A Rough Animatic

Here is a rough animatic of the story I intend to portray in my "Creative Media Practice Module". A better animatic with camera movement is coming, this was pen my ideas down and get a flow of how it will roughly look.

Developing That Unique Character

After my test shot's I decided to draw some illustrative artwork that would reflect on what I wanted the "villain" in my project to look like, in the end I went with number four, as it's a simpler costume, and it looks like a darker form of "Agent Smith".

Teleportation Test 2

Teleportation Test 1

My fight sequence comines two different unique elements, one of them is the electricity whip, the other is the power of teleportation.

In this fight scene both characters will use these powers until one of them prevails. Here is a test shot of a "Teleportation" technique I have created.

Sabre Test 1

Overall I think this looks pretty decent as a first attempt, for a four second clip it sure took a hell of a long time to animate. Frame by frame in Flash I would draw around my rope and pick out the brown markers as identifiers to help me when I could barely see the rope at all. I then exported that out as a PNG sequence and overlaid it onto my original video in After Effects. Then the fun part began of adding glows, blurs, mesh warps, and keyframes…. A HELL OF A LOT OF THEM.

For my research essay I intend to write about “The Dark Knight” as it is a favorite film of mine. The film luckily has millions of resources for the development processes of the film scattered across the Internet, and is talked about thoroughly in the Blu-Ray special Features.

Maybe the 1500 word count is too short?

Conductivity State: 0

I recently purchased two skipping ropes off eBay with the intention of filming some test shots for our developmental movie clip. When testing them I realised that because they were of a black colour when shooting these test shots on a Nikon 3100, which shoots at 24fps, it’s very hard in the editing process to pick up frame-by-frame where the rope is.

I needed to set some markers to help me identify in the scene where the rope was….

Here's "Mark 1" I guess.

Now it was time to test.

Conducting Electricity

Again by looking at my mood boards and trying to gain inspiration, I look at the picture of Whiplash from the Marvel universe, and most recently “Iron Man 2” and wonder how easy it would be to achieve an effect like the “electricity” whips.

Here are some video tutorials I have found that helped me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrFQmdrQw-U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S_KoEG1jV4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAe5GModKy4

http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/vfx/execute-an-electrifying-light-whip-ae-premium/

Yes a few of the tutorials are “Lightsabre “ tutorials, though the effects can basically be manipulated to create a whip.

*I HOPE*

The Crossover

I mentioned before about creating a fight sequence for my project this semester.

Well since this module is a “development” module and it’s helping us all draw ideas and inspirations to go towards our creative media practice module, I thought why not include my vision of “teleportation” from the creative module.

Having a fight sequence that will utilize two different elements and styles of fighting would be a much more interesting way of showing an array of effects, whilst keeping the audience on the edge of there seats.

Last Semesters Work

The idea of a fight sequence now comes to mind after looking after creating these mood boards... I originally had this idea of a CGI character having human interaction, but have realized the constraints that occur when working in 3D and how very difficult it is.

I did a fight sequence last year for one of my modules, which I thought represented the look and feel of a "Power Rangers" battle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzEqHMKzE3w&list=UUHXAg_M-9F2F9WYJOMh3OnQ&index=4&feature=plcp

The second mood board conveys the emotional aspects of friendship, serenity, and love. Which gave me this idea of having a story that involves a CGI character that interacts with a human being, who venture off and stop a potential threat to humanity. Though this idea is a good, I just don’t have the skills to create a decent looking 3D model with the capability of human interaction to a visual standard I can deem acceptable.

I will have to save this idea until my 3D skills are much greater.

A darker tone.

A film that I draw a lot of inspiration from, even though the film isn't the best, but the ideas that surround it and the plots potential seemingly makes the film instantly deemable as a hit, is the film "Jumper" directed by Doug Liman in 2008.

                     Jumper was based on the novel written by Steven Gould

Though the biggest thing that stood out for me in this film were the effects, I mean they weren't on the scale of "Avatar" or anything but they stood out for me because they were subtle yet very effective to the concept. Overpowering the audience with dazzling effects and “Michael Bay” explosions were not necessary in this film,  I mean the effects were perfect, it was just the story that lacked, and the direction they went with the film that made it frustrating.

                                    

                                   The 2008 one sheet of "Jumper"

Forming a mood.

 I am aiming to create a piece of work that represents many different types of elements from the science fiction genre, certain things that I have seen and thought “wow wouldn’t it be great if they did what they did in **** here, or if they added **** in instead of *** there”. I want to be able to create and tell a story that people will understand, but will constantly keep the audience guessing, like Inception or The Matrix. Stories that are understandable in many respects but the possibilities and different ideologies that surround these fictional concepts are made endless. Fiction that will keep you guessing and thinking of what else can happen in this world that you have created and visualized for yourself in only a few minutes of watching.

Define Fiction

Early inspirations for this idea were inspired by many things…

The science fiction genre, video games, animated fiction, and childrens live action television series. These are things I follow religiously, and so when thinking of ideas for projects like these I’m always referring back to things I have recently seen or things that will never leave my brains mantelpiece.

The most important thing to me was to create a piece of work that fits the definition of fiction perfectly.

Fiction - “The class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, especially in prose form.”

Prologue

Welcome to the land of ideas, a place where my imagination is uncontrollable and unstoppable. This is where I share with you what my mind is capable of, and the minds ability to utilize different elements and different concepts that merge together, resulting in freshly squeezed entertainment.