Preliminary Storyboards

First, here are my preliminary storyboards:



Currently, I'm working on posing the character I built in Advanced Modeling in NURBs in 3d for camera placement and character positioning. I started by converting the character into a unified poly mesh (below):



And I've been working on laying out the UVs, as seen in a shot of the UV texture editor (below):



So, the plan is to finish layout UVs so that none are overlapping (the mouth still needs to be separated and the face needs some tweaking...and then build the rig, rig the character, pose and start moving the camera around.

Revised Synopsis

On a small asteroid fragment in the middle of the universe Justin Catalino sits on a rock, alone, lonely. He is a very innocent, clean looking man, a grown version of the Little Prince. During a series of meteor showers a small asteroid lands in his hands and he cares for it. Other pieces land on the ground around him and he finds that they assemble with his asteroid to create a small orb. Looking around he realizes that the asteroid fragment he is sitting on has become a small planet. The camera pulls out to reveal a larger Justin who has likewise put pieces together to form a planet, the planet on which the small Justin is sitting.

Preliminary Thesis Statement and Story Synopsis

Thesis Statement

Focusing on character animation, my thesis will be in the form of an entirely computer animated music video. The protagonist will be a stylized version of the singer who exists in a world that is likewise stylized and fantasy-based. The primary goal will be to successfully synchronize the character's lips with the audio track and to use body movement and position to add emphasis and convey additional emotion to the piece.

When asked why this thesis has to be computer animated:
-The world itself is a fantastic place, a small planet much like the drawings of Le Petit Prince, and will have a hand-drawn look about it to match. The "real"-ness of the world should not be conveyed through photo-realism but through emotional interaction with the world and the world responding to the protagonist's emotional state the way change occurs in a dreamworld based on the dreamer's subconscious.
-Integrating live action footage of the singer into a computer constructed environment separates the character from the world. Usually this technique is used when a person is travelling to an alien place or dreams of visiting somewhere foreign, not when it is his/her world. As the world is a construction of Justin's (the singer), he owns it and should therefore exist within it as an inhabitant.

Story Synopsis

To begin, here are the lyrics to "When the Sky is Falling":
------------------------------------------
You were sent to me, fallen from the sky.
A manifest of destiny, electric fields of light,
and theres something about the way
only you can hear me say 'hey.'

They're coming after me
Trying to take me by the hide
But no one can find me
When I'm lost in your eyes

Then you tell me you're here to stay
That you'll make everything okay
Like when the sky is falling
On a rainy morning
I'll be standing by the side of the road singing
Come pick me up take me with you.

Come pick me up take me with yo-ou.
------------------------------------------

On a small asteroid fragment in the middle of the universe Justin Catalino sits on a rock, alone, lonely. He is a very innocent, clean looking man, a grown version of the Little Prince. It is clear he has not had much tragedy befall him and yet he is wise. During the first verse a meteor shower rushes by the planet ("electric fields of light") from which a glowing asteroid fragment falls into Justin's hands (which is exactly the same shape as the one he is sitting on though it is not initially obvious). He is elated at the discovery that something else exists out there and is intrigued by the glowing ember. This piece becomes his "pet." He cares for it in a very tender, loving way, not at all childish, merely curious and caring. It does exhibit alive characteristics and glows more brightly when Justin says "hey."
During the second verse a second meteor shower occurs and Justin is pelted with many shards of asteroids and attempts to hide behind the rock he was sitting on, protecting his asteroid fragment. While huddling with his piece he stares at it and in the reflection of the glowing piece Justin sees his own eyes looking back at him sadly, causing an introspective moment ("No one can find me when I'm lost in your eyes").
The meteor shower abates as the third verse begins and Justin gets up from hiding, collecting the pieces that have landed on the planet. They are all glowing and he begins to see that they fit together and glow brighter the more of them that are attached. The increasing glow is comforting and makes Justin feel better ("you'll make everything okay"). The meteor shower occurs for a third and final time, but this time it is much more like rain, they are small pieces and Justin isn't afraid of them. He fits all the pieces together and they form a small planet in his hands. He begins to realize that there is something out there watching him, that perhaps he is being taken care of and the camera pulls out and reveals that as he has sung his song, the asteroid fragment he is standing on has become a planet and is resting in the hands of a much larger version of himself.
Fade to black.

