Ronnie Leah, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester.

 Today we investigated world building and the importance of creating an established world. I learnt that the world should have as much personality as the characters and be influenced by the themes of the plot. You should find an array of different influences in order to guide the world design and keep in mind what sort of characters will be interacting with the world.  I was given a famous landmark, The Notre Dame, and had to reflect a theme on the building. The theme I was given was decadent.  For the second exercise we were given a theme for a character and had to draw the type of room we think they would live in. I was given a character who was an ancient Chinese Philosopher. I started by researching what type of people Chinese philosophers are in order to establish what sort of things would be in their room.  My character is a retired warrior, who uses his knowledge of the world from his travels to protect his tribe. He is blind and so can no longer fight for him...

Project Parameters  Character: Superhero/Supervillain Theme: Psychedelic Album Covers Character Trait: Vain World Time: 1960's London Scene (What's Happening): Saving/Destroying City Action: His/Her Powers Story Outline Elliot Goh is a man from the future. He is very rich and so has everything you could want in life and is still not happy. He is very vain and wants nothing more in life then to be the superhero everyone looks up to in his timeline, AB-Normal. He uses his money to research time travel and pinpoints the time (in the 60's) in which the superhero first begins appearing, and attempts to travel their in order to steal the powers for himself, gaining the one thing in life he cannot attain through money.  Elliot uses time machine and arrives in 60's city at the exact point in which superhero gains powers. His time machine malfunctions and strikes a nearby boy (Joe Average), who gains the powers of AB-Normal. Elliot sees this happen and is devastated that he can ...

 Today I learnt about character archetypes and how they are involved in narrative artforms. Archetypes in there simplest for, can be summarized as a set of traits that are specific and identifiable to a character. "Archetype" means original pattern in ancient Greek I leant about the 12 Jungian archetypes. Jung used the concept of archetypes in his theory of the human psyche. He believed that 12 universal characters archetypes reside in out collective unconscious. He believed that the 12 primary types are the motivation which humans use to justify how they act. Each human tends to have one dominant of the twelve archetypes which defines our personality.  These 12 archetypes can then be further divided up into 4 of the motivations: Ego - leave a mark on the world Order - provide structure to the world Social - connects to others Freedom - yearn for paradise A combination of the two above create the main archetypes seen below.     The Hero:  The hero is the pr...

 Today I continued modelling the face for Jetpack Jones. I spent a lot of time today shuffling the vertex's round to match up with the model. I added the ear, mouth and eye, which meant more edge loops to strengthen the structure. This then required each edge to be spaced out appropriately.  I think I'm getting there with the model, some vertex's may still be out of place slightly and need moving slightly. 

  So far as a team we have been able to identify the situations we want our character to go through for the sentence "When Not To Go Outside". I began in a previous blog, coming up with different situations which could happen in each skit in order to flesh out our ideas more. I've been doing a lot of research about the character and was trying to create one which is interesting. This seems to be easier when the character has a defining personality and purpose. as you can then show this in their design. I thought maybe the character could have a bigger role than just being stupid and so I thought of character who is a scientist who makes useless inventions. They are trying their best to push technology further, however with every invention they make, their seems to be a glaring flaw in its design/purpose. I like this idea as we can decorate his house with silly and strange inventions and label them for the audience to read. We could also design the characters house with hi...

Today I was given an established animated world and had to come up with a new and unique character who would fit into this world. I was given ParaNorman, a stop animation film which came out in 2012, by Laika.  I began by firstly refreshing my knowledge of the plot as It had been a long time since I had watched the animation. I then went through and researched all of the main characters in order to understand the people who were already established in the ParaNorman universe.  Paranorman - Stop Animation, Dark Setting, Exaggerated Faces/proportions, Horror Norman - Is able to see and interact with the dead. Is the main character Agatha Prenderghast - Main antagonist of the plot. She cursed the town, however is not actually evil. She was killed for her ability to speak to the dead. Neil Downe - The sidekick to the main character. Is bullied for his looks Mitch Downe - Not very itelligent, but very strong. He is Neil's older brother. Mr Prenderghast - Normans Great Uncle. Also h...

 Now that we have picked the ideas which we like for 'When Not To Go Outside', we now need to flesh out the ideas in order to create a finished series of skits.  When Not To Go Outside....When There Are Giants! Character is warned not to go out side because of giants. Shows outside of house and door opening. Character goes to take a step out of his door and is instantly crushed by giant foot (foot could crush house). This idea relies on its quick punchline in order to be funny. The character doesn’t even get a chance to go outside before being crushed. The audience could be introduced to the giants in a previous sketch and for whatever reason the character must leave his house. This leads to him instantly being crushed. By doing this it connects the two sketches together. Character could then be seen as smaller in the next sketch. The character could be watering his plants and suddenly see a bug on the floor. They get a menacing look on their face and slowly raise their leg to...

 Investigating popular comedy characters in order to understand what makes their personality 'defining'. Mr Bean - Mr Bean 1990 - 1995 Homer Simpson - The Simpsons 1989 - To Modern Day Peter Griffin - Family Guy 1999 - To Modern Day I have picked several characters from different eras of comedy in order to understand what made them so popular in their respected time. Each characters shows have different target audiences and so the comedy is very different. By observing different types of comedy it will help us come up with the target audiences for our animation, allowing us to identify what types of jokes should be included.  Mr Bean (Mr Bean) PERSONALITY: Child in a grown mans body  Mr Bean is a sitcom which centres around a character of the same name as he attempts to complete seemingly normal everyday tasks. The problem is however, tasks which seem simple to the everyday man, prove to be complex for Mr Bean, who is am incompetent man-child. This leads to many strange s...

Today I continues modelling Jetpack jones. As you can see from the images below, I began to get a bit lost with the model. This was mainly due to me following along with the tutorial while missing a step and deleting a face before needing to. I also didnt see the edgeloop added to the back of the head and so was trying to match my model to the one with more edgeloops.  I decided to take a step back and watch back the tutorial in order to see where I went wrong.  I identified the problem and then began modelling from an earlier version of my model. This process took a while however I was really pleased when I finally managed to sort the model out. I feel I now have a greater understanding of modelling faces and feel more confident moving the vertexes round. I also have a greater appreciation of saving in increments as it means you can always go back on your mistakes. 

Today I was introduced to Joseph Campbell and his idea of the heroes journey. Joseph Campbell believed there were 3 key stages to the heroes journey and identified them as the departure, the initiation and the return. Each of these segments can then be broken up into smaller steps which follow the theme of each respected segment (see image below). Campbell believed this to be a common template for any story which involves a hero, which can be applied to Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone. After taking notes of the films plot, I then began assigning what I thought were the appropriate scene, to fit Campbell's 17 steps. For some of the steps you could argue that there are multiple points in the narrative which match up as well as some of the steps taking place slightly out of order.  The Call To Adventure Character gets opportunity to venture from normality - In Harry Potter, Harry receives a letter to join Hogwarts, a school for becoming a wizard. This is out of the ordinary fo...