My research was mostly about Advancing technology in the gaming industry because of how deep i could have taken it like how i began at the very start of games with the first co-op/multiplayer game and began to evolve into consoles being able to interact with people all over the world. This was very interesting because i obviously grew up with the classic xbox where games where pretty much just under-developed versions of what we have today but it was interesting researching what came first and how the industry grew to what it is today.
My research started discussing deepfakes with a video showing how it works and it discusses the pros and cons of the technology. With further research I struggled to find other research on deep fakes apart from news articles mostly saying the same thing and having the same debate of is it beneficial and pros and cons. I did find though that deep fakes have been slightly around since 1990 which i was pretty surprised about but back then the technology was obviously still only starting off compared to where we are today and what they have planned for the future. There was not much variety when researching this topic so i decided to go into advancing technology because i was shocked that deepfakes had been around for many years. This took me onto looking at how gaming and gaming consoles evolved into what we have today to give me a better understanding of how we got to where we are now with intelligent consoles and games that can react to movement and compete all over the world
When researching the advancing technology used in games I found myself at the start of it all. ‘The first example of players competing on separate screens came in 1973 with “Empire” a strategic turn-based game for up to eight players’, this was game breaking when it launched because you could play online with your friends and conquer the battle grounds but now a days a game that only allows 8 players is considered quite small. A lot of games now can hold up to 100 players in a single game swell as having thousands of different games running around the world. Online games hit the world with storm and many companies and business man saw great potential for sales and the future of this industry and obviously have invested millions into improving the systems and making it more beneficial for families to have gaming consoles even if not necessary for gaming, you may have one juts for the streaming services and other uses. Almost every household nowadays has at least 1 console from whatever company and they are forever changing and making ideas to give the target audience more and more of a reason to get one in your home.
These are images of playstation and xbox’s through out the years and how they developed to where they are now. As you can easily tell from the images they are all advancing from the big block consoles with wired controllers to having sleek, smaller console and almost everything nowadays is wireless. Its also the same as tv’s and phones. All producers/electronic creators are all aiming to have a simply small design that works perfectly but is not massive and heavy. We know this just from the evolution of phones and tv’s because they used to be huge cinder block looking things but after a few years they got smaller and smaller until we got to where we are now with slim 1 inch tv’s and smart phones that are small and compact with the battery and other electrical parts locked in the back where you cant see it. Its pretty ironic how the consoles and phones get smaller but there power and effect gets better and grows. Games that could only hold maybe 10+ people can now hold 100+ and phones can now “facetime” people from the other end of the globe and show in time movements. Technology is always growing even when we the buyers dont see it because the producers are always looking for innovative ways to improve their product and make it easier/lighter and better looking.
These images where interesting to see how the play station and Microsoft changed in size and style to better performance or just to look better. This is a good understanding of how things have changed and how the style of the consoles have changed from being big chunky blocks with a simple look to a more futuristic style which is forever changing as life goes on the same as pop culture styles and dress styles.
Even the way we play games has changed. we were so used to controllers that when the wii was released it was such a big thing being able to move around and have the game know you movements and even parts of that have evolved into VR which is probably the biggest thing around right now but very expensive. Full body VR is the future of gaming where the game knows every single body movement you do and does the same in game which is incredible and is only going to get better with time so the future is exciting to see where we will be in 10+ years time.
This image is screenshotted from a website online which goes through gaming over the years and even goes as far back as to when the first ever board game was found back in Egypt all the way in 3500BC. That goes to show how much time has been invested into board games and console games throughout time.
“From 2016 to now, the global mobile app gaming market grew more than any other gaming type with an expected value of $72.3 billion in 20201. Mobiles and tablets have influenced the structure of many industries, from retail to hospitality, and gaming technology is no different. 50% of gaming will be conducted on mobile and tablet devices1, but with so many people able to play from the comfort of their own home, how do businesses provide such a core, and profitable, form of entertainment?”
This is a paragraph i took from the website because i thought it was kind of interesting. This shows that people want games to play on the move or anytime they want because now a days everyone has a smartphone that can have apps and games downloaded onto it and who doesnt have even 1 game on there phone? Games in this day and age are so big and easily recognised. Some big triple A games have even been so big in the community that producers thought that making films of the games was a good idea. Examples of this are – Tomb Raiders, Assassins creed, Sonic and many many more some a lot worse than others but never the less they were big films even when being advertised and proves that games a so big right now that there is endless amounts of money to be made in the industry for people with creative and different ideas.
