Team project 5 week time table

Here is the rough time table for the first 5 weeks of the project:

(click to enlarge)

I plan to get the team together soon and to assign each member with certain jobs to their strengths.

Chris

Team project research: 1950's horror

The 1950's was an era when the slightest of things would be considered taboo, therefore to a modern audience a lot of "horror" flicks of its day would be considered relatively tame to current eyes. Here are a few of the classic films from its time to see if there is any comparisons to the way in which the genre was approached.

1950's Horror

Many films were based around a more Science Fictional comic book edge, or tampered with the subject of control, sexism and a lack of control.  There was nearly always the screaming blond shrieking blood into the ears of the audience while her hero goes out of his way to save her at the right time. It was a way to show how Women were seen as weak, that Men were superior and therefore they could uphold this social image. There was usually a clever way of hiding the villain, and even during their menacing acts they would be hidden away from the main screen as to observe something as controversial as a death was unheard of in its day. This also helped to create an air of mystery around character's, especially monsters. Visual effects were obviously very primitive in the 50's so any upfront visual would usually be cheap, or not very convincing.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

An alien (Klaatu) with his mighty robot (Gort) land their spacecraft on Cold War-era Earth just after the end of World War II. They bring an important message to the planet that Klaatu wishes to tell to representatives of all nations. However, communication turns out to be difficult, so, after learning something about the natives, Klaatu decides on an alternative approach.

Unknown. (Unknown). The Day the Earth Stood Still. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043456/. Last accessed 29/09/2011.

The War of the Worlds (1953)

H.G. Well's classic novel is brought to life is this tale of alien invasion. The residents of a small town in California are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills. Their joy is tempered somewhat when they discover that it has passengers who are not very friendly. The movie itself is understood better when you consider that it was made at the height of the Cold War--just replace Martian with Russian....

Unknown. (Unknown). The War of the Worlds. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046534/. Last accessed 29/09/2011
The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

A scientific expedition searching for fossils along the Amazon River discover a prehistoric Gill-Man in the legendary Black Lagoon. The explorers capture the mysterious creature, but it breaks free. The Gill-Man returns to kidnap the lovely Kay, fiancée of one of the expedition, with whom it has fallen in love.

Unknown. (Unknown). The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Available:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046876/. Last accessed 29/09/2011

The She Creature (1956)

Using hypnosis, Dr. Carlo Lombardi claims that he can have his patients regress and recover memories from their past lives, thereby proving that reincarnation exists. He also claims that the spirit of these past lives can be brought forth to take physical form.. A series of violent murders by a creature that seems to disappear into the sea suggests that Lombardi's claim may be correct. The medical and scientific community believe him to be a complete fraud but one enterprising businessman sees the opportunity to make a small fortune with Lombardi's ability.

Unknown. (Unknown). The She Creature. Available: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050957/. Last accessed 29/09/2011.

Video samples:

Video found at: http://youtu.be/AikmAmTijwI

This film shows somewhat of a turn table of the taboo subject of Women having any kind of power over Men, this concept in the 50's was enough to frighten any bloke from his Wife! In this film we see the "Devil Girl", an Alien being from the planet Mars, come to Earth to take Men to be breeding stock for her own race. Sexy, but scary!

The Bad Seed

Video found at:http://youtu.be/4NWGyG4W5DI

This film is based around a little girl named Rhoda Penmark who may seem innocent at first glance but you know theres an uncanny evil lurking inside of her. As the film progresses we see Rhoda's character become caught up in her own crimes and the storyline tenses. It is a story of which is caught up in many similarities to this groups synposis for our own storyline, the concept of a young girl taking her negative emotions out on people through adolescent motives.

Generi guy lip sync

The first Maya class indulged in the (re)introduction of Generi guy, of which Alan went over the subject of lip syncing a character to an audio dialogue. The first part of this technique is known as the jaw bounce, which is practically opening and closing the jaw as if the character is a standard puppet.

Here is the basic looking face of generi guy before pulling his jaw joint about, notice how I have clicked on the line below the jaw which allows me to then use the pivoting action to regulate the movement of the jaw bounce.

Here is the set up for when animating the jaw bounce. As you can see, there is an attribute editor open at the side where the jaw's position is key framed each time it is moved into position along the timeline.

• I finally got the jaw bounce complete and then further went to apply the phonemes to the characters animated jaw actions.

