N190 Final Animatic: Mailaya and the Guardians

After Effects Midterm Project - Art Direction for Final Animatic (video)

Preface to Description -
Hello and thank you for stopping by. I'm writing this description for my midterm project after I have read of review from a classmate. They had viewed my video post and posted the review on facebook (for the art critique assignment). I agree with a lot of points people are getting at when they watch my video. I must honestly admit that I procrastinated a great deal of the very plot of my story - and it keeps changing; the more and more I think about it - I'll get different ideas. There are already a few things that I want to change from what you will see above. In the following description, I will include elements from the above video, as well as changes I intend to make for my final animatic project.

Color Scheme -
I'm using a tri-chromatic color scheme including blues, light blues, oranges, and browns. I want to tie in a lot of those natural earth colors as the setting takes place outdoors on an ocean. I'll need to show different colors of ocean water with orange colors of the sun reflecting on to the water. I want to blend both the tranquility of blue and the energy of orange to show great contrast as a visual element. These colors compliment each other and are naturally pleasing to the eye. In the video, I mention tranquility and energy being two characteristics of my main character, Malaiya, but now I feel that she might be less tranquil than I planned for her to be - I changed my mind with her and I want less tranquil. However, blue could also represent loneliness or sadness ; which Malaiya experiences with the death of her family (which is killed by Pyite clansmen searching for Malaiya); so my original plan will ultimately be similar with some modifications. The setting takes place on a wooden vessel in the ocean, so I will also need to incorporate natural browns which will fulfill the tri-chromatic color scheme. For the digitally savvy readers - my main palette will consist of #FFB400 (orange), #1F1AB2 (blue), #104789 (light blue), #A67500 (brown). Here's a table i just built while writing this display my complete color palette:

Hex Code Table for Color Scheme
#FFC740	#FFB400	#BF9530
#FFD763		#A67500
#333086	#1F1AB2	#534ED9
#0C0874M		#7673D9
#29477F	#1047A9	#4577D4
#052A6E		#6090D4

Background Mass -
I've chosen to include little to no background objects in my animatic. I will include things like the sun, the ocean water, and possibly a mountain or hill with a singular lighthouse on it - I'm trying to create the loneliness, sadness, and emptiness that Malaiya is feeling while she grieves for her family's recent deaths and searches for the answers to why they were all killed.

Location / Setting -
This is one section that I'm changing my mind with. In the video, I mentioned that I wanted this animatic to take place off of the coast of Liberty Island; so you would see the Statue of Liberty in the background, but I'm thinking about doing something different now. Having the coast of Liberty Island as a setting doesn't really fulfill the loneliness theme I'm going with and, to boot (taboot taboot), doesn't make for an interesting science fiction setting. I really wasn't thinking it through when I originally decided to go with Liberty Island. I just knew, at first, I wanted to think of a place that viewers would remember if they watched my animatic; most people know of the Statue of Liberty; which seemed like a perfect place for an aerial battle of people with super powers. I'm thinking I won't include the Statue of Liberty now. I will include something closer to the lighthouse image from the video above.

Overal Look/Feel/Mood -
The overall look I originally chose was color pencil drawing; especially after I found the drawing of what could be Malaiya; it really spoke to me. Now, as expected, I'm thinking about doing mixed-media of alter images and drawings to create a unique look a feel. This will help to strengthen the science fiction aspect of my piece, I hope. I will alter, manipulate, and create images in Photoshop and take it from there.

Composition/Aspect Ratio -
Originally (do we see a pattern here?) I described using the acade -my standard ratio of 4:3, but now I'm feeling that wont be as exciting as widescreen, 2:39.1 ratio. This theatrical ratio works so much better for fight scenes and action sequences; which brings me to another point. I now want my animatic to have both action and science fiction elements in it.

Props -
My props will include just a few keys things for the viewer to be expected to remember. I will have my main character sailing on wooden vessel which will have a particularly creative steering wheel, and I mention both of these in the video. I also want to highlight on a specific and unique looking necklace that Malaiya will be wearing. Other than that, I don't want to focus on too many inanimate objects. I want the viewers focus to be on the onscreen characters and dialogue.

Summary -
I believe that many aspects of my art direction will make this a memorable animatic to those who view it. The color scheme will significantly show both contrast, harmony, and unity. Blue and orange colors are complimentary, yet will yield great contrast. With introducing a third color in the tri-chromatic scheme, I start top develop harmony and balance; and when bouncing the orange reflections of the sun off of the skin of the ocean you create unity and togetherness within your composition. I'm choosing orange to represent the energetic drive Malaiya has to find the answers she's looking for and I want the blue colors to represent her sadness. I continue the sadness or isolation feeling by having little to no images or items in my background mass. I just want to focus, as far as background objects are concerned, with the sun, the ocean, and a hilly mountainside. I want to include a little number of props, as well to have the viewer focus more on characters and dialogue. More importantly, the viewer will remember this animatic, as it's science fiction in nature with action elements. Did I mention that the ship Malaiya is sailing on is a flying ship. That will make a huge difference in the story being science fiction or not. I need the ship to be a flying ship; I think. Otherwise, this story isn't sounding too science fiction until you get to the part where you have people flying around and shooting energy blasts at each other like Dragonball Z. I could go into more depth here about my story - as background story will be needed and will be useful to understand the elements that I've chosen.

I will re-write this story and post it here in a blog before beginning to work on the final animatic, so feel free to stop back by once I've posted my re-written version of this story if you are interested so far. I thank you for your time and I'm really appreciate the constructive criticisms and critiques. It's really helping me think and decide to make a much better, well-though, final project. How can I not thank everyone for that.

