Research Task 3: Visual Research

The idea I am most likely to go with is the one about the string puppet that was jealous. Thus, I have decided to do some research regarding the actual making of one. This will come in handy when I start constructing the 3D model in Maya.

I have in mind how I want the box-theater stage lighting to be. Basically, there will only be 2 main types of lighting. I'll be using the warmer colors (ie. yellow and orange) for lighting during the puppet performance and cooler colors (ie. blue and purple) after the show when the marionettes come alive. I particularly like the colors shown in the images below and they will inspire my use of colors to set a tone and mood to the animation.

Finally, I also did some research on how a box theatre stage might look like to get a clearer idea of it all. Also, I would like to have background elements similar to those used in a string puppet theatre. (flat planes of buildings etc.)

Research Task 3 Brief

Do some visual research for one of your ideas.

Find some research images (moving or still).

Provide a reference and a brief paragraph explaining what aspects of this visual research are relevant to your concept.

Major Project: Synopses of ideas

Idea #1: PUPPET JEALOUSY

Tim & Tam are a pair of handmade marionettes belonging to Wang's string-puppet show. All is well until jealousy sets in between the marionettes during a performance one night and left Tim seriously damaged. Wang's performance lost popularity due to the loss of one of his key characters of the show. With the show on the brink of closing down, Tam realises his mistake to save the show.

Idea #2: THE HAT - CURIOSITY

A baby in diapers crawls along and sees this magical hat on the floor. He had fun initially with the magical capabilities of his new-found toy but soon realizes the big trouble he is getting into. He panicked after several unsuccessfully to remedy the magic (his newly-modified body wouldn't fit into the hat). Eventually after he had given up and was distracted with trying to get his pacifier, he reverts back to his original form by sheer luck when he stumbled and fell into the hat.

Idea #3: THE CANDLES - RACIAL DISHARMONY

Vander and Tallie are different kind of candles but they always hung out together like pals. One day, Fuzzy, the leader of the Aroma Candle Community, imposed a new restrictions on contact between Aroma candles and the normal candles. Tallie was pushed around by the Aroma candles but Vander was initially confused whether to stand up against his own community for Tallie but when he couldn't take the bullying anymore, he stood up righteously for Tallie. In a freak accident during the chase, Fuzzy slipped and fell into a precarious situation but was eventually rescued when Tallie sacrificed himself. Fuzzy & company are won over by Tallie's act of bravery.

Idea #4: REGRET

Peter is waiting impatiently for his dad who is late. He scolded his dad for being so late and rudely interrupts his dad's attempted apology to pick up a phone call. He cancels the lunch with his dad after the call and walks away before discovering the true reason why his dad was late. Feelings of regret engulfed him as he rushes back to where they had earlier parted but there laid his old man on the floor unconscious.

1. Peter, in business attire, impatiently paced around taking the umpteenth glance at his watch before finally seeing his old man arrive with a folder in hand.
2. He scolded his dad for being so late and that he had planned to bring him to lunch at a restaurant before going for an important appointment with a client.
3. He snatched the folder from his father and rudely interrupted his father's attempted apology to pick up a phone call which he distanced himself as he answers.
4. While on the phone with his secretary, he overheard a conversation from a passerby about an accident he had while parking his car.
5. After ending the call, Peter told his dad that he could not make it for lunch as work has caught up again and his dad was very understanding and brushed it aside.
6. As Peter walked briskly away, he saw the same passerby who had an accident.
7. He was telling his friend about this old man who he knocked into and passed out for a while but recovered and insisted not to be brought to the hospital.
8. At this point, Peter realised that his dad had unusually walked with a slight limp today and turned around to see him limp slowly away.
9. He regretted his earlier actions upon realization of what must have happened.
10. Peter cancelled his appointment with his secretary and brought his dad for a checkup/lunch.
11. Peter rushed back to where they had earlier parted and a short distance laid his old man unconscious on the floor..
    

