Narrative: "Love Bird" Making Of

The Making of...LOVE BIRDS

Narrative: Environment Lighting and Texturing

The environment was passed onto me to do the texturing and lighting once the UVs were done.
I put some base textures down for whilst I do the lighting arrangements.

This was the first lighting arrangement that was done before the environment was given to me to work on, the main feedback for this was to take out lights from the light bulbs as it was too bright.

Firstly I took out all the directional lights before touching the light bulbs and adjusted the windows at the back.

Since the start of our animation is supposed to give an overall dull feel before the light change.

As there was no finalized design for the environment as a whole I made some adjustments to the machinery, placements of the crates and added paper littering the environment.

During the animation their is a slight colour change to the environment, so I added some pink lighting to suggest the romantic theme of with the use of an ambient light in the scene.

I took this shot into after effects to see what type of filter we could do for the "romantic" scene, it entirely depends on how over the top we'll be with it:

There are some lights above that need to be removed and designs on the posters to be laid out.

 Now that I had a good idea of the lighting I was able to concentrate on the texturing that we wanted. 

Changed the grating floor to a smaller, diamond shaped texture and reduced reflectivity.

Added a rusted brass texture to the machinery.

To differentiate between the boxes "UP" lettering added to them. Small screws were also added to the rollers on the conveyor belt so when animated a sense of movement is given.

"Valentine's" posters added.

Lighting touched up slightly and handed over to add the characters into the scene.

Narrative: Female Character UV - Starting

After Scarlett refined the female character it was pass back to me to UV, there are just some left over bits to touch up on the hair which will be done in the morning ready for the next step.

Narrative: Female Character Head Model

Narrative: Character Orthographics

Narrative: Male and Female Character Design Development

After getting together the four of us discussed what we wanted for the characters in our animation. My main idea for the male characters was a squarish design and for the female more circular (I looked at couples such as Carl and Ellie from Up for inspiration). 

Now that I had a decent idea of how I wanted these characters to look, I worked on them digitally to make it easier to adapt the style for the both of them.

Narrative Film: Character Analysis of Jim Hawkins (Treasure Planet)

Treasure Planet is a 2002 American animated science fiction film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, and released by Walt Disney Pictures on November 27, 2002. It its the 43rd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. The film is a science fiction adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure novel Treasure Island.

Wants: 

Wants to go find Treasure Planet with the map he was given by Billy Bones.
Needs: 

A father-son relationship, which he never had and ended up finding in his relationship with John Silver.
Change: 

During the beginning of the film, he was a stereotypical, alienated teenager, constantly in trouble and "like a stranger" to his mother Sarah. His "Bad Boy" reputation was emphasised through his black jacket, and the shadow over his eyes. By the end of the movie, however, he no longer wears the jacket, and the eye-mask is gone. At first, Jim is stoic and guarded, but as time goes on, he begins to open up thanks to Silver taking him under his wing, and at the end of the movie, he becomes a much more open, confident and happier young man.

Flaws: 

Can be very reckless as he has broken the law countless times, flew the longboat him and Silver were in into a passing comet disregarding the possible dangers that could have happened, recklessly insulted Scroop (who in ended up very nearly killing him later on).
Conflict: 

When Jim found out that the crew was plotting a mutiny, he also learned that Silver cared more about the treasure than him, which left Jim heart broken and hurt. Even when Silver explained his intentions and offered Jim a bargain to solve this mess, Jim refused.

Narrative: Origami Crane idea

In our rough script we have one of our characters trying to get the attention of his colleague in various ways and in the end makes and origami crane, it drifts over to her and ultimately he finally gets her attention.

I had a quick thought in regards to the whole origami crane sequence for our story. There's a legend about making 1000 origami cranes to make your wish come true (Senbazuru), so instead if it being one crane and getting picked up by a draft, maybe we could have origami cranes trickling down the conveyor belt to the girl? (We obviously won't do a thousand since that's a lot of work to do, but it would get the idea across?)

Here's a rough sketch of what I mean, and this would also make her finally look at the other character after all of his attempts?

Narrative Film: Hollywood Formula - Summer Wars

Exposition:

Kenji goes with his classmate Natsuki to her Grandmother's 90th birthday celebration in Ueda. Whilst there he's introduced as her fiancé to all her family.

Conflict:

Kenji receives an email with a mathematical code and cracks it, resulting in an artificial intelligence "Love Machine" to run havoc on the virtual reality world OZ which coincides with the real world. 

Rising Action:

The longer Love Machine is left to its own devices, the smarter and more powerful it becomes. By taking over avatars in OZ it has access to high class positions in the real world and is able to interrupt emergency services and military intelligence alike.

