Saturday 16 January 2010

The Shining with penguins idea

Susan Boyle in The Ring idea







Brief

Brief

1.
My brief for this project is to create a 30 second sequence to be added into the film ‘The Ring’. In this film, there is a videotape which, when the film on it is watched, results in the viewers dying. The brief concerns one scene, where a dead lady comes out of the TV to kill a male character. This dead lady is to be edited out and replaced with a zombie-type character based on Susan Boyle. She should be singing ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ with the Britain’s Got Talent background displayed on the television. The purpose of this alteration is to add some topical humour into this suspense-filled horror film, as a surprise lighter moment.

2.
My brief is to add two new characters to the film ‘The Shining’. They are to be added into a particular scene at the end of the film, where the main character, Jack, played by Jack Nicolson, is chasing his son around a maze in the hotel grounds. In this scene, there is a lot of snow on the ground and Jack is stumbling down a long straight path in the maze. The camera follows from behind. My task is to create two 3D penguins, which follow behind him, sliding in the snow. Then, when Jack is shown lying frozen and dead in the snow, the penguins appear and peck his face, showing surprised looks on their faces.
The purpose of this addition is to add surprise and humour to a scene that is very well known and is full of tension and suspense.

Reason For Choices

When trying to decide which film to work on for my brief, I first made the decision to use a horror movie and had the idea of adding a humorous extra feature into the film.

1.
I really enjoyed the film The Ring when I first saw it and thought that there was maybe a similarity between the video being passed around in the film, and videos which are emailed around and shared on the Internet (‘memes’). I thought that it would be fun to use the Susan Boyle video as the basis of an idea because it was one of the most well known and watched this year. I didn’t think that it would be fair or original to use the real person but better to morph her into a zombie type of character.

2.
I have always liked the film The Shining as a classic horror film and Jack Nicolson
is brilliant in it. In the end scene and the style that it is filmed in, I thought it was easy to picture Arctic or Antarctic animals being added. As I wrote about Surf’s Up and Happy Feet for my contextual studies essay and report I thought that it would be fun to have a go at animating penguins myself.

How it will help me develop my software and animation skills

I hope by working on this production it will help me to improve in many areas. Although I would like to progress all-round I would particularly like to gain strength with my modelling, UV editing and lighting. As well as using Maya I would like to use Final Cut Pro to edit the film clip so that the 3D character fits in correctly. Final Cut is another program that I would like to progress with, so it will be useful to use in this assignment. In either choice of brief, there is a good opportunity for me to learn and develop my modelling abilities, which the area I most want to develop.

Thursday 14 January 2010

Assignment

As some of you will have missed this week’s class because of snow here is
a quick summary of this term’s project and what you need to have done
before next week’s class.


A quick summary of this term’s project.
With Steve Crocker: Mondays and Wednesdays ANI09207 Industry Exercises 2


For this project we will be building on your existing animation and
compositing skills. You will be introduced to Maya Matchmove camera
techniques, lighting, advanced UV editing and modelling and have
opportunities to improve your rigging and animation skills. To make it all
manageable you will first be introduced to project management and tracking
software.

You will be working to create a short sequence mixing live action with
Maya derived animation or props and buildings.

There are two aims for this project: first to enable you to plan and
execute a project in a productive manner, thus enabling you to make the
most of the time constraints on this and all future projects. The second
is to improve your 3D or 2D animation and or modelling skills and enable
you to show those skills off in an engaging and entertaining way.

In order to achieve the above you must choose a short clip from a film and
composite in your own animated character, props or buildings. Perhaps you
feel that Four Weddings and A Funeral would have been better if there had
been more gorillas in it. Or that Titanic would have been better with
giant sea monsters. This is your chance to put things right. The clip you
use must, when composited, show at least 30 seconds of your own work. Do
not choose any animated films as you will have to match or better the
existing characters in the film. I can guarantee that the animators
working on that film would have had a lot more time than you have for this
project. So keep your choice to a live action film.

For next week!

Next week you will present a proposal for your project to a small group
and negotiate your final brief with me. .

So to be ready for next week’s class you must write your own version of
the brief, working within the parameters covered in the introduction
above, and prepare for next week’s peer presentation by choosing a short
video clip and making a story board. Plus write an explanation of the
choices you have made for your project and how it will help to develop
your software and animation skills.


Thanks, Steve.