Constructing the World

Once I decided upon using "When the Sky is Falling," it seemed only natural that the protagonist had to be the singer, Justin. Despite all my attempts to use an inanimate object, it is almost universal that music videos showcase the talent and present the artist singing their song. As well, being that this project is intended to promote both myself and Justin Catalino, it seems necessary that he be represented in the video.

What follows is the lyrics of "When the Sky is Falling" for use in constructing the universe Justin will inhabit.

------------------------------------------
You were sent to me, fallen from the sky.
A manifest of destiny, electric fields of light,
and theres something about the way
only you can hear me say 'hey.'

They're coming after me
Trying to take me by the hide
But no one can find me
When I'm lost in your eyes

Then you tell me you're here to stay
That you'll make everything okay
Like when the sky is falling
On a rainy morning
I'll be standing by the side of the road singing
Come pick me up take me with you.

Come pick me up take me with yo-ou.
------------------------------------------

So the world I place my protagonist in should have elements that relate to the lyrics of the song. At the same time the world should be simple to keep both the focus of the viewer on the character and to reserve the majority of my time for my focus, character animation.The lyrics of the song suggest two pieces that fit to make a whole which brings about the focus on duality that I already wanted to express in the video.

Upon meeting with Justin to discuss the look of the piece, we came up with an outer space theme. The lyrics suggested it with "electric fields of light" and it allowed a minimalist environment which decreased the amount of modeling necessary. Our initial concept was that Justin would sit on a disc in space with a road running around it to pick up on "I'll be standing by the side of the road." Justin would wander within the disc, walking and sitting in the rain singing and asteroids/meteors would fall to the disc representing "you" fallen from the sky. We began discussing the idea that instead of objects fallen from the sky that come together, perhaps the disc Justin is standing on opens up to become a whole world by the end of the song. It seemed a bit complicated but was the beginning of an idea and brought about imagery from Le Petit Prince by Antonie de Saint-Exupery, a story I would love to use as inspiration.



As luck would have it, it was the NJ Turnpike that would spur me on to my next inspiration. On one of my many trips up and down the NJ Turnpike, as I was stumbling through one of the rest stops I came upon a quarter machine selling puzzle balls and bought one without giving it much thought--just as something to pass the time in the car. Months later I thought of integrating the puzzle ball into my thesis. What better image is there in the 3d world to suggest completeness aside from a sphere? (Unfortunately I lost the puzzle ball so I had to pick another one up on the next trip down the NJPike, which, fortunately, came pretty quickly)



If Justin begins by standing on one piece of this puzzle ball and it comes together through the song, then by the end he inhabits an entire planet. However, he has very little personal connection to the pieces, they are slightly too large to become the "you" that he sings about. Using one of cinema's great conventions, and one used often in music videos, that of intercutting between two narratives, this problem could be solved.

One of the best features of using a virtual world is limitless space and scale. Some of my earliest explorations into the 3d world were of worlds inside each other, and its a great way to take advantage of the medium as well as a great justification for doing the video in 3d as opposed to live action.

Lets say that in one of the two parallel narratives Justin finds pieces to a puzzle and begins to put them together, while in the other he is on a small planet that slowly comes together. At the end of the piece the camera could pull out from Justin on the planet singing to a larger version of himself who is putting together the very planet that he was standing on. This would pull the two narratives together nicely.

Music Video Inspiration

My initial inspiration was one of the student theses I saw upon first applying to CADA, called "Ringo" by Shehar Levavi, in which a creature sang a Louis Armstrong song to itself in the mirror. The idea of animating a character all the way through to lip sync was exciting and from that point on I've wanted to animate dialogue.
Both my undergraduate thesis, "At the Eleventh Hour" and an earlier project I produced at CADA, "The Temptation of the Elephant" incorporate music throughout and the animation and music are coordinated to relate to one another. So the idea of creating a thesis as a music video was a very intriguing one, however, music rights are hard to come by. When I discovered that the older brother of my two of my co-workers, Justin Catalino, was a musician who had produced a CD ("Welcome to Vacationland"), it seemed like a perfect opportunity to promote his work while creating a professional thesis for my portfolio. After getting Justin's excited approval, I listened to the CD mulitple times and finally settled on "When the Sky is Falling" as the song with the most possibility and that meshed well with my musical tastes.