"...when you're knocked down, we'll help you up..."

First Exercise using Adobe After Effects CS4

Quiz 1 Image

Exercise One: Character Profile

For this exercise, we've been instructed to "chat" with a fellow N190 friend via Facebook to compile information we will be using to construct a character profile. We were told to exaggerate as much or as little as we like. Here is my character profile:

Name: Kristi Cline
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Superpower: Psychokinetic Saxophone abilities; can control matter when playing saxophone
Loves: Music
Dreams: Graduate IUPUI, Move Away From Indiana

Kristi Cline was given a special gift the day her mother gave birth to her; as the legacy was passed down yet another generation. Kristi was granted the gift of musical superpowers that would later in her life result in musical crime-fighting. Kristi was born in Galveston, Texas in the same hospital room and delivered by the same nurse as her mother; it had to be this way. There were always certain protocol and procedures for people like Kristi and her mother; people with abilities. By the time Kristi's mother was giving birth to Kristi; the nurse had grown very aware of the mother's musical abilities and turned rogue, and even jealous towards her mother. The nurse contacted a wise evil-doer who suggest that she kidnap the newborn child; who will guarantee to inherit musical powers from her mother, and use them to her own financial and successful gain.
As Krsti grew up in the mountains of Chile, she immediately found love with the saxophone. She mastered the instrument at age 5. It wasn't until age 10, when she realized that she could control physical object by using her mind in combination with playing the saxophone. Kristi had psychokinetic powers when she played the saxophone and she practiced these skills for years until she grew quite proficient at it; boasting even one time she had stack four vehicles on top of each other in an abandoned junkyard. The day came when Kristi realized that the mother she knew of was nothing short of a life of lies. When she uncovered the truth; she challenged the "nurse" mother in an epic duel of musical psychokinetic magnificence in which Kristi remained as the victor.
Kristi was reunited with her mother and immediately began training in the studio. Her mother had a power a psychokinetic ability when she sang; controlling objects with her voice. Kristi also came to learn that she had a brother. Her brother harnessed the ability of psychokinesis while he played his drums; controlling objects mentally combined when his drums are played. The three, together, learned that their power of psychokinesis no longer worked. The family was baffled by this and agreed to send Kristi on a mission to discover a clue or an answer. An answer that would give the family their abilities as a group.
They decided that they should move to Indiana, and they should keep a low-profile in the community while they search for this answer. Her mother agreed that she would attend IUPUI and go for the Bachelor of Science in New Media Degree. She knew by doing this; Kristi would have all of thes answers in the world.

Lab 3 Photoshop

Nothing too impressive with this lab, but I learn and practiced using the quick selection tool and copying the selection to a new layer. I will keep working on these skills for the next lab.

Layer blending tricks lead to a sweet image

This is my first "cool" thing that I've made in Photoshop. Just watched the layer blending podcasts and was walked through the process well. I really like this technique and plan on using it more often.

Success with uploading Photoshop CS4 - first creation

Here is my proof that I can get into Photoshop CS4, create an image, save for the web (jpeg format), and uploaded here at blogger.com. I know this image is elementary in design, just ellipses and gradients. Anyhow, here the September 6, 2009 creation:

What I think could be interactive and tell a story

I think a lighter could be interactive and tell a story.



I think a lighter is interactive because the user of the lighter physically engages with the lighter in order for the lighter complete it's intended purpose. It's because of interactivity that a lighter works at all. A lighter can never be active on it's own (or, at least it shouldn't be. If you see a lighter lighting itself; you should probably stay away from it). A lighter needs to have interactivity in order to "light" or produce flame.



A lighter could tell a story in many different ways. A lighter's story could be based off the interactivity involved to get the lighter to produce flame. A person looks at the lighter. That person then reaches and grabs the lighter. Then, with a calloused thumb, the person strikes the spark wheel down, and the lighter produces the flame; but only for the length of time in which the person is interacting with the lighter. The flame disappears once the person has let go of the fork, and won't reappear until the next time a person interactive with this in exactly the same manner, calling upon the flame one more time until life-fluid runs out, as does happen with every living thing, and the flame would no longer be able to be called upon by any one person. It would be a "dead lighter".

Initial Blog - Oh Boy...if this post were a book, it would be a real page-turner

Hi there. This is my section in the blogger.com realm.
So, all of you should be able now keep track of my thoughts yet another way and hopefully I can find another application that simultaneously updated all of my status twittery tweets and real-time updates of what I'm doing and where. Really, big thanks to responsibility (and fall semester), I now have less time to waste time telling 567 of my facebook friends that I'm watching the stars and it's nice, with facebook's very addictive tweeting feature; you can "like" (by clicking) someone's post from your page. I'm rallying for the "dislike" option; in case you want to let someone know that you disagree with how they feel and you have no life. Really, I'm not a facebook addict; I just see many who really document their concious time with facebook posts - guess it beats a journal. I'm betting a facebook psychology theory will develop from the millions of users who thrive on the site's functionality and sustainability; god forbid if the application servers go down for two minutes at facebook. There are many millions people that rely on facebook games as of current.
Kind of crazy, really. I just wanted to go with a random topic with this first blog; it come to me as I was typing and just felt like continuing with some support and personal feelings. By no way, in any means, did I think of anything I was going to write ahead of time.

I would hope to keep my blogs very conversational-feeling here; as if I was talking to you and knowing that you can hear, but not respond.

Look forward to sharing with yus.