Conclusion – I think the research went well when researching advancing technology. I put in a fair bit of information on games evolving into multiplayer games and how consoles have changed to what we have today being more slick and smaller models compared to the old big and chunky boxes they used to make. I also dove into gaming apps and a little bit of how mobile gaming has changed from classic board games and card games as most physical games that you would classically buy are now mostly able to be purchased and downloaded onto your phone to play anywhere at any time without the setting up and messy process. I was planning on doing the TED talk but due to obvious global circumstances that is not able to be so i have created this essay instead.
I am starting the process of level 2 because i have lost some files from my level 1 project but have a 30 second clip i can use if all else fails. I am starting production of this scene so i have more things to work on and get more done before the deadline instead of wasting all my time on the first part.
I am going to research various stop motion projects and stop motion studios to gather a lot of information on all the many ways i can go about his and make it easy for myself, stop motion is a very long process so i think it is best to get as much of this done as i can.
I thought the best place to start looking would be Aardman productions most known for the Wallace and Gromit franchise and many other amazing films although they do their clay models i can still take a lot of knowledge from them such as the creating process and the recording process.
I was watching this video of how they assemble their team into different parts and all base their work from the storyboards drawn by the artists. It takes them almost 6 weeks to create 1 minute of animation doing this style and obviously the standard they achieve being a big major movie. they create the environment and all characters by hand and by many people where as i am doing this all single handedly i will be taking a few shortcuts like with the background being 1 single image but i will hopefully have my character walking across the screen into the race car. I chose to have the background a single drawn image because if i had cut out trees and other background fillers they would all move and make it to difficult for me to do the subtle movements i need my character to do.
The first of this video explains the story of Trey Parker and Matt Stone and how they started of creating southpark and what it evolved too. This is beneficial to me because i am basing this second level design around southpark and the style of the first pilot episode “Cartman gets an anal probe” They created different drawn faces and expressions that they can switch between shots to give the illusion of the characters speaking. I am going to use this for a part of my animation before he gets in the car so you can see the character at the beginning and the end if all goes to plan. I am going to look at some cars from south park and some other cars in animations to see how others have done it. I am also looking at lots of images from southpark because that is where my inspiration for this came from but i am going to try and make it noticeably different so its my own thing.
This is the sort of concept i am going for when he gets in the car. Obviously mine will be stop motion paper cut outs but this is not far off what i am trying to achieve because if you slow it down it is different images on seperate frames which is technically what i am doing but not on a computer until post production. I am struggling to find other sources of stop motion like this video game so i dont really have much to work off which is good i am going to have to put a lot of work into the process so it comes out clean because this is my first big stop motion project.
I found this video explaining how he has a moving background underneath a glass table. I do not have a glass table which is why i have chose not to have an animated background because it would involve other pieces being in the way when i need to walk the character across the screen towards the car. I am going to attempt to make this structure of character though with the arm pieces so the animation can flow better and not look to choppy. Once i have created a story board i will see what ways i can go about this project and hopefully learn from my research on what way would be easier to achieve my goal.
This is my first prototype cutout character which is why he has no features and is just plain white i started making this so i have a good idea on what to do with the next one and what size is appropriate. I am able to move each separate body part but it is a bit fragile and sometimes falls off so on the next actual model i will have a sturdy character to operate with. You can see on the back how i did this with matchsticks and masking tape to stick to each other which did work better than i thought but like i said it needs a bit of fine tuning. On the next one i will draw out the characters clothes and cut them out to roughly these shapes and see the size compared to the background i am drawing up. I am going to have to draw a car and i decided to give him a race car and have him put on a helmet so when it comes to the racing sequence it is easier for me to do because i would just be moving a helmet in shots and not hair.
This is my first few drawings of the racing sequence, i was putting most my focus into getting a good template for my next model because that is first in this scene but the idea is there will be 3 lanes once he is in the car and he will move from one to the other whilst a plane flies over him dropping bombs into the lane he is in then he will fight the 2nd boss. (Jeffery). This is going to be a tricky task because i am going to attempt to have the car the same size and move from each lane but have the background look like its moving instead. so the trees and possibly some buildings will go past quickly so it looks like he his moving fast. This will be a bit tricky because i have never done anything like this and i cannot find any sources online that could benefit me. This also proves that my idea is still original because i have found nothing like what i am doing for this 2nd level.
These are concepts of backs of cars i have been looking at. I decided to get some race cars and a truck so i can see which would look better and be easier to animate. It will only be 2 different drawings of the wheels the the background moving by with hopefully a plane flying over and dropping bombs if i can find a way of doing it.