Early Story Development

INITIAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Initially I considered an inanimate object as a character (i.e Pixar's Lamp in "Luxo Jr."), which allows for serious focus on movement of the character to convey emotion in the form of body language. Much like mime, the gestures have to be overexaggerated to be understood by viewers to compensate for the loss of sound effects and dialogue. Another plus for using an inanimate object is that viewers are far more critical of both the movement and construction of animals and especially people, so there is far less room for error in both modeling and animating when using a human character.

Using Luxo, Jr. as an example, Pixar used only the already present attributes of the lamp as potential for animation, maintaining a realism and simplicity that stands as a good tenet for character development (ignoring of course the manipulation used in their latest film).

The theme of duality, which I will discuss further below, has been a consistent theme in my work, so I began by using the idea of a Yin-Yang as two halves of a whole, one of which being my protagonist. Unfortunately, half a Yin-Yang, even if extruded into the third dimension becomes little more than a distorted sphere, or teardrop with very little potential for dialogue much less animation. Potentially this symbol could be cross-pollinated with a machine, perhaps like the organic machines in David Cronenberg's eXistenZ.



After putting a lot of thought into inventing a non-human character with very little progress or inspiration I put the idea aside and decided to focus on the construction of the world surrounding the protagonist.

INITIAL THEMATIC DEVELOPMENT

As mentioned above, duality has been a focus of my work, so in an attempt to infuse my thesis with my own artistic senisibilities, I began ways integrating this theme. Duality became a part of much of my animated work in my first class on computer animation. A term paper was required on how each of us interacted with space in an attempt to translate our intimate interactions in the world into virtual space. I decided to focus on being left-handed, which, while not actually a disability does greatly impact on how I interact with the strongly right-hand biased world around me. My right-handed friends have dismissed my claims of left-hand deficiency in the world around us I believe as a defense mechanism to avoid feeling guilty for being supremacists. But seriously, it is easy to overlook all of the ways our world is righty-biased--from door handles to the direction screws are threaded to scissors--most things are easier to use in one's right hand. And for good reason; only about 11% of the world's population is left-handed. So don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for the world to change for me. I'm merely making a comment about how it changes the way a left-handed person sees the world, slightly.

There are a couple of different ways a "virtual world" can be constructed to respond to my left-handed complex. Left can be seen as a mistake or as the minority--the "ugly step child" of the right hand. In this world the system/builder/God errs and the left is the unintended result. This is the way left-handedness is interpreted in my undergraduate thesis, "At The Eleventh Hour" (viewable below within my previous blog).

On the other hand (no pun intended), and in a more positive way, the left can be the mirror of the right hand. This is how the world is constructed in two pieces I created it my first animation course, "Sinistral" and "The Mirror Conspiracy." This world has much more potential because the concept of duality can be exploded to opposites (or if one prefers, complementary pairs). Male/Female, Black/White, Night/Day being some pairs that come to mind.

I also have a preoccupation with crosswords, sudoku, and games and riddles of all sorts. In addition, I juggle and play Ultimate frisbee. So the idea of play is inherent in the way I view my spatial interaction with the world around me. I create ambigrams (words that when rotated 180 degrees reveal the same word--they have rotational symmetry). Some examples of my work are below.


My first name, one of the easier ambigrams to create

Ambigram of Animattic, the name of my future production company

And here are some professional examples:


The cover design for Paul McCartney's newest album

The world-famous ambigram designed by John Langdon for Dan Brown's novel

Videos

Short animations I've created through my schooling:

Sinistral, November 2001



The Mirror Conspiracy, December 2001



At The Eleventh Hour, May 2003



The Temptation of the Elephant, August 2005