is created traditionally, the same effect can be achieved digitally quite easily through the use of texture overlays and drop shadows. We will be collecting our own textures; card, paper, wrapping, any materials one might find in a scrap book. These will then be scanned for digital use.
This also adds an interesting constraint to the design of the project: if we can’t make it out of paper cut-outs, we can’t use it in the animation. The scrap-book theme is not an explicit aspect of the project but more a style guide for us.
The crude nature of the design will also allow us to focus more on the animation itself rather than taking too long working on very complex characters and objects.
Today we learned from Trevor that the end of year exhibit won’t be taking place in Wandesford Quay Gallery after all, but in either the CIT Nexus Center or more likely the old FÁS building where Every Way Out was held last semester.
However, this doesn’t make our trip to the gallery earlier in the month a waste of time as it still gave us valuable insight into the practicality of setting up the installation and got us thinking about our limitations.
Working through various designs. I’ll be uploading them as they’re ready.
The faces are intended to be expressive, fun, and understandable. It’s important they’re appealing and nice.
The ‘star’ effect around them is merely a placeholder for these faces, and I’ll experiment with more types in time.
-Mitchell
In the previous semester I spent a lot of time figuring out and working through various styles.
I uncovered various techniques to create suitable scenes based on the preliminary script and paint locations. However, continued study throughout January has lead me to come to put these techniques under severe scrutiny. In that they look much worse than what I could be capable should I expand into new pieces of software.
For example:
This is something I created last semester.
As you can see, some elements, specifically the planet, are kind of terrible.
Using “3DS Max”, and learning a little about how to texture objects, I ought to be able to create something like this.
There’s a series of comprehensive tutorials on how to achieve this. I’ll be digging deep into them to understand how to apply these techniques to a multitude of scenarios.
-Mitchell
Been working hard on After Effects and various Photoshop techniques. I’ll begin sharing them in time.
Here’s the results of the first series of experiments.
The painting was created in Photoshop CS5, and the video in After Effects CS4 using “Particle World” and various other techniques, including “Wiggling”. “Wiggling” is a powerful 3D camera manipulation technique.
I experimented with various 3D camera functions, however, these turned out to be a little unsuitable.
I’ll keep working independently.
Mitchell
An important aspect of our project piece shall be incorporating elements that allow the viewer to interact with the piece before viewing and having their interaction dictate the events that will then take place on screen. Though how this interaction shall be carried out has yet to be decided upon.
During the time off we have been investigating a number of methods of possible interaction that we could implement into our final piece.
Using this method we would develop a series of buttons or pull switches with each switch corresponding to a particular scene of the animation. Once the switch is pulled its corresponding scene will then be loaded to be played into the animation and once enough of the switches are pulled the animation will then begin. As the main characters of the animation will be stars we envision these switches to be shaped as such and will illuminate upon being used. In surveying the site in which we hope to display our piece we have seen that these switches would be buttons placed upon the wall of the space or possibly pulleys hanging from the ceiling.
If we were to move forward with this method we would more than likely be using an Arduino setup as well as developing the appropriate back-end code.
Another method that we have explored has been to use QR Codes as an interactive element. In a way this system would work similarly to the one outlined above, in that each QR Code would correspond to a particular scene and that upon being scanned would lead to a URL page that then loads that scene into the animations timeline. These QR codes again could be embedded into star shaped stickers to keep in theme with the animation and could be scattered amongst the entire Wandesford Gallery instead of being restricted to the display area. However a downside to this method is that in order for people to interact with the piece they will be required to have a smart-phone or other device capable of reading QR Codes.
A further method we are considering would be to develop a system similar to the one seen here in the project Tangible Viewpoints.
http://mf.media.mit.edu/pubs/conference/TangibleNavigation.pdf
In considering how we would replicate this system, we envision having a webcam looking down upon a surface and on that surface projecting the image of a star chart. We would then have star-shaped counters and possibly using Processing we would be able to track where the counters are placed upon the star chart. By splitting the chart into a number of different areas and assigning each area a particular scene, the placement of the stars by the users could then be used to determine the story of the piece.
Today, Robert and Alder attended the script writing workshop with Darren Bolger. He covered a lot of valuable ground with us, from writing a treatment to script writing software to the appropriate language to use.
We started by writing a treatment. This gives an outline of the story to potential funders and acts as a foundation for the script. He told us it should be written in the present tense and be about 10 lines. This is the new treatment we came up with during the exercise:
The two human characters, male and female are lying on the bonnet of the car, star gazing. The female asks the male if he thinks there’s any life “up there”.
In space, the two main star characters, Altair and Vega, are sneaking away from school.
They cause mischief, harass constellations, and fly down to earth. Altair interacts with children who react with wonder and terror. Vega in competition with Altair’s antics imitates cows in a nearby field.
They fly back out into space and unwittingly awaken the antagonist monster character who begins pursuing them.
Their parents are informed of their absence and go looking for them.
The monster wreaks havoc in pursuit of Altair and Vega and corners the two but Their parents arrive just in time.
The monster comes close to destroying Altair but Vega tricks it into consuming itself. There is a flash of light and for a moment it is unclear whether Vega survived.
The protagonists are revealed to be safe and well, and are happily reunited, but with a lesson learned.
Returning to the star-gazers, the male human answers the opening question by simply responding “nah.”
Darren’s only criticism of the treatment was that we should use more descriptive language and action verbs.
We then went on to using script writing software Celtx which is free and offers a lot of automation for the process and was extremely easy to use. We wrote the beginning of the story with Darren’s feedback and advice. He also gave us printouts about how to write realistic dialogue as well as a glossary of scripting terms.