Ive decided to go with one of the red car designs because it is a nicer look from behind and most likely look a lot cooler than the truck but i think the truck wheels would be easier to animate because they are more visible and would look more noticeable. If i come to this problem when filming with the red car i will change but for now i am going to draw out some rear end car designs and see what im definatly going with .
I am currently unable to do any work as i have no wifi and no software needed to continue with my project or research. This is pushing me behind a fair bit but as soon as i am able to continue i will so as much as possible. I am also expecting a baby with my girlfriend in a months time during this pandemic so i am all over the place whilst still working when possible. I have not forgotten about The project i just have a lot going on and no way of continuing even if i wanted to.
I have started making a first design of the first level in the animation story. I chose to go with the first level being a 2D pixel plat former like the classic Mario games so I started to research a bit into the level design and character sprites.
In this image they have all the different movements that Mario would use throughout the game. Obviously this is going to have many more movements than I will because this is only one segment of my final piece but this is how I will make the character appear that its moving by creating a few poses that he will do throughout the level and make a gif of each and place them where they need to be and hopefully it comes out smooth and looking okay.
This image is showing a a piece of the level design. This is how I am going to create my level by having a long strip but having some verticality in there so there is no need to make more than 1 as he will exit the first level by climbing up into the next level and animation style.
I was also looking a old fighting games and breaking it down as much as I can by slowing the speed down to 0.25x and seeing how many different parts it is and how they made the screen look like it was moving with the character.
When he fell into the screen it was only 2 different positions, extended when falling and crouching when landed but the way it is put together makes it look smooth and almost tricks the eyes of the player because you almost fill in the blanks without realising unless you pay very very close attention.
This is the start of my level design just so I have something to work off. I am thinking of filling in the space in the mud with dinosaur skeletons or something similar so it isn’t an open space and obviously there will be ledges and ladders so the character can climb through the level
This is the sort of concept I think I am going to go for in the 1st level and have lava below the first set of ladders so I can try have my friend die within the game and use 1 of his 3 lives in the first level when they are still figuring out the controls. I am going to put in some clouds and maybe some planes flying around to maybe foreshadow what is next to come. This is of course only a first design to give me an idea on what direction to go in so a lot may change by the end product depending on how production goes. I will be creating the characters and gifs in detail before finishing the level design so I know what animations I need to put In there and what size and shape everything should roughly be.
Instead of using basic platforms and ladders to jump on I thought about using trees in different sizes as the platform and vines on the trees to climb to add to the scenery. I chose to add the volcano because I thought having a random lava hole in the world would look a bit weird but having a volcano in the background to sort of justify it makes a bit more sense. This also works because I wanted some dinosaur skeletons in the mud anyway to fill in the gaps so its not so empty.This is the sort of course I think I want to trees to go so he will climb up the first tree and jump between the bushes and walk over the top. When he hets to the middle where the lava is I am thinking of having either a vine or two to swing on or some vines connecting the two for him to climb across. At the end he will climb a vine into the clouds to take him to the next level.
The way I created the vines is just drawing a brown branch from one tree to the other then drawing a light green outline of where the vines would be then once i had the basic outline done I did a faint darker line of green around the vines to add a bit of shadow and some more detail. I added these vines over the lava flow so during the animation he can climb across the lava path and get to the other side. I am most likely going to have him fall off the vines on the first time and make him fall in the lava and lose one life to add some suspense.
This is the first level with the finished vines. samosa the vines and branch in the middle I drew the outline on each vine then added 2 shades of green to ad some shadows and extra detail so everything doesn’t just look like solid colours and boring scenery. This is most likely very close to what the final piece may look like because I really like how this has turned out. Some parts might change if needed touring the animation process or if I have any other small ideas or extra bits I want to add but I don’t want to fill it with a bunch of random objects theatre not relevant and fill up the screen. Right now I think this design looks pretty good and I am happy with how it has turned out.
At first I had all the clouds on the same layer as the volcano because I did them together but I have decided to do the highlighted clouds on a separate layer so I can animate them moving along the screen during the video. The reason the other cloud on the far right is not highlighted is because I am leaving that cloud in that spot permanently because that is the way out of the level once he has made his way across.
This is the first animated level design. The clouds do move a bit fast but I may actually play on this within the audio off the friends speaking by having one of them mention it and take a dig at the ‘game’ being created or even have the game look like its breaking by having it cycle throughout day and night within the level whilst he is trying to get out and yet again have them mention and taking digs at the game which may become a recurring theme to remind the audience that it is another students FMP game
So this is another option I may go for to show the viewers that the game is broken and not complete. Im not too sure how I feel about this yet it may need some tweaking or possibly completely changing if it affects the characters animation or makes the actual character hard to see win anyway. Possibly adding a sun and moon going across the sky could help this scene to make it more beleivable.
