keskiviikko 30. maaliskuuta 2011

Concepts for environment

Asian bat cave

Pearl diving

My main character being a diver, I was looking for some visual references online and I came across an interesting article on Japanese pearl divers. It seems like they are mostly female and they're called 'Ama' and they  don't use any oxygen tanks or much else either.

Starting on colour studies

 The island from a far.

 A rugged beach

I really need some variety in there.

Some sketches for my main character


Cinematic influnces

Since I'm quite keen on cinema and animation and I do watch a lot of movies from many countries and various periods, it's always difficult to tell where my influences come from. But I'll try to narrow it down to few examples.

I've always enjoyed plots with a surprising twist at the end. So as far as the story I've been influenced by:
Double Indemnity (1944) by Billy Wilder and The Big Sleep (1946) by Howard Hawks with a truly twisted mystery plot. Angel Heart (1986) is a film noir directed by Alan Parker with a surprising identity twist at the end. This was probably the first the film that portrayed a surprising identity change convincingly. Also the lighting and locations were quite convincing as a film noir. The Game (1997) by David Fincher is a film that envolves the main character in a reality game, so the main character starts to confuse reality with the staged game and quite soon he gets lost in the game, becoming paranoid of the reality. Fight Club (1999) is similar and story and it shows the suggestive power of a depressed person who creates an alter ego for him self to escape the tedious reality. I have tried to incorporate these plot twists into the concept of my short film.

For visual reference I've been viewing for cinematography because of their creative use of camera in portraying the nature and the environment that they are base in:
The Piano (1992), The Fall (2006), The Tempest (2010) are used fro their simple but very well composed portrayal of their natural environments. Tekkonkinkreet (2006) and Nocturna (2007) are animated films and they are one of the first examples of animation that I've seen where they use cinematography as effectively as in live action films. Therefore Tekkonkinkreet is my main influence for using the camera in 3D environments.

Personal approach to animation

One of the great abilities of hand drawn animation is it's ability to morph and change various shapes into each other. I decided to try this characteristic of animation by changing the shape of my main character from human to bat and vice versa. This event is also explored through psychological illusions of the main character. In addition showing the ability of human mind to distort reality.