During this it disrupts any notification regarding Natsuki's grandmother's condition, resulting in her death.

Kenji and the family work together to come up with a plan to beat Love Machine once and for all. They confront it and manage to capture it but due to one of Natsuki's relatives interrupting with the supercomputer preventing them from stopping Love Machine. 

Love Machine redirects a satellite to crash into a nuclear power plant.

Climax:

They confront Love Machine one last time in a game of Koi-Koi in OZ's casino world, wagering their accounts to win back the world's avatars from Love Machine. At one point Natsuki nearly loses all of her winnings but the remainder of OZ users offer their accounts for her to use, and ends up winning.

The coordinates for the falling satellite is redirected to the family's estate and King Kazma beats Love Machine once and for all.

Falling Action:

Kenji activates the GPS code to redirects the satellite away from the estate, but only slightly. The impact destroys the estate's entrance and causes a geyser to erupt.

Resolution:

The rest of the family arrive, celebrating the victory as well as Natsuki's grandmother's birthday. Natsuki kisses Kenji after they confess to each other.

Narrative Film: The Hero's Journey Archetypes - Kung Fu Panda

The Hero: 

Po

The Mentor: 

Master Shifu

The Herald: 

Master Oogway

The Shadow: 

Tai Lung

The Threshold Guardian: 

Master Shifu

The Trickster: 

Tigress

The Shapeshifter: 

Mr Ping

Allies:

The Furious Five

Narrative Film: The Heroes Journey - Wreck-it-Ralph

Ordinary world: 

In the video game "Fix it Felix Jr" where Ralph is the villain.

The call of adventure:

When the Nicelander Gene bets Ralph to win a medal to prove he's a "good guy".

"If you won a medal, we'll let you live up here in the penthouse. But it will never happen, because you're just the bad guy who wrecks the building."

Refusal of the call:

Although he's very serious about getting the medal, he knows its impossible for

Meeting the mentor: 

There isn't a prevalent mentor character in this film, but the bartender in Tappers who gives him advice

Crossing the threshold: 

Ralph game jumping into "Hero's Duty".

Test, Allies & Enemies:

Surviving through "Hero's Duty" and getting the medal. Led by Sgt. Calhoun through the game. Inadvertently stirs the entire nest of cy-bugs and accidentally brings one with him when he escapes Hero's Duty.

In "Sugar Rush", Ralph meet Vanellope von Schweetz, who takes his medal to use to enter a race she's banned from joining. When he catches up with her, he finds her being bullied by the other residents of Sugar Rush for being a glitch, he feels sorry for her and befriends her.

Approach:

Ralph learns that Vanellope is an outcast for being a glitch and is denied the chance to enter the races because she's seen as a danger. He helps her get her own racing cart and teaches her how to drive.

The ordeal, death and rebirth:

King Candy comes to Ralph with his medal that Vanellope used to enter the race with, and offers it to him in return of him preventing Vanellope from racing. If she were to race and get selected for the roster, players will see her glitch and think the game is broken; which would result in the game being pulled and Vanellope being trapped within.

With the possibility of the death of the game, Vanellope's dream and death of Vanellope if the game is pulled, Ralph agrees to King Candy's offer.

Ralph finds out that King Candy has lied to them and messed with the games code so that he would be the king and got Vanellope out of the way. With this new knowledge he gets Vanellope to enter the race again. During it they find out King Candy's true identity to be Turbo, who had previously got two other games unplugged.

The cy-bugs have multiplied and end up combining with Turbo.

The resurrection:

Ralph stays behind to sacrifice himself to stop the cy-bugs and Turbo. At the start of the movie he was told he can't change who he is for being the "bad guy" but he's proving it wrong.

Return with elixir:

Ralph wins the game, and Vanellope crosses the finish line and is restarted. Once he returns to his own game Ralph sees his duty as the "bad guy" as merely a role to play.

The reward:

Ralph gets his medal back and saved Vanellope.

Narrative: Ideas and Style Inspiration

"In the Factory"
"Actions speak louder than words"

The first thing that came to mind for me was an indistinguishable type of environment. Factories have order, an unchanging routine. So if we were to go down this route, what type of narrative would we want to go with?

The few things I've thought of at this point are things like going against the system, breaking the cycle. 

This is just the basis of the type of idea I have for the narrative so it needs a lot more research and development on my end. For now I wanted to show some examples of the type of idea I have in regards to both an indistinguishable environment and going against the system.

This animation has been a favourite of mine for a few years now with how it addressed the monotony of school and its unbreakable routine. I thought it was a good example for my idea with its indistinguishable characters and breaking the cycle.

Another example of breaking the cycle and going against the system. She mentally beats her job which is centred around this statue, and literally beats it by finally walking away from it.