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These are the first designs I have made of my friend. The colour of the clothes may change depending on what he is wearing at the time of filming so it fits in but I can change that once it is finished. These 2 images when created into a gif should look close enough to what I am looking for and give the impression of walking. For this first level of animation I will only be using a walking/running, climbing and jumping/falling which should look some what similar so I should be able to re-use the design. This should get me where I need to be and hopefully get going on the first part of the animation.
These are the first 2 gifs I have made for walking/running. The first one I though when played out is a little bit too quick so I may go for the second one and change it between frames if he needs to speed up in a situation.
To create the climbing animation I changed the opacity of the stationary character I made and pictured it from the back so added a hood hanging down and just showed the back of the head so its
This is the process I took and these are the final results.
I tried to make them a little bit different by raising and lowering the arms and legs slightly so it looks like he is climbing when I create the gif. I have been adding slight darker and lighter colours in some parts of each of these gifs because it makes it look a little bit more detailed considering its pixel, I didn’t want it to to blocky and by doing this it looks a little bit like creases or shadows on the back.
These are the final gifs for the climbing animation. Just like the walking gif I wasn’t sure if one was to fast or slow so I went for .01 seconds and 0.2 seconds again so I can use which ever looks best or even tweak them slightly if I want something different.
This is the jumping frame I have created. I did this the same way as the others by having the standing image in the background and lowering the opacity so I can draw a outline of his new movements. I created a gif of this also so when he needs to switch between which animation he must do I can just turn on and off the separate gifs.
I have only done one of these because I can speed it up if I need to within after effects when animating it. To save time as I still have another 2 animation styles to do I will keep each one as basic as possible but still good quality so when he is falling I will use that same image so its almost like a retro arcade platformer like the classic Mario games.
When I was doing the first animation sequence I had some problems with the jumping GIF so I just ended up using a png image of him jumping which I think worked just as well as it saves me cutting and editing it every time he jumps.
This is the first attempt at my level 1 scene. It could do with some tweaking at the moment but this is just to get a good idea of what direction I am going in. In the final project the camera will be following the character across the screen as he goes along so he will appear bigger. I will also fix the parts of the animation that is not so smooth in the final piece but this scene is the very start of him being in the game so they are figuring out the controls which is why he dies and loses one of his 3 lives. There is still some editing needed once I have cleaned it up swell but I decided to render and upload this so far as a sort of checkpoint of where I am now and hopefully showing progress of where I end up. This is only have of the first level anyway as he will die then go back to the beginning and have to go across the platforms yet again and climb across the branch of vines. When the animation is all done and the voice recordings are added it will make a lot more sense because the characters can fill in the viewer of what is actually going on and the live action scene before should set some good context of the short film about to play out. The colour of the background is flashing from day and night to signify that the game is broken in some way and the characters can play on this and make some funny jokes about it.
Instead of having the background cycle through day and a night I have thought about having thunder and lighting instead because I think it would look better with the flashing light in the sky and I think it would also be easier to do although I have never done either of these things. The thunder and lighting is another thing for me to research and find some good audio clips to add in the final piece to add another sense of fear into the character within the game.
Since leaving college i have lost a few files i was using in my animation so i am going to have to improvise how i can continue with this project without re-starting. This has set me back a bit as i may need to start from the beginning with the level 1 design which i dont really want to do if i can avoid it. I have searched my one drive and cannot find any of my missing files so i have downloaded the first half i uploaded to YouTube and i am going to finish the first half from that then continue with the end part of level 1 so hopefully not a lot of time was wasted.
I cannot recover any of the files and i couldn’t get the video so i am just going to restart it and hopefully catch up to where i was heading. I only have the basic 1 second background image and the gifs so i am going to try it again and maybe learn from the last attempt and make it look better.
I have managed to make the death scene again and i created the other half of level 1 where he completes the level and i am now creating the boss fight on the clouds with the Doka slug, i have decided to only go with the electric spike on his head because animating all the other things i had drawn would be very difficult. I am going to animate his movements same as i did with the character by making gifs of him throwing his spike and another one of him wiggling to look like moving, he isn’t in pixel because i dont have much time to create it and animate it so i am just going with a 2D boss but it should like fine. The boss arena is just a blue sky with clouds as the surface because he climbed up a big vine to the sky in the scene before so i thought it would fitting. I dont really know if i should put anything to fill the background so it isn’t just blue but i cant think of anything relevant to be placed in there so i will leave it blank for now, the audience should be more focused on the fight if i do it correctly.
