General Idea

I've decided to make a post-apocalyptic film for our final project. It's a simple story, with simple aesthetics. Basically, it opens on a man, older gentleman, who is standing on a cliff in the deserts of Nevada that overlooks some kind of a camp. He's clearly fatigued, and takes a moment to prepare himself mentally for what he is about to do. He makes his way down to the outer fence, and hides behind some tundra brush. He checks his watch, which is cracked and missing part of the glass, and hunkers down for a moment. As a truck passes by, with a gunner in the back, he sprints up to it quietly, hops over the side, slits the gunners throat, and kicks him off the back, but not before taking the mask the gunner was wearing. The truck pulls up to a gate, and passes through to the garage. Once parked, the gentleman hops out driver side and as the driver gets out he smashes his head into the door a couple of times. After the body drops to the floor, the gentleman rolls it underneath the truck, stands up, brushes himself off, shuts the door and walks off. As he comes to the entrance to a bunker, he stops and leans against the wall. He takes off the mask, and breathes heavily.After calming himself down, he gets a very steely-eyed look. Busting into the bunker, guns blazing he catches bandits off-guard. I'd like to switch from very still shots to a very frenetic first person view and back. After brutally murdering the "bandit" guards, he makes his way to the end of the room, where a large box sits on a shelf against the wall. There is a close up of his face as he opens it. There's a close up on the treasure... it's a teddy bear. Show the closeup of his face, now with smiling eyes, (new place and time) cut to his granddaughter, smiling as she hugs her teddy bear. End with a fade to black, and the gentleman saying "Happy Birthday, Sweetheart"


Aesthetically, I want to have really clean lines, thick outlines, flat colors, with moments of 3-dimensionality. There is a game called Shank that pulls this look off well:

Take a lot of the color pallet and heavy outline from shank and mix it with the even more 2-dimensionality of Samurai Jack

The main character actually came to me as I was watching Breaking Bad. These are the wearied eyes that I want to focus on with the main character:

Visually

here's my section of the exquisite corpse

Motion Graphic

This short was inspired by (or rather, tries to put visuals to) a line from the play Angels in America.

It's 1985, almost the third millennium. Maybe Christ will rise up, or maybe the end will come... or maybe I'm just okay...

Plan for the Rotoscope

The idea behind my rotoscope is to try to make the image appear as close to a charcoal drawing as possible. Since my sequence consists of only two camera shots, both stills, I should be able to create the effect using layers, and make minor adjustments to the apple as it moves through the scene.

 I know it is hard to see at the moment, but I have begun painting over the tree trunk using variations of white, grey, and black, to create depth and texture.

I may overhaul how I am doing this, after having delved deeper into the capabilities of photoshop today in class.

Please feel free to comment, if you have any insight or opinions on my frame.

FST 333

Notice to all that care, I am turning this into the blog for my FST 333 class.

And that's the way it is....

TEDtalks

That's freakin' awesome! I've never seen  a TEDtalks video before, though I have seen them advertised around the internet. It was interesting hearing about the stats from a guy who studies them every day. They were entertaining, and educational.

I've never really broken down videos like that. I've never thought about why my favorite videos are my favorites, or why viral videos go viral.

It's true that tastemakers can have a profound impact on society (i guess that's why they are the tastemakers). But isn't that really a community in itself. Who is it that the tastemaker is talking to... their community of followers, of viewers, of people who care what they have to say. It's a collection of like-minded people.

But really I guess it's just semantics. Communities such as 9gag, roosterteeth, neogaf, gizmodo; these are the sites that creat virals. Forums allow for the free exchange of ideas with the only form of punishment is being flamed by your peers. Everyone feels a great sense of acceptance, and they therefore want to contribute. really, I think viral videos only go viral because people want to be accepted.

The rough theater

I'm not entirely sure what kind of a response you are looking for, here.

I agree.                  Roughness doesn't translate to good, but it certainly has it's own eloquence that, if used properly, can actually add to the richness of the "theatre"