Idea #5: SUICIDAL

Sam is a naughty boy whom is disliked by the entire village for his behavior and pranks. One day they decided to take drastic action and tied him to a pole on a hill. When they released him, he was sorry. Eventually, the villagers regretted being too harsh on the little boy when he took his life by hanging himself.

Major Project Concept Developing Brief

Write your synopses, in the form of three or four bullet points, detailing the general plot/story/outline of FOUR different ideas for your major project.

Additional notes can be included if you wish.

Class Task 3: Book Cover

The Book: The Steep Approach To Garbadale
The Author: Iain Banks

The book describes the Wopuld family, who made a fortune on a board game called Empire!, now a successful computer game. A U.S. firm, the Spraint Corporation, wants to buy them out.

Alban McGill, a member of the Wopuld family, has sold most of his shares in the family firm, and resigned from his job in the company to become a forester, but has had to retire on medical grounds because of white finger. He is distracted from affairs of business by his relations with his family and with his teenage love, his first cousin Sophie.

McGill is approached by another cousin, Fielding, to help prevent the sale of the family company to the American Spraint Corporation. He also seeks a resolution of certain questions about his family background, and closure of his relationship with Sophie. Much of the book is a build-up to the Extraordinary General Meeting which will decide on the sale, which takes place at the family estate at Garbadale in Sutherland. His current girlfriend, mathematician Verushka Graef, is a hillwalker, and near the end of the book Alban goes for a walk in the hills to think. On his return he takes the steep approach back to Garbadale.

Significant portions of the action are set in California, Singapore and Hong Kong, as McGill reminisces about his world travels during his gap year. His mother's suicide is described in detail, as is his relationship with the family matriarch, Grandma Win.

Banks takes the opportunity, as in Dead Air and Raw Spirit, to make points about the morality and wisdom of the War on Terror, when McGill meets representatives of the American capitalists who wish to acquire the family game symbolising the British Empire.

The book opens and closes with contributions from McGill's friend and ex-colleague Tango, who lives in a council estate in Perth.

Book Cover Design - The Process

Started reading some online synopsis about each title to get a general idea of each story then came up with a brief brainstorm of all the titles to decide which to start with and which direction to take.

I eventually chose The Steep Approach To Garbadale.

AGAINST GRAVITY by GARY GIBSON
Category: SC FICTION
- slow death.
- heart stops beating.
- ghost. nightmares.
- gravity. space. floating. planets.
- robotic, mechanism, cables.
- military complex

THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE by IAIN BANKS
Category: FICTION
- boardgame. checkers.
- fortune. wealth. money. chips.
- checkers and dice on board.
- mother mysterious death.
- hanging, dagger, blood.
- love with bewitching cousin.
- company take over.

GROTESQUE by NATSUO KIRINO
Category: CRIME FICT
- Two prostitutes. Condoms. Lipstick. Stockings.
- Murder in Tokyo, Japan.
- Blood, dagger, blood.
- Scar, gruesome, unnatural.
- Crimson red, Night.
- Elite sch.
- Death.

Hollywood Wives: the New Generation by JACKIE COLLINS
- Stars, Oscar awards, Victoria Beckham.
- Shopping Bags, marriage bands, ear rings.
- Blondes, lipstick, money, Heels.
- Sex. adultery.
- Kidnap. rope. Knife.

Class Task 3 Brief

BOOK COVER TASK

Design a cover for one of the book titles provided.

You can source images and graphics from the internet if you want, or make your own

- How will your design allude to the content of the book
- How will your design suggest the style and genre of the book?
- How will your design appeal to the target audience of the book?
- What about the author? Is the author important?

(Publishing houses also often want their own branding identity to be visible in their titles – eg. Penguin – but don’t worry about this for this task)

Outcome: A draft layout for a book cover.

AGAINST GRAVITY
GARY GIBSON
Publisher: TOR
Category: SC FICTION
PAPERBACK BOOK, $21.95, In Stock (Stock On Order) Which Shop?