These are the first basic designs i have so far. The slug is obviously not finished but this is just my starting point and the background is a basic cloud level because im not sure what to fill the background with.
I have spent today working on the doka slugs moving animation and i am then going to do an attack animation with his spike on his head. This is what i have so far.
It doesn’t look too bad, i am getting more used to the frame animation workplace on Photoshop from doing these animations. Once i finish his attack with the spike i am going to finalise the background and put them all into after effects and create the boss fight of level. Considering i fell behind a few days because of the virus and not being able to work at all for a while i feel i am making pretty good progress on this level and hopefully level 2 doesn’t take too long creating. I may have to leave level 3 behind if i fall to behind the deadline because i would rather have 2 decent looking levels and animations that 3 rough looking ones. Hopefully i can still meet my friend too film the live-action parts and get his audio recorded but i may have to think of something different.
This is a screenshot i took whilst finishing it off. I started by making the body movement first so i could work out where it would be good to have a blink and thats when i decided to make his head tilt slightly so its not just still constantly. I did this by drawing over the other head with little opacity and colouring in the eyes a darker green to look shut. I then got the idea for the lighting bolt because else it would be hard to tell what it actually is on his head but i think with the lighting bolt moving with his head and a bit of electricity audio in the final piece it would pull it off and look right.
This is my GIF for the slugs attack. It turned out okay but a little bit jumpy only because i dont have as much time as i would like to make it crisp and seamless but i think whilst its playing out in the animation hopefully it shouldn’t be that noticeable. I was looking at videos of whips in slow motion to see if i could copy the effect for my spike, it didn’t turn out terrible but obviously could do with some improvement if i had more time or was only doing 2D but because i still have stop motion and 3D to do i need to save as much time for that so hopefully i can get it all done and put together in the final video. These are the 2 slug GIF’s i am going to use so now i am going to attempt the boss scene in after effects and see how it turns out.
So this is the design for the boss fight i chose because he obviously climbs up the vines into the clouds in the scene before. I decided to add a sun in the corner flashing slightly to give the background some movement so it isn’t just a still image and i also drew a couple different layers for the cloud floor so they look like they are still moving like in the scene before. The vines twitching is a mistake but something went wrong in a frame and i could not figure out how to fix it without doing it again so i decided to leave it because i think the most important bit of this scene is the fight between the pixel character and the slug.
When i started putting in my gifs for my character he is too small for the composition so when i enlarge him he becomes very distorted so i am going to create a new boss fight arena and make it a lot smaller, i have also been looking at other games with cloud levels to see how they compare to mine and if i can bend any ideas that have already been done.
The most obvious one to start looking at was the Mario levels. They have pipes everywhere in there games but it would be un-fitting to add them in mine but i may take there background ideas by having clouds and a little bit of sky in the background and have the platform they are standing on more focused and clear clouds.
This is obviously a very different game that i am trying to mimic but the background is where i am trying to get ideas and here they have what seems to be faint mountains in the back with a layer of clouds/fog this is something i am going to consider in my new background. These are the only 2 different images that i can really find that well benefit me or help generate ideas, nearly all the images where Mario games due to the various level designs throughout the years.
I started by drawing the mountains on the background layer and using light and darker shades of white and grey and added a sun. I then had the idea of having clouds moving in the background so i did loads of frames of the clouds moving.
I then copied the vines i used in the other composition to create his entrance that leads up to a big platform in the sky where the Doka slug will then slither in from the right side.
This is the final background i made, i think it looks a lot better than the other one i created. and the clouds moving in the background i think turnt out okay. Im now going to create a 1 minute movie of this on repeat on after effects so then i can add my GIFs onto the movie in after effects and use less layers.
This is a png image i made for one the slug’s spike hits the character and it will flash in a couple times to signify getting hit and taking damage.
For some reason the GIF i made of the slug attacking wont go into after effects. Its saying its an unsupported file but i created it and saved it the same way i have for all the other GIFS and they worked fine, if i cannot solve this it will take some detail from the final piece which i hope wont happen. In the mean time whilst i solve that issue i have been looking at Pokemon fights and boss battles from other games to see how they are introduced. A lot of recent games have cut scenes to showcase the enemy you are about to fight but these 2 examples i find look unique and instantly shows the player what is happening.
These images are from Borderlands 3 specifically but it is a common theme across the whole series to introduce characters and boss enemies with a quick scene showing the character with its name and a 1 – liner to accompany it. This is a good way of showing the player who the enemies are and getting them to learn their names early on.
