Main Concept/ Aims

The concept consists of a story that depicts a gradual transition of mood. Through visual imagery, colour, tone and performance, I will amplify the emotional depiction of the character and narrative. This will directly affect the impression that the audience has on the scene. I intend to use audio-visual mise-en-scene to translate my main message: the protagonist speaks to his wife and dog, reminiscing, during his walk that ends with the reveal of both of their absences. Due to this storyline, the mood/message is bittersweet, melancholy, with a sense of absence or loneliness.

Using the Kuleshov Effect and Hitchcock’s rendition of the Kuleshov Effect, I will create suggestive impressions that the audience have about the protagonists thoughts and feelings. All while providing suggestive information for the audience to anticipate the ending. The Kuleshov effect will be implemented to bring the protagonists dialogue and memory themed topics more realistic. For example, when talking about missing his wife’s baking.

I will be building upon the themes from my premise project into a more elaborate and cinematically technical narrative. Main themes:

• On and off screen interaction.
• Building up a presence and then taking it away.
• Suggestive information and building a conclusion.

Project Outline

For my final major project I wish to explore the themes above, how I can manipulate the narrative in various ways, create a presence, take it away and leave the audience asking questions. My research on Lev Kuleshov (read further for more) is implemented in understanding a technique to create meaning through imagery. I wish to do the same experiment of the effect with audio, dialogue and sound effects. This will also include the various ways that I wish to build a presence other than using sound.

Creation of What?

A 1.5-2.5 minute story based animation. A powerfully emotional and technically experimental animation.

Priorities and Essential Aspects of the Film

• Modelling
• Animating
• Overall design, quality, appearance and end result of the film.

I wish to show my modelling and animating skill in this project. For this reason, I will aim to fill my animation scene with many online sourced scene fillers, other than the important objects. The focal objects such as the grave or props will be modelled by me according to the chosen style.

Challenges to Face and Objectives to Target

1st Challenge

Building an emotionally powerful story with a strong message/concept. To complete this aspiration to a high quality, I plan to experiment, refine and plan theoretically artistic areas such as composition and staging, colour, mise-en-scene imagery and symbolism etc. Not to forget dynamically realistic animation that inputs personality into the character.

2nd Challenge

Rigging a full character well, including the face. I have previous experience with manually rigging a full character, including the face. While, I believe that this method would be sufficient, I need to prioritise my time for the modelling and mostly the animating, rather than rigging. While I could potentially implement an exterior sourced rigging professional to collaborate with. I believe the best option would be to utilise the AdvancedSkeleton rigging workshops which have proven to cut down time. This method would still take about a week, however I may be able to complete the rig joints and controls (with extra quality assurance alterations) within a day. The rest of the week would be for weight painting or extra time just in case. I am deliberating between using either blend shapes or advanced skeleton. Since blend shapes will be better for facial animations, I would be able to quicken animating the face. Based on previous experience, I believe that body and face auto rigging is my best option, since I am used to animating the face with the control panel next to the face.

3rd Challenge

Modelling clothes and hair. I am inexperienced with this area. The clothes will replace the parts of the body that are unseen. I believe that I will have to model and then delete the body parts, so that the feet are in the right position. Check how this works with a premed model. e.g. positioning of the joined areas.

4th Challenge

The time constraint is, as always, crucial to plan ahead for. I have many minor details which I wish to include into the story that will enhance quality and impact of the story. I must plan ahead and schedule my time, as to be able to include these aspects, otherwise I must downsize and prioritise.

5th Challenge

Appropriate use and rigging of props will be necessary. I will have to plan and test how each of these work. Further discussion about this topic will be broached in later blog posts.

6th Challenge

Based on my premise project experiments, I wish to portray a story and conversation that is quite one sided. One character, the protagonist, being on screen while fuelling the story, and another character that replies to a certain extent, whom is off-screen. References for this technique will include the Kuleshov Effect, Hitchcock’s rendition of the Kuleshov Effect, and other research based on the connection between context given, interpretation and on and off-screen relationships.

Next Steps

• Building upon the already existing story. Storyboard
• Creating
• Rough character concepts
• Choosing the setting, and the purpose of it (e.g. theme of absence).

Workflow – Process

Idea-Story-Film Storyboard-Storyboard-Animatic- Design-Composition-R&D-Modelling-Texturing-Rigging-Animation-Lighting-Rendering-Compositing-Colour Correction-Final Outcome.

Software workflow

Part of Workflow	Software Used
2D Design	Hand drawn, Photoshop, Pureref (mood boards)
Modelling and UVs	Maya
Sculpting	Maya and Mudbox
Texturing and Materials	Maya and Substance Painter
Animating	Maya
Rendering	Maya, Arnold, Render Farm

Timetable – Gantt Chart

Design Ideas

• Intercut shots that provide mise-en-scene.
• Responsive dialogue is minimal and impressionistic. just making small noises instead of speaking.
• Check storyboard timing and order.

Notes with Tutor:

• Imagionary friend 
• Reality/transition/ imagionary world. 
• Build up the imagery 
• Objects with pairs = Dining table pair cutlery. Photoframe- the wife is cut off in the picture./ blurred. Husband is happy. 

Colour cool and warm. Warm- cool. 

Dog- make illusion of leash moving. Puling and tugging. 

The intercut shots are his thought process- camera stays on him- perspective. As he is talking he thinks of things in the house-  and you see the objects he is thinking about or things that tell information about the characters to the audience. 

Minor audio reaction!!! Only a chuckle or ‘hmm’.  

Dog- only whining. And leash? Bell? 

