Major Project: Environment Complete

The environment is pretty much complete, the rest will be projected on a surface shader and planes such as clouds, trees etc.

Major Project: Project Proposal

A 2-3minutes animated short about my personal experience in Jemaa El fna in Marrakech, Morocco.
The animation will be led by the beggar, who represents us.

The environment will be minimal as a metaphor for the loss/fading of memories, which results in forgetting details of the market. The use of expressionism will be present to emphasise the personality of each character. Discontinuity editing will be used to evoke a sense of busyness and disorientation.

Slow-motion will be used in certain shots as a way to give a dream-like experience in which time seems to expand.

Concerning the outcome, the blog will show evidence of fully rigged/skinned character, 3d environment and 2d animated characters. All assets will be composited and edited.
Some of the technical difficulties include:

-Character toonshader texturing

-2d animated displacement maps

Minor Project: Environment development

This is a development of the environment, to show the overall style and mood, I have also incorporated two of my characters ( storyteller and beggar) to see how they work in the environment.
At the moment the environment still needs work on the minimalism style.

These are the two main visual influences for my environment:

          
          

Minor Project: Environment Concepts

These are some quick watercolour thumbnails, ranging from abstract extreme close ups to establishing shots.
These will be further developed in Photoshop, making the brushwork suggestive and minimalist ready to be used in the animatic.

Minor Project: Editing techniques

After my tutorial with Phil about the flow of my animation, it has been suggested to consider discontinuity as an editing technique.
 I have researched into discontinuity and found it relevant to what I want my animation to communicate.

Discontinuity is an editing technique pioneered by Soviet filmmakers of the 1920's, including Sergei Eisenstein. The style of editing is done through a series of jump cuts, unrelated cut shots and dislocations or exaggeration of time/space. These functions lead to a more complex yet engaging experience.

           


I have also looked at the French new wave, a movement during the late 1950's/60's. It is considered as one of the most influential movement in cinema.
It was characterized by a large use of close-ups, freeze-frame shots, fragmentation, discontinuous and long takes techniques.


                              
                             

This will help me put my animatic together (which I am working on) and communicate this disorienting, magical and dream-like experience.