This is something very different because this is not a boss fight or a character introduction but coming across this gave me the idea of having an image of each character ( Kyan and the slug) when they come eye to eye and make it like an anime head to head image that appears showing the level and difficulty. I am going to try do this for every level and use the characters ive made for that specific level.
So i started creating this image with a border and i did have a little effect of the blue glowing around the edges but i didnt really like how it turnt out so i kept looking for tutorials to find something better.
I tried creating an electric text that glows as it runs through the letters but i didn’t like how it turnt out and didn’t really fit in the background. I then got the idea of making the border electric and have it glow and flash and keep the text rolling in.
I found a lighting preset in the effects tab on after effects. I started playing around with the settings and changing the glow and radius of the glow as well as changing the lighting type on the settings to change the direction to both and i changed the colour slightly to a more lighter blue.
This is the final video that i got to before having to stop. There is a lot i would have changed and added if i had more time such as adding a camera attached to a null to follow the character along the level and only really have him in frame with maybe a bit of whats in front of him. I also would have added sound effects for the audio and most importantly narrative for the character and some growling or monster noises for the boss. I am disappointed that time is falling short as i really wanted to get this done and see how the final project turnt out but due to the corona virus time is running out and i need to work on my other units but if i have time i will finish this project in y spare time because i want to see it through to the end. The end boss fight is also not finished because i was having trouble adding the slugs attack GIF that i created but that 100% would have been input into the scene with the png image of the character getting shocked. This is why it falls short at the end and ends abruptly.
Story Narrative – I am going to attempt a non linear approach to the animation by have the first scene be from one of the last live action scenes of the 2 protagonist shocked and confused expressions after the events with a narrative voice in the back ground giving a brief and cryptic overview before panning to the first genuine scene of a panning shot of the college.
I have been researching and watching clips from other big non-linear films such as:
Fight Club
Kill Bill
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir dogs
These are all classic films that pulled off the non linear story very well and it shows in the reviews for the films. 3 of these films are from the director Quentin Tarantino, a well know movie director best known for his original movie styles and editing. Considering he is one of the best original directors (in my opinion) I thought it should be best to research into him and get an idea open how he thinks if I am to do a non-linear story which he is best at.
This is an interview I found on youtube of Quentin Tarantino when he was still at the beginning off his career and he is explaining his thought process on telling his stories and why he does the things he does. A big thing he does is keep the story ‘unfolding’ and keep the audience intrigued and fixed to the tv instead of having a simple ordinary story where once the opening scene happens you can take a very good guess on what is going to happen by the end of the film and how it might happen. I am going to try and do this to an extent and keep the audience guessing, I will try to do this by changing art styles and situations but always twisting the story so at the start of the film you may come up with an idea on what might happen but then by the end or at some point in the middle your idea completely goes out the window because of an event that has occurred or about to happen and keep the audience guessing.
I found this website explaining a few techniques to make a good successful short film to give me some guidance so my animation isn’t stiff and forced and makes the audience click off or fall asleep.
I am going to expand my work of these 4 points because I feel they would help drive me to get a final piece that I am hoping for.
Starting with the original technique I think my idea is original already because I am starting and finishing in live action but through out the film will be 3 different animation art styles (2D, 3D and stop motion similar to the original South Parks with cut out drawings) I think my story is also original because the concept is 2 friends working together because 1 of them has be transferred into a virtual game word made by another student in the college so the game is a bit buggy and doesn’t work perfectly. II am planning on making this affect the final scenes of the film to give a reason on why it is another students FMP instead of a triple A game because I can hopefully make the game start falling apart whilst the protagonist is still within the game world to add suspense and give another original twist to my short film.
Appealing story or characters. I am only having 2 main characters, 2 Teenage friends in college and 1 is sucked into the world. I am only having 2 main characters to reduce the script I will have to write and not give myself to much work but also helps flow as having too many characters could make things get a bit messy and not play out very well. I will have 3 villains though with some side enemies but only 1 enemy will have dialogue and it will be little because it will be the final boss with some short lines just to give some depth to the character for there finale.
Humour is something I think I will struggle a little bit with because trying to come up with artificial jokes and gags but still having it believable within the ‘film world’s key to a good movie. If the acts playing out are not believable to an extent and don’t work at all it will just look like a mess in the final piece. I am also going to do some research into comedy films and possibly some more directors and see if I can find some interviews or pointers from professionals on making funny films correctly and flow.
And finally design. This is another key aspect because if the characters look stupid or don’t work in the scene or context you want it to then there is an issue. I have made 4 original creatures/enemies to begin with to give me an idea on some scenes but obviously 1 will not be used so I am going to create a survey that I will get my peers and friends to take and help me decide on which one shouldn’t make it into the final cut. If problems occur during filming and editing though then changes may have to be made during production.