Overall the workshop was very much worthwhile and informative. Ken and Robert will be completing the script next week.
Myself and Ken have completed the Literature Review investigating Narrative Structure and Narrative Theory.
This review can be found at the following link
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1Chiw36w-ZU44opLPeyxY9QLyCblFx6KF9FpDFMoK_c0
As you can see we looked into a number of narrative structures both from a typical and an atypical viewpoint. We feel that this process has proved worthwhile as in doing so we know realise what it is that we must do when constructing the story for our piece. Namely, to create a story that fits within a typical narrative structure yet utilize the methods that appear in the atypical structures as regards branching and interweaving stories.
This knowledge, combined with what we will learn at the Scriptwriting workshop tomorrow will prove invaluable as we move forward with developing our narrative.
We have decided the project is titled “Night Life”. This means straight away we need to register a domain for the website as the website will be in use very soon. We chose to pursue a .ie domain which isn’t as easy to acquire as a .com domain as we need to provide proof of connection to Ireland and a letter of intent.
nightlife.ie is already taken so we will be acquiring nightlifeproject.ie which is available.
Today we had a working meeting. Members in attendance were Alder Cass, Robert McGrath and Ken Kidney.
Robert and I worked on the Lit Review. It is now almost completed and the results should be posted in the coming days.
Alder worked on the Website for the project and sought input from the group based on the work he produced.
This morning we visited the Wandesford Gallery to scope out the spaces available and evaluate our options in terms of the set up. This was important because we need any installation we design to be suitable for the space available. Otherwise we may have been wasting time we do not have on an unfeasible design. It is much easier and quicker to design an installation with the considerations of a space in mind.
A post describing our visit in detail will follow this one.
-Ken
I have recently acquired two books that are renowned as being the best resources for aspiring animators.
The first is “The Illusion of Life” by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.
The second is the latest edition of “The Animators Survival Kit” by Richard Williams.
I am always looking for resources like this to aid us in the process and I will continue to keep an eye out for them and acquire them as they come to my attention.
-Ken
The following is a treatment I have written for our animation. It serves two purposes. It provides Mitchell with a context in which to begin preliminary concept art work. It also acts as a guide for Robert and I when we go to write the full script after the script writing workshop.
Night Life
Themes: Freedom, The pursuit of freedom, Consequences and implications, the desire by some to suppress the freedom of others.
Setting: Space, Earth.
Premise:
The maincharacters are the two stars, which the short film will focus on. They are bored by their surroundings and yearn to be free set out to explore on their own without the knowledge of their parents. They have fun at first and cause mischief in their wake but soon learn their actions have consequences as they awaken a dormant black hole monster that’s only seeks to consume and destroy everything in its path. This not only threatens themselves and the ones they love.
One boy and one girl will be present at the beginning and end, to ground the concept as a child’s fantasy. They are young children. They are lifelong friends and are bound by their mischievous natures. The kids act as bookends for the story. In the beginning of the film we see them speculating on whether there is any life ‘up there’ and at the end we see their conclusion.
Characters:
The boy star is foolish, brave, stubborn, and carries himself with an arrogance and bravado. He’s all this despite his small size and young age.
The girl star is intelligent, strong willed, resourceful, brave and a tom boy.
The Antagonist is a “black hole monster”. He is an ancient being, his only instinct being to destroy everything in his path. He is menacing, with a single minded in nature.
The star’s parents will also feature in the story. They will search frantically for them when they see that their kids are missing. They also play an important part in the conclusion of the story.
The main characters will encounter two little girls and interact with them. One will be curious and wondrous the other will be afraid and flee in terror.
Rough Initial Outline:
We open with the credits rolling with stars in the background we then pan down to see a couple sitting star gazing. One ask the others if they think that they are alive up there (or something along those lines).
We pan up to set our scene. We see a community of characterised stars that mirrors a human Town or City.
The two kids sneak off after creating a distraction from school while their supervisors aren’t looking.
The kids cause mischief including:
They harass the constellations (Who will be personified).
They fly down to earth and encounter a pair of kids. One of them transforms into an exact replica of one of them. One giggles and hides behind her hands shyly while the other flees in terror.
Not to be outdone the other star seeing a nearby field with cows in it assumes the shape of a cow and much to their fright and surprise jumps over the moon.
Soon after this they awaken the monster that begins to pursue him and their parents notice they are gone and go after them.
The monster destroys a lot in his pursuit of the pair and he eventually corners them but their parents arrive just in time.
The monster almost gets one of them but he/she outsmarts it causing it to consume itself. However it is a tense moment as in the resulting flash of light we aren’t sure if he/she has made it.
Reunited they shine together happy that they are all safe, lesson have been learned.
We pan out but still see them shining in the distance and see the couple we saw at the start again. The one who was asked the question responds “neh!” (or something along those lines but we know different).
We pan back up and end credits roll against the night sky.
It is symbolic of our inherent desire for freedom from a very young age. We may get what we want but it is a responsibility as there can be consequences. Equally however there are forces that are seeking to suppress this freedom sometimes at any cost. But what’s important is that if even one brave person stands up against these forces that can be a catalyst for change and convince others to stand up too.
Note: Possibility of an alternative ending where one stands up to the monster and it causes the rest who were afraid before, to follow suit but it’s essentially the same message.
Note: Possibility of another alternative ending where either one of the stars is killed or permanently separated from the rest of them.
-Ken
11/1/12 Project Meeting – All members present
2. Website
3. Lit Review
4. Blog
-Ken