Week 2: Re-working the Narrative

After alot of discussion me and Matt decided we should try and re-work the narrative of our animation as we had gone off some of the earlier ideas for the ending. Also we felt it was a little sketchy in the middle. Another point was that we felt it was better to go to Barcelona with a solid idea sorted than worry about trying to bring it together whilst gathering research out there. We put together some new ideas here about having the ground cracking and breaking up like a kind of earthquake. We felt this was better than using the darkness as we would have to make too many changes to the lighting and it was alot to accomplish in 60 seconds. I also did some rough sketches and thumbnails for the end shots about how the cat might go into a courtyard that would cave in.

We went with this idea to the other group members and pitched it to them the following day and they agreed with it being more successful and we spent a session re-working this and developing it further.

I also began to develop small sketches for a birdseye layout again to support the narrative we had developed. This would then give us some rough thoughts to consider while in Barcelona.

Week 2: Continuing Environment Research

This is more research into environments. Whilst trying to develop the narrative I liked the idea of having some eerie and seedy back alleys in there for the cat to climb through. Also they could be quite dark and contrast with the brightness of the bigger wider streets and courtyards.

I also looked into really rundown village areas with quite high buildings. The image in the top left of the picture above I felt was the best example of how the environment should be structured and textured. Me and Jeff both felt this would be a good point to progress from with our design ideas and it would be nice to have this kind of style and colour palette once we came to exploring textures in the later development after we had done our main research on the Barcelona trip.

Week 1: Early Thoughts About Barcelona

With the trip to Barca approaching fast I decided to look at areas of Barcelona architecture in advance to get some more solid ideas about the designs of the buildings we might be working with. I have considered some things in general about the environment to do with temperature, colours, types of materials and textures. I have also started to think about the type of terrain we might like our environment on.



Here I started to think about how areas might look normally in Barcelona and started to get together imagery of current ruined areas in Barca and other European cities. Also I mentioned I liked the idea of using a courtyard in the narrative as a key point of interest so I looked at collaborating so of the features of this type of area. Again above are some of my rough notes. I particularly like the way we can have a lot of sandstone buildings which are wearing away and crumbling slightly. I think this will work well especially if we plan on having our environment really hot.

Week 1: Apocalypse Research

After deciding to go for the apocalyptic theme I had a look at finding some imagery to inspire us a little more and think about ways of destroying the environment. Above are some images I collated for the net. These were of a big inner city and we are obviously going for something with more character like Barcelona. We also felt these kinds of images were a little too destructive and maybe too intense where as we wanted a more natural feel as opposed to a nuclear disaster zone!



I also looked at a game called Resistance: Fall of Man which is on PS3. I felt the environments in this worked quite nicely as basically it has taken London and ruined it. This is kind of the effect we want with Barcelona in the fact we want to destroy it a little and rough it up. Jeff also looked at Gears Of War on XBOX 360 which is a good source of inspiration and we all agreed we liked this look and style as we are big fans of the game, however we also liked the new look for the game Resident Evil 5 as this is set in Africa with a real sun scorched look with intense heat.

Sam and Jeff are also looking into other environments they like the look of for further inspiration both from films and games.

Week 1: Developing the Narrative

Here I started thinking about some new ideas for the narrative. We discussed our beginning and was happy to use a cat in the environment and possibly an old lady (dead or alive) at the start but I wanted to start thinking about what was going on in the environment.

We had ideas about having our world plunge from bright sunshine into total darkness. This worked quite well and we were thinking about something sinister evolving and there being lots of tremors and shakes and rumbles from underground. I quite liked the idea of the buildings falling apart as we progressed through the streets etc. maybe putting the cat in danger somewhat.

Also me and Matt discussed using 1st person perspectives from the cats point of view. I think that this may have overcomplicated the scene because we only had a minute to play with and it may give more of a game type look, the whole group generally wanted a filmic look.

Week 1: Initial Ideas

Straight away we were all kind of set on a Post-Apocalyptic theme. (This formed our group name.) And obviously going to Barcelona presented us with the idea of using a hot, Mediterranean style location. We started thinking about how to incorporate characters into our environment. We had the idea of an old lady left abandoned in our world aand possibly a cat. I also started to think about layout of the environment and seeing how much of a distance we could cover within our 60 second animation. Above you can see a quick rough layout I did of a birdseye view. I quite liked the idea of the environment opening out and getting more expansive...maybe having a courtyard at the end where its really bright.

We also liked the idea of our environment being deserted, sunscorched and generally run down. The idea of it having been destroyed through war or nature causes seemed appealing to us. This was a good strating point but we knew we had to continue to develop this narrative to get something more solid!

Week 1: Initial Ideas and Planning

Hey guys,

Basically I am going to back date some of the first few weeks of work first. This will include all my initial ideas I had jotted down in sketchpads etc. Also I've got my initial research to go through and some inspirations I have looked at.



This was our first bit of planning from the lecture at the start of term. I've just noted this here for 2 reasons. Firstly it shows the individual production areas we will need to cover. Also these will have to be included in our production schedule. Also at the bottom you can see the tasks we assigned for Week One individually to get the ball rolling.....