Comedy is often built up of these 6 aspects and they work amazingly well together when in the right context and performed to a suitable standard exaggeration, incongruity, surprise, repetition, wisecracks, and sarcasm. Pulling these of in my project will be a challenge as I have never done anything to this extent before but I have faith that I can pull it off without making it silly and over the top. This will defiantly take a lot of attempts but I am sure the final piece will be different, original and funny in its own way.
Although comedy films are meant to be funny and light hearted it is good to have a peak of the film where the characters are in danger and the mood drops and tension rises because it is a complete change of events and is probably un expected. This is shown in almost any animation whether its comedy or not. you need high and low points within the project to excel the feeling of relief and happiness in the end when everything is okay and possible fit in some more jokes about the situation that just occurred.
Characters with different moods or different points of view can also play a good role in a comedy film because they can bounce of off each other and take jabs at each other for whatever reason as long as it is in context to the scene and works within the style of film I am portraying.
On further research I cannot find any exciting products that cycle through multiple animation styles so now that I know my idea is completely original it gives me a good reason to go about this task and try and push through the challenges to see how it comes out in the end. Maybe there is a reason no one has done multiple art styles?
I will be using 2D,3D and stop motion In the way of South Park by drawing and cutting out characters or objects in paper and animating it in after effects. South parks original pilot episode was all paper cut outs which was then animation on Maya since then they have changed the way they animate as obviously budget increases and technology increases there is no need to draw out and cut out each episode but this is what I intend to do in one of my segments in the short film.
Films I am going to research and look deeper into are:
Jumanji (Newer versions) – Because the main characters are sucked into the jumaji game into the games characters bodies with their abilities and must ‘save jumanji’ to be sent home but they only have 3 lives and they are unsure of what happens if all lives are lost inside the world.
Wreck it Ralph – Because it is about arcade games being self aware but all have there own jobs in there games when the machines are on but once turnt of they all have normal lives. This is a good example though of various different game characters and a different approach to an original story.
Tron – Because the idea of the film is about a virtual world that someone has created and scans there bodies from the real world and imports them into this virtual world where many strange things are possible and normal to everyone already in there/living there. This could help me decide how the character is sucked into the game and what has been done and what hasn’t and see if I can keep my ideas original.
Ready Player one – is also a game world where people in the real world put on a headset and and are emerged into a virtual game world where so much things can happen and and various dangers lie. This could help me with scene development or idea development in my project and different ways and ideas to what I was thinking of.
While i was researching films i noticed that almost every modern film recently has male, female and various religions mixed in to connect to various audiences but whilst having a debate with one of my teachers we came across the ‘issue’ of me having a general target audience with only male characters. The reason for having me and my friend or 2 teenage lads is because this story is about friendship and teamwork. If i just added a random girl within the story or a different race it might not work as the chemistry is not there. Me and my friend have been friends for years and are comfortable in many situations together but having actors that have no chemistry and no relations with each other may be noticed in the final product if they didnt get a long. I would never have a problem with a variety of characters but it would need to flow and make sense, if the actors dont get a long it would show majorly in the final piece. The main reason i am having me and my friend is because i dont really have anyone else to film with but with the chemistry we have i feel like it would work because we can be ourselves and it would come out better than 2 people who have never met trying to be best friends and it not working out. The story is 2 best friends getting put in a sticky situation when 1 is put into a game world and has no way out so having 2 people that are very comfortable together you can add some funny lines and jokes and not have to fake as much and have less chance of everything being mellow and morbid.
If this was a major blockbuster film or something of that stature then i would be having various actors of any background taking auditions with one another to see if the chemistry works and whether or not they could pull off being best friends infront of the camera. Take the new Jumanji for example, Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson have been working together for years and making loads of great films and have a good friendship but if they never got along or had so many differences then them films would not be that good or it wouldn’t be with them 2 actors. This does not mean though that my audience is not aimed at females just because my film has 2 male leads because the meaning behind it is friendship and teamwork so if anyone can relate to that then they should hopefully enjoy the film. The most recent ghost-busters has all female leads but is not necessarily aimed at women and not men because its ghostbusters. Its for everyone because the story is the structure for the target audience in my opinion.
These are some strong examples of live action films with animation added into it for the story. Space jam is my favourite out of the list because when Micheal Jordan gets taken to the animated world he is golfing with his friend and gets sucked into the hole after hitting his golf ball into it. Within the looney tunes world anything is possible because it is a cartoon even though Micheal Jordan is a human, the first scene when Daffy Duck puts him into the chair and pretends to be a dentist and shoots his chair in the sky is a perfect example of breaking the laws of physics for a human character in a animated world and makes it funny because obviously humans would not be used to cartoon shenanigans.