In the late twenty-first century, you will find a very different world. Little is as it used to be, and many are not what they seem.
Kendrick Gallmon, survivor of an infamous research facility called the Maze, is trying to pick up the pieces of his life, even though he knows the Labrat augments are slowly killing him. Then one day his heart stops beating, forever, and a ghost urges him to return to the source of all his nightmares, a long-abandoned military complex filled with entirely real voices of the dead.

STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE
IAIN BANKS
Publisher: LITTLE BROWN
Category: FICTION
TRADE PAPERBACK, $27.95, In Stock (Stock On Order) Which Shop?
Love, family, truth … choose two of the above. Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business lie at the heart of Iain Banks’ fabulous new novel. The Wopuld family built their fortune on a board game called Empire!—now a wildly successful computer game. So successful the American Spraint Corp wants to buy the Wopulds out. Young renegade Alban, who has been evading the family tentacles for the last few years, thinks Spraint should be treated with suspicion—but he also has other things on his mind. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he yet over Sophie, his bewitching cousin and teenage love, who’ll be present at the forthcoming family gathering—part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting—at Garbadale, their highland castle? Full of his trademark warmth, humanity and ingenuity, The Steep Approach to Garbadale is Iain Banks’ most compelling novel since The Crow Road.

GROTESQUE
NATSUO KIRINO
Publisher: HARVILL
Category: CRIME FICT
TRADE PAPERBACK, $32.95, In Stock (Stock On Order) Which Shop?
Two prostitutes have been murdered in Tokyo. Yuriko had been working as a prostitute all her adult life, starting while still at school, where her stunning beauty compensated for what she lacked in intellect and commanded attention from older men. Kazue worked for a blue-chip company and had good career prospects, but was unpopular with colleagues and felt isolated. She chose to walk the streets at night where she hoped to get noticed. Twenty years previously both women were educated at an elite school for young ladies, and both exhibited exceptional promise prior to their brutal , unnecessary deaths. How and why did this tragedy occur? With narration from Yuriko's embittered, unattractive sister and through the girls' journals and diaries Kirino allows their shocking story to unfurl. As with OUT, Grotesque gets under the skin, and Kirino's analysis of the female psyche grips the reader. The extreme need to succeed, and the vicious desire to be accepted in the bewildering environment of modern life is explored here with acute and chilling insight. Grotesque is a masterful and haunting achievement.

Hollywood Wives: the New Generation
Jackie Collins

Power. Sex. Money. Fame. Hollywood players have it all. Ambitious, young, smart and lethal Hollywood wives are back, and leading the pack is mega movie star Lissa Roman. Seemingly invincible, Lissa is on top of her game, until her wild-child daughter is kidnapped by a crazed psychopath.

References to Week 3 Class Topics

- The ESSAY on Style vs Design by Jeffery Zeldman.

- The WEBSITE and WIKI for Guy Bourdain.

- The WEBSITE for Experimenta Playground.

Reseach Task 2: News Article

The Article: Nice kids do win, eventually
Written by: Allison Tait, The Age

"Nice guys finish last."

"When US baseball manager Leo Durocher said those words in the late 1930s, he was talking about a baseball team. Fast-forward 70-odd years and it's an idea that moved on from the sporting field a long time ago.

Nice guys. Nobody wants to date them (too safe when there's a leather-clad bad boy hanging around). Nobody wants to make them the boss (too lacking in killer instinct). Nobody wants to be one (too boring when an I-make-my-own-rules philosophy rules the day).

So why am I expending so much time, effort and patience trying to turn my sons into nice guys?"

I was intrigued by the first line in the article. A bold statement was made and it captured my attention. Why do nice guys finish last? My mind retorted. It doesn't makes sense. The general notion is that the nicer a person, the better liked they are. Yet, the opposite seems to be true. Surely this piece of Topsy turvy logic can't be true.

