For the final I decided to continue my mid term. I extended the first scene, fixed the planet in the second, and unfortunately didn’t have enough time to fix the liquid in the third scene, and I was more focussed on getting the timing and shape of the liquid in the fourth and final scene done. I’d still prefer to continue to work on the liquid, to make it more inline with what I was envisioning, and will have to try Houdini to do it, instead of CC Mercury or Trapcode which I already tried.

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For the final I will be finishing off my midterm, scenes 3 & 4. I will be working extensively on the primordial ooze and it’s movement within each frame and it’s interaction in order to make it more life-like, dynamic and believable.

Adapting my Photoshop skills to a timeline was a thinking exercise in terms of breaking down the scene into it’s moving parts, how they would move, and what would be seen with each movement. The theme I originally proposed shifted slightly due to difficultly in finding assets large enough to zoom into that had the aesthetic qualities I was looking for. This brought me to the concept of the soul and its journey. So, the beginnings of life in this world was started by the hand of a mostly unseen greater power. The people act as vessels, each location in place of their face representing places that are deeply influential into the formation of each character. The crow that is shot into the world represents the soul, and the following scenes are it’s journey and search for an ultimate home. The second scene with the storm is to set the stage for impending drama and change, while the third scene is where the soul meets a self-imposed rigidity (as represented by the house), whereby it transforms into primordial goo. Due to time restrictions, the final scene is not present in the film, but can be seen on the mood board. After the primordial goo left scene 3 from the corner of the pict, it would have entered the left frame, tried to enter the man there, was fought, and ultimately flung to the right frame where it landed onto the tray and the goo dripped to the floor revealing a beating heart on the platter.

Click the pict to see the film.

The theme of identity is what this midterm will be based on. The first scene starts with an initializing of life (movement) by an alien presence (might be changed to the “hand of god”), that gets everything started. The faceless women birth/begin the process by shooting a crow into space. Birds are often used as symbols that mediate between the physical and spiritual worlds, and the use of a crow within this context is that of carrying souls from darkness to light. The crow continues on it’s journey thru the next person/scene, whereby it flies from the tunnel in his face out to camera left. The facelessness of the people was inspired by John Stezaker’s collage work, here representing the body as a vessel, and the places replacing their face as part of their formative experience. A storm begins upon the crow’s exit, foreboding challenges ahead. In the third scene the crow becomes impeded by the face of the house (self created rigidity), whereby it begins to take the physical form of liquid (primordial goo), that slides down and into the next frame. In the last scene, the liquid looks into the right frame, and enters into the  left, attempting to enter him. Denied, it is flung to the right frame, lands on the tray, and goo drips to the ground revealing a beating heart.

Storyboard

Inspiration

People Inspiration

Places Inspiration

Example

The theme the midterm will be based on is that of identity. I’m interested in maneuvering within the frame to and from individuals (who’s faces or character have/has been manipulated) and within differing scenes to get to each character along the way. Say for example that we the viewer travel (zoom in on) along the road in the above image and enter the hole in her up-do, only to enter a portal in which we enter another world and come out the other side say through the eye of another character. Thru this navigation, I would like to elicit in the viewer questions regarding how we perceive others, ourself, and our connectedness, let alone the inner worlds that we perceive.

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In this exercise we had to come up with a character and embody it with a physical movement to give it life.