This is the first clip when Micheal Jordan meets the looney tunes gang.
I found this compilation of adventure time episodes showcasing all the various animation styles that they have used which could help me a lot when going about what animation styles I am 100% sticking with. In this montage they have loads of animation styles such as:
3D
various types of 2D
Cell shaded
clay mation/stop motion
Drawn cells
and many more.
Audio is not my aim int his project but of course it is something I have to add in this project to explain the story and add to the comedy and random aspect of it but my main objective is show my abilities in animation and various styles so most of my focus will be on the production and making of the project rather then the audio and music choice but of course I will include both to make the film better and more entertaining.
Mind maps which helped me with my research and some points i received from after the research.
This is the story board i am going to try to stick to with only changing little differences as i am pretty happy with how this looks at the moment. It is a very rough sketch right now but with time i will have something looking similar to this in each animation shown. This also gives me a lot to research such as various stories similar to this one and a few animation styles.
First few enemy designs that i sketched from the top of my head. I only need 3 but i drew 4 so i created a little survey that i asked my peers which one i should get rid off and the final decision i shown below.
These 2 drawings below are the first little sketches of the 2 levels in a simple structure. They would obviously be a lot bigger and hopefully more detail.
I am going with the final proposal on the list. More detail below
Story – 2 friends walking through college minding their own business notice a strange unusual light beaming from a classroom door. As the curious boys open the door they are blinded by the light but as the light dies down and visibility is increased one of the friends is left stood there alone worried and confused on where his friend disappeared to. He hears a slight scream coming from a computer on the table and to his surprise its his friend. He has been sucked into a virtual game world that has been created by another student for his FMP. The boys have no idea what is happening but the friend in the real world finds a book which belonged to the student who created the world in which he finds what enemies are within the game and what different dangerous areas lie in this world. Unfortunately the boy in the game world cannot move at all and must be controlled/guided through the world by his friend outside in the real world on the computer. The only way they can work together is through communication. With only 3 lives appearing on the screen they must go through the game to hopefully escape and be released from the game world and praying they don’t find out what happens when all lives run out.
This is a simple design for a poster that i created to promote my Surgeon game idea.
I had spent all day creating a short trailer for this product but when I came back to finish it off and render I could not find any of the files of the development or the end product I had so far. This has pushed me back a little bit so I just have enough time to create a digital version of the poster.
I created this poster on photoshop because I needed do a quick one as I was hoping to make a short gif to promote the film or a short trailer but everything I made for it and the composition I was using was lost so I had to start again but with little time I just made a digital version of the concept art I drew by hand with a few changes to make it a little bit more appealing.
Age – 18+ as the game is for mature audiences because of the blood and detail in the gameplay.
Gender – Not gender specific at all
Political – The game is not political at all.
Job – targeted for doctors/surgeons or just anyone willing to have a bit of fun on a different style of game from their usual picks.
Opinions – Players would need to be comfortable with blood because you will obviously be doing surgeries in VR and would not be good for squeamish people.
Hobbies – Hobbies for players may include gaming
Disposable Income – Average living for normal families with consoles and children.
Interests – interests probably include doctors/surgeons or possible just challenges .
Location – The game is set in 2020 and takes place in London, UK just to help with the designs and stay close to my country.
Linked Products – Linked products would be Surgeon simulator and Operation the board game because that is where a lot of my inspiration came from.
The best way to see this information is looking at the stats for surgeon simulator because they are very similar games but of course that game is a 12 and mine would be a mature 18+ because I would make it a bit more graphic then the other one.
I feel my interview went pretty good, I had a prepared my job application at blue Skys studio which is the same studio that created the iconic ice age film series. I went in with a positive attitude and hoped to come across confident and prepared all though I did stumble on a few words and froze for a second at one point when I was asked a question I wasn’t prepared for but I think I played it off to a suitable standard and may have got the job. I explained the skills and possibly what I could bring to the industry in a creative sense and how I may differ from others. but of course I am unsure of how I did come across from an employers point of view so I am excited yet worried to see my evaluation from my tutors.
This is the sort of course I think I want to trees to go so he will climb up the first tree and jump between the bushes and walk over the top. When he hets to the middle where the lava is I am thinking of having either a vine or two to swing on or some vines connecting the two for him to climb across. At the end he will climb a vine into the clouds to take him to the next level.
DP3GAM1F Tyler Harris's College Blog 