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Major ProjectProduction Dairy
Hong Yiu Sung (Sara) up714482
18Jan, 2015
Lecturer: Eva Palacios
Context
1. WWF Campaign Introduction
2. Idea and Audience
3. Storyboard, cinematography Narrative
4. Character Design
5. Motion research
6. Background
7. Final Animation
8. References
WWF CampaignWhales hunting has become a worldwide animal hunting activities, in this world, more than 50 countries engage in whale hunting and this turn out the result of the number of whales in the entitle world become less and less. According to the research from WWF, between 1970 and 2012, the population of whales has declined more than 40% and now just left no more than 10000, especially the whales in North Atlantic remain 300 less. It is significantly to observe 50 years later, there would be remain less than 4000 species of whale. As we known, whales bodies commonly used for perfume making, food production, industrial purpose etc. Although many countries has already resumed the hunting activities, there are no way to see the whales are still facing the risk of extinction in this planet. Therefore, in this project, I would like to emphasize the "outcome" of if the people consume the products from whales, in order to strengthen the importance of whales protection.
Idea and Audience
In this project, I prefer to use "horror" as the genre. Fear and scary are a type of sense that human react to something out of understanding or unknown, in some situation, for example after watching horror movie, some people would have nightmare at night this is due to the memories of the impact from horror. Therefore, horror is prefer to use as making long term memory in people mind. I would like to bring out the concept of what if the whales act like after being eaten or killed. Audience usually stated their view on how the person going to eat whales, but in this animation would be set opposite view, how the whales eat human horribly and bloody. This create an opportunity for audience to think and engaged in the narrative, in order to bring out the impact from the animation.
Storyboard, Cinematography and narrative
[1] It is reading from left to right and up to bottom. In these 6 shots, camera usually following the movement of the whale except the first 3 sequence, this is a shot trying to emphasize the size of the whale body by placing the camera on the same height. It is showed by a long shot of whale is swimming from far away which represent the distance between it and camera.
[2] The scene of the whale falling down scene has been cut into various times in order to show the high speed of fallen. Also the background colour changed when cut into other scene, to reveal the depth of the ocean, the darker colour the deeper it reached. After the body died, story started again in the whale ghost perspective, camera away from the character and concentrate on the environment, that the colour of the background is red.
[3]Colour is an important element in this animation. When tons of whale’s ghosts become a dark and giant whale ghost, the colour tones turn into grey and black. Black preferred to negative emotion, this helps to enhance the visual effect on the screen.
[4] After a cut, a sushi restaurant with warm colour is revealed. Camera focus on the action of eating a piece of whale sushi, and then it extreme close up to the pupil, which narrow into a whale shadow, this present the man feel something scare. It is common to use this form to show the fear of people, typically used in horror movie.
It is clear to observe the genre change in whole animation, light blue and warm colour used at the beginning shots, of course the brisk movement of the whale helps is indispensable. The crush of the ship become a turning point of the narrative, colour suddenly change into deep colour and end up in a light colour place. Refers to the image of heaven, there was a place light and peaceful, therefore it means the whale has already died. For the whales hunting scene, basically I tried to mix the realistic human and drawing together, but the effect eventually not good enough, finally I just concentrated on one type of drawing style. To the ending, I was trying to use the technique from the horror movie genre, the character would be takeover by the ghost and be destroyed. This ending is applied with this concept, destroy, people hunt whales and make ‘destroy’ on their bodies and soul in order to satisfy the sufficient needs. Therefore, oppositely human able to suffer or lost if they destroyed something. That is the main theme of the entitle story.
Storyboards (Testing)
The sequence of the beginning has been changed, like after the crush, just spend 1 scene to describe it is falling. This results in not enough time to show the falling process, and looks rush. I tried to add more details on the final version.
There was completely corrected for the ending. It was originally the whale shocked by the scene of chopping whale’s bodies and eat it. At the end died on the bodies mountain with full of blood.
Character DesignThis is the final version of the main character Whale, there are two different version, the normal ver. and the Dark ver. I used a clear outline to recognize the body structure of whale. Basically I mixed humpback whale and orca as references to the body outline design. Also the fin at the back is really tiny to see. For the black ver. used the brush to blend out the colour to let it to look more unrealistic.
This is the first character design of this project, at the beginning, I was wondering to design the character to a collage style as the design concept was the whale in dream, so that’s the reason with used flowers as the body construction. Also, the reference was blue whale.
Character Design ResearchFor the final character design references, I used Orca and Humpback whale to be my light. Both whale body structure are different, Humpback has a long body shape with rough skin compare to Orca, it is round and with wet skin. When I was doing research, I would like to find a whale with fast movement but looks not smart, therefore I mixed the both characteristic to be my design inspiration.
Motion Research
Background
I used Orca for my motion research target. Orca is the fastest swimmer within the whale world. Compare with Humpback, their body movement is really smooth
The colour of epipelagic zone
The colour of bathypelagic zone
Ocean layers
The colour of mesopelagic zone
The colour imagine of heaven
[2]
[3 [4
[1
Whales bodies at pier. Reference used by real photo.
Sushi restaurant. Reference used by real photo.
Sushi restaurant entrance The window in the restarurant
Final Animation Editing
Software:
Graphic and character design: Photoshop CC
Animatic: Photoshop CC and Flash Professional CC
Video complex: Premiere CC
Sound editing: Audacity and Premiere CC
Time adjustment: Flash Professional CC and Premiere CC
Weakness:
Observation among character movement is insufficiency, especially the tail and fin movement.
Lack of sound effect in the animation Insufficient in time management of preparation of Animatic Limitation of colouring style
Future improvement:
Spend more time in preparation of design and research
Use more various resources for reference Confident to present the idea to receive the advice from others Attempt to use different brushes and style on design process Visit the real place and record the opinion and feeling as referencing
ReferencesAqua biomes. Sheri Amsel.18May, 2015. Contemporary Biology 2015. http://blogs.mtlakes.org/contemporarybio/files/2015/05/ocean_layers.jpg
Incredible Footage of Killer Whales Playing Underwater. Smithsonian Channel.5June, 2010. (1:50- 1:54). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbtaJs8AWw
Japanese table manner. root. 26November, 2014. News 6 Paper. http://travel5s.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/A-restaurant-with-both-table-and-tatami-seating.jpg
Killer Whale in a jump over water. http://namonitore.ru/uploads/catalog/whales/kasatka_v_prizhke_nad_vodi_1600.jpg
Mass of whale hunting in Faroe Island leave sea blood red. Andrija Ilic. 25November,2011. http://lh3.ggpht.com/-XcdoCLlxLNU/Ts6OZNSMS2I/AAAAAAAASQ4/BzbRNmTniIw/whale-hunting-2%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800
Orca Family Playing with Crowd. Tracy Brewer. 31July, 2008. (2:15- 2:21). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvWoC71Uc2o
Orca Family Playing with Crowd.Tracy Brewer. 31July, 2008. (2:08- 2.10). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvWoC71Uc2o
Shamu Killer Whale Image. Tessa. 24May, 2010. https://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiU6J3Cg6zKAhVJRhQKHWDcD2YQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clker.com%2Fclipart-63468.html&psig=AFQjCNH2d8pNdgRsRN3qRHnWvguNO7SjWQ&ust=1452942899188650
Swimming with Humpback Whales. Aggressor Fleet. 31July, 2008. (4:15). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPaLN_1iOZ8