Magician- misdirection the audience’s view. Illusion of magic.tricks. 

Background- pathway- grave 

House –objects= props.

Storyboard Notes

Man walk-wide- pan onto him. 

Shots that are closer- of body and clothes and hand with flower and leash. 

The man shots will have to be from waist up to hide leash. 

As they talk I intercut to the house when they talk about certain things. 

Interior to exterior. Start at the house. 

Eyeball- at certain times he looks at the dog and then the next shot is the leash. 

Intercutting shots should match with the emotion of the character- e.g. first he says a line about food, then the intercut shot of the apple pie- then the shot changes to him licking his lips. 

Character- eskimo in snow, wood cutter in forest farmer in rural countryside.

He could look like a mess- dirty with lots of rips in shirt. unkempt hair and the rest because of his wife’s absence.

Interact with people before he goes to the forest?

Main message the Story:

• Sad smile on character
• dialogue with affection and longing.
• Couple imagery, personal Items in pairs
• Clothes tattered, dirty and ripped.

Symbolism/mise-en-scene/props

To conform and exaggerate my theme I wish to add many signifiers. Signifiers that indicate the ending, and the wife and the dog’s memories or existence.

The dog is not really necessary! A short story should only have the essentials. and I think the dog has not enough purpose to be included. Its original purpose was to help signify that the dog and wife were non existent, since the dog has a leash that the protag would hold onto- emphasising the connection between on and off-screen/ or emphasising the absence.

Ideas:

• At the very start he could hops/skip while swinging a walking cane. As the film goes on, this movements get lethargic. Eventually he is walking slowly with his back bent and ends with both hands on the stick. Perhaps he starts twirling cane with one finger at the start?
• Protagonist points to where she tripped up on tree roots. Perhaps they were childhood friends and that is why he has so much energy at the start- shows the transition of their life together. (this actually reflects on the film ‘Up’, similar mood gradient and timeline gradient).
• Cane swing= windmill sound effect. Slow motion at certain point? Make the animation more etherial. How to do parts slow-mo in Maya?
• Perhaps, I can show a recycling life style? new life at the end? Hue/ col only on that part. E.g. a new bud. or the flower he brings is a small bud in a plant pot?
• Lighting at end- dims to low hue/low colour or lack of colour. Light style changes to almost silhouette. Find a reference for each lighting.
• Ghost like effect? In the second part or just before the gravesite. The character can have something like an after image, which look like the character’s delayed actions- etherial effect.
• Animation in two or three parts. Match shots in-between house shots or the walk in and out transitions. Setting change and mood/colour change in-between. Three parts not needed. Keep things simple= two parts. Also, it makes sense to have only two parts since life and death=2. Mood, visuals, colour and vex changes for each part, the start and the end.

Setting Options/ Ideas:

1. Forest- isolation, framing in frame.
2. Desert- isolation, loneliness, absence.
3. Interior- enclosed, personal and personalised, memories.
4. Other options??

“Think of the end of the narrative first.”- Tutor’s recommendation.

Mood creation

Bittersweet at the start- needs to be stated some way even though it will start happier.

The sad smile will start from the mid section. Where his reminiscing gets more melancholy and the pace slows. Here I need to be building up to something- make the audience anticipate the next step. How do I give them something to wait for/ anticipate? The character could say ‘we are almost there, not too long now’.

Curve of action? (in narrative theory)= It just constantly decreases. Should I have him do something at the end to bring it back up? What is my end message? This shouldn’t be completely negative.

Image collection:

‘Dark’, an interesting film reference that I have been looking at, a German science fiction thriller which was broadcast from 2017-2020. Common in this series was many tall forest settings. Although this has a foreboding effect, I am interested in the mood and scenery that this creates. With appropriate high-key lighting, I can easily change the message that the forest setting brings to my story.

Prop Ideas so Far:

I will include a flower with appropriate themes and meanings to my story, to provide a small addition of symbology. The same flower symbology will be repeated throughout the background in order to exaggerate the message. Examples of some preliminary research:

Character Ideas:

• Beard/ facial hair? This depends on the time period setting and the associated styles. This could be done with alpha maps, nhair, or Xgen.
• Time period. I will potentially consider the 1980’s, e.g. suit and hard hat. The reason being that the whole dynamic of the character would change, my presentation of him. For example, his words/ phrases would sound different according to his background and upbringing.
• Eyes: The psychology of eye shape symbology and its connection to interpreted personality and emotion is important. (I will look into this more in the character design section: eye shapes and meanings). And eye shape in terms of the model sculpting shape- the folds in the eyes that I would have to model, and the amount of detail I should add. Also, I am focussing on the eye brow shapes or locations, since these will have to give the impression of a depth of sadness behind the character’s expression and history.

I looked at manga and anime style characters, since they always portray the most detail in expression, emotion and character personality, with minimal line-work. This is something that fits with my personal style. So it is good to analyse and copy the technique used to create comic character drawings. Depending on my style choice, I can always add more details to the model using the sculpting tools or mud box.

Style Ideas

• Manga
• Game
• Minions- colour and shape.
• Arcane (mostly because I like the art style- will be too heavy on workload)
• Up- mostly relates to story reference.
• On and off screen reference (ref for concept not style)

Just before getting to the grave area the protag could stop and ‘get ready for the next part’. At the start he could say “yes, I always remember the way. I haven’t forgotten.” J/L cut intro?

Animation Reference

1. ‘Borrowed Time’ | by Andrew Coats & Lou Hamou-Lhadj

2. ‘Death In D Minor‘