The effects on parenting could cause a disaster if young / immature / accidental / unprepared ill-advised parents decide that it's a case of survival of the fittest in this urban jungle of ours and decides to teach their young that might and violence is the 'smart' way to go. We get chaos and a society of distrust where everyone acts selfishly.

I feel that what fuels the reasoning behind the statement is its freshness and individuality. Thus, I likened it to a fashion fad. Whenever we reaches a saturation point in things, the fresh new thing that comes along gets to wear the crown.

Some ideas generated:

• Fashion fad causing blindness to everything right.
  
• Survival of the fittest in an urban jungle.
  
• Beliefs defines your right and wrong.
  

Research Task 2 Brief

Non-fiction starting points.

Find an article in a newspaper or magazine online that you find interesting as a ‘starting point’ for concept development. Provide a URL and a paragraph (at least) that explains what you find interesting about it and why.

Optional extra: Note down some ideas about how you could develop a concept visually using this starting point. Are there visual metaphors you could use, or does direct representation seem best?

Class Task 2: Character Development

Step 1 - Start with a person you know

• Short intro:-
• Frankie Foo - an army bunkmate.
• We were not considered close friends but he is one memorable character whom i met.
  
• As a soldier, he has all the qualities that you shouldn't find in a soldier.
  
  
• His qualities:-
  
• Nervous and stuttering.
• Old, unfashionable, long winded and naggingly annoying.
• Disgusting, constant red runny nose, blows nose frequently and loudly.
• Snores, sleeps with pillow covering the face most of the time.
• Lazy, pot-bellied, slow-witted, clumsy and ignorant.
• Untidy, couldn’t be bothered, in his own world, happy-go-lucky.
  

Step 2 - Describe a scene or situation involving this person

We hurled our fieldpacks into our bunk after an outfield exercise. All of us tired and dirty. Instructions given was for us to clean and maintain our arms. Frankie takes off his shirt and throws it on the floor beside his bed - a simple and cheap put-together of a sponge wrapped up with a white sheet of cloth placed on top of a metal mesh secured to the bed frame by springs at the edges.

From the stacks of fallen over manga on the floor, he picks up one from a red grocery plastic bag. Everyone else in the room is busy dismantling their SAR21 rifles and cleaning its interior to prevent rusting.

Frankie jumps into his bed, that had earlier been folded into half for a bunk inspection, shirtless and with a manga in hand. Another bunkmate, Llewell, warns Frankie not to slack and to follow suit and start cleaning his arms before the rust sets in and get him into trouble with the army. Frankie, however, brushes off the suggestion and says he will do it later.

Springs securing his bed had already worn out and right in the middle of the metal mesh, that was revealed by the half-folded bed, was a hole. His big butt sank right into the gap forcibly expanding it bit by bit with his every movement.

Suddenly the alarm bell starts ringing. Most of us quickly put together our rifles and run down the stairs to assemble at the designated gathering area. The commanders are going to do a surprise rifle inspection for cleanliness. Midway through the inspection, Frankie stumbles downstairs with his rifle in hand. He is late but the commander was lenient and had wanted to just allow him to join the group when he sees a huge tear in Frankie's trousers and questions him about it.

Frankie stutters for words with a perplexed look on his face. He turns his head and sees his polka dot briefs showing through and gives an embarrassed smile before giving himself away by stating that it must have been caused by the hole in his bed. Needless to say, Frankie was eventually punished for an absolutely badly rusted rifle.

Later in bunk, he curses about his bad luck at getting punished with having to stay behind in camp and not allowed to go home for the coming weekend. "Well, at least I have all the time now to read my Manga..", Frankie sighs as he resigns to his fate.

Step 3: Another list – What would this person be if they were:

• Weather?
  
• A bright, sleepy, warm afternoon.
  
• An animal?
• Sloth.
  
• A household object?
• A clock with batteries running low. the second hand ticking back and forth at 44 sec and 45sec. Not enough energy to go move the second hand up and sustain its position.
  
• A machine?
• A sputtering farm tractor.
  
• A place?
• A quiet, cold and spacious auditorium having an engineering lecture.
  
• Music?
• Slow opera music.
  
• A color?
• Dark brown.
  
• A font (optional)?
• Lucida Console. (font of the "blue screen of death".)
  
• A fictional ‘archetype’ or stereotype? (eg. the superhero, the wicked witch..)
• Unexpected hero. (ie. super nerd turn fluky hero)
  

Part 4: An image

• Choose 2 or more of your answers from Step 3 and create a character that combines their visual characteristics. This character no longer has to depict the person you started with.
• Use any form of image-making you like – a rough sketch or diagram is okay.

Above: Red tractor on a boring sunny day
constructed using Lucida Console font type.

Class Task 2 Brief

Representation & Character

Step 1 - Start with a person you know

• Think of a person you know
• It could be somebody you know now, or used to know, somebody close to you or not so close (but with a memorable personality)
• Write a list of some of their key qualities – how would you describe their personality?
• You should list at least 3 qualities.

Step 2 - Describe a scene or situation involving this person

• Now describe a real scene or situation involving this person that you can remember that demonstrates one or more of these qualities about them. You can also be present in the scene if you wish.
• Write in present tense.
• The aim is to write so that what happens in the scene – the character’s actions – DEMONSTRATE the character’s personality, without having to explicitly describe it
• (Length: 1 paragraph to half a page)

Step 3: Another list – What would this person be if they were:

• Weather?
• An animal?
• A household object?
• A machine?
• A place?
• Music?
• A color?
• A font (optional)?
• A fictional ‘archetype’ or stereotype? (eg. the superhero, the wicked witch..)

Part 4: An image

• Choose 2 or more of your answers from Step 3 and create a character that combines their visual characteristics. This character no longer has to depict the person you started with.
• Use any form of image-making you like – a rough sketch or diagram is okay.

Research Task 1: John Lasseter

Concept Development Task 01


John Alan Lasseter is an American animator and chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. As a pioneering member of Pixar, Lasseter was put in charge supervising all of Pixar's films and associated projects as an executive producer. He also personally directed Toy Story [1995], A Bug's Life [1998], Toy Story 2 [1999], and Cars [2006].

I like the clean and simplistic visual style of the animations he directed. The world of which his characters exist are always inspiring and creative yet induces believability that endear the audience to his creations. Lasseter believed that animations can entertain audiences immensely and are the 'future of live action and special effects'. 1

Lasseter is also a close friend and admirer of renown Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, and has been executive producer on several of Miyazaki's films. Lasseter revealed that whenever he was stuck with a problem during the making of Toy Story, he would watch a random scene from one of Miyazaki's many films and he gets inspired somehow every time.

In his homage to Miyazaki for the "Ghibli ga Ippai" laserdisc box set, Lasseter had written:

"At Pixar, when we have a problem and we can't seem to solve it, we often take a laser disc of one of Mr. Miyazaki's films and look at a scene in our screening room for a shot of inspiration. And it always works! We come away amazed and inspired. Toy Story owes a huge debt of gratitude to the films of Mr. Miyazaki.

In an interview about the concept development of the featured film, Cars, Lasseter talked about researching and learning the history of certain cars in the film and fusing it into the personality of the character. He also made the connection of humans having breakfast at a cafe and the cars in the film gathering around a gas station that acts like a town center.

Research References:

• 1
  The Guardian
  19 November 2001
  http://film.guardian.co.uk/lff2001/news/0,,604658,00.html
  

  "There are a few moments in my life that I will never forget, and one of them was May 1977 seeing Star Wars at the Chinese Theatre - it was only 2 days old. I remember seeing it and I could not believe a movie could entertain so much. People were of course hyped up to seeing it, but seeing it was thoroughly entertaining. I was shaking at the end of it. I was entertained. I was looking around at the audience of young people and adults and kids and everybody was just screaming. A lot of my friends thought that was the future - you know, special effects and live action, but I said, 'You know what? Animation can entertain an audience like this,' and I believed it in my heart and soul. And I just always remember thinking, 'Let's take it somewhere it hasn't been'."
  - John Lasseter

• http://www.awn.com/mag/issue3.8/3.8pages/3.8lyonslasseter.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8t2LJRI14Q
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUxACOJiz2c
  

Research Task 1 Brief

Research a practitioner in any form who you are interested in. Find out about how they approach concept development. In concise written statements on the blog:
- Tell me who they are/ what their work is
- Describe some elements in their work that interest you and why
- Tell me what you’ve discovered about their concept development approach.
- Provide a url, book, or video reference for your research

Please title your post with the name of the practitioner you have researched.

Class Task 1: Alien's Report

STATUS REPORT #1056

Above: My version of the Alien and the record.

This is Stellaring Fuzzner reporting back about my investigation on earth, all is not well over here my fellow men. I have uncovered a dark and revolting secret of this alien race, and must warn all of you that they are aware of our existence. Though the masses of these aliens appear to be brainless conforming imbeciles, they seemed to have devised a method of torture and imprisonment to our kind that we never thought possible.

As all of you know, there have been many accounts of explorers such as myself disappearing upon arrival on Earth. I believe I have found the true reason behind this. Yesterday, I secretly watched a small colony of these aliens bring home a large case, from which they pulled out a shiny black disc-like object with texture and shiny blackness resembling our skin. They placed the unidentified object onto a weird contraption, and after doing something to the machine the black object was forcefully spun around from the middle which had a hole drilled through it. What happened next was completely and utterly disturbing. The most horrific shrieks of alien speak thundered through their squarish habitat, whilst they tortured the object with a pointed weapon that was stabbed and left slashing the object while it was being spun. This was when it daunt upon me that the shiny black disc was no object, it was a living thing!

I continued to watch in disgust, with my heart heavily thumping and jaw-dropped till they finally stopped with what I realized must have been an interrogation of some sort towards the disc-like creature. They then removed it gently as if to show some sort of false compassion to the creature, before imprisoning it in its tiny cage. When nightfall came and the moon was up, the aliens had fallen into deep slumber in their own divided sections of the habitat. I snuck up to the drawer I saw them place the caged shiny black creature and carefully opened it. Lying before me was not just one but LOTS of these creatures, all of them imprisoned in similar cages. I pull one of them out and slowly slide it out of its cage. The next thing I witnessed struck within me the greatest fear I had ever known and felt in my entire life.

Carved or perhaps tattooed into the top of the creature was the name of our most famed and first ever explorer, whom we lost all contact with upon his arrival to earth, Hendrix Jimmy! These weren’t just shiny black creatures! These creatures were none other than our own people! They must have formulated a way that allows them to squash us flat into circular shapes, before drilling a hole through our heads and brainwashing us into speaking their disgusting languages.

I am sad to announce that this is a dark hour for me my friends, my space transportation mobile has somehow disappeared from my sight. Do not by any means send another to rescue me, for it could ultimately cause the doom for another of our own. I will take my own life before they claim it for their sadistic pleasures.

Stay clear of earth my friends,

Stellaring Fuzzner

* Update: My group members have all been very hardworking and done seperate versions of the alien and the record (below).

Above: Sam's version of the Alien and the record.

Above: Elaine's version of the Alien and the record.

Class Task 1 Brief

Choose ONE item from below and describe it as if you have never seen it before. Make a hypothesis of what you think the item could be and what it could be used for. You could put yourself in the shoes of an alien on a scouting mission and write it as a scouting report to be sent back.

• a pack of old cigarettes
  
• an Air Mail envelope
  
• an old vinyl record