 

Character design: The Victorian era and Japan

The Steampunk genre is based within the time of the Industrial revolution around the time of the Victorian ages, however the world is warped into a mash up of futuristic concepts with the visual appeal of the old technology.

The myth of the exotic East has always been a potent one in the West, fuelling such images as Coleridge's 'stately pleasure domes'. By the time Victoria came to the throne in 1837, however, the romantic yearning to penetrate hidden worlds was being superseded by a desire to reach the apparently enormous, but hither to untouched, markets of East Asia. With the 'opening' of China and Japan fantasies met with realities and new mythologies and stereotypes of the East were constructed.

Unknown. (Unknown). The Victorian vision of China and Japan. Available: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-victorian-vision-of-china-and-japan/. Last accessed 29/09/2011

This goes to show how Victorian Britain found mystery within the oriental world, associating it with mythical beasts and worlds alien to themselves.

In 1868, there was a revolution in Japan, which resulted in the overthrow of the shogun, the military ruler, and the restoration of the power of the Meiji emperor. The new Meiji government initiated a major transformation of Japan along western lines, in order to achieve parity with the West rather than be dominated by it. Japan participated in all subsequent international exhibitions, these events gave them the opportunity to garner international prestige, to acquire the latest technological information about the West and to promote the country's own products.

Unknown. (Unknown). The Victorian vision of China and Japan. Available: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-victorian-vision-of-china-and-japan/. Last accessed 29/09/2011.

This shows how the revolution in 1868 gave way to allowing the Victorians to indulge themselves into the Japanese culture, which gained popularity due to its difference with known culture.

During the reign of Queen Victoria Britain emerged as the most powerful trading nation in the world, provoking a social and economic revolution whose effects are still being felt today.

Paul Atterbury. (2011). Victorian Technology. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/victorian_technology_01.shtml. Last accessed 28/09/2011.

Now imagine this, the enthusiastic designs based on mythical, oriental origins collided with the rich and powerful world of the Victorian age. New things would be being constantly built, extravagant designs wouldnt be held back due to a sense of revolution and instead of just standard buildings you would find elegance through a more simplistic, less blocky design. Merge this with the futuristic elements of Science Fiction and you would get an ambiguous landscape from another world.

Chris

Character design - Steampunk/Ninja enviromental ideas

The enviromental designs are key to how the Character should physically appear, also being a basis of what drives their personality or on screen counterparts. Therefore I think it is important that I visually analyse some different key locations that my project fits within.

Interestingly enough my concept of a City above the old world isnt without it's ties to reality. In modern China, there is such an increase in population that they have no choice but to consider new options, one being building on top of their current landscape.

(Full article found here)

http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/cities/china-s-cities-in-the-sky

A few key points to note are:

• Over a billion people will live in China’s cities by 2030, requiring construction on a scale never before seen. This gives China a unique opportunity to create and develop its cities in a way that supports economic growth, preserves the environment, delivers the highest possible quality of life for its citizens, and results in a stream of valuable new technologies. If handled correctly, these developments will not just benefit China but will also have profound implications for the rest of the 21st century world.

• Each of these megacity clusters would have an economic scale equivalent to a moderately sized European country. Greater Shanghai could be as big as Germany today, while the central Yangzi cluster around Wuhan might be France.

• Just as New York, with its scale and talent, made Wall Street possible, China’s megacities will create unprecedented opportunities to develop service industries by enhancing the scale and frequency of interactions. Cities in China will become models for the rest of the world, achieving a large scale of industry and financial-market depth. Spending on culture, recreation, health care, and education will grow by orders of magnitude from their current languishing state.

• China’s demand for energy will double over the next two decades even as energy efficiency also doubles. Both existing and new sources of energy will be required. China will become a major coal importer even as it turns away from fossil fuels to become the world’s largest nuclear and renewable energy producer.

• The choices that its city leaders make will shape not only its buildings but also its society, and indeed the world.

• China’s cities will encourage a high level of environmental investment, with waste and water recycling becoming a way of life for both industry and consumers. Water will become a more valuable commodity and encourage investment in water efficiency as well as the world’s largest water treatment projects. Large, integrated recycling projects will minimize the impact of industrial and energy production.

Jonathan Woetzel. (2011). China’s cities in the sky. Available: http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/cities/china-s-cities-in-the-sky. Last accessed 28/09/2011.

Sounds familiar doesnt it? This gives me confidence in my story idea that I can persue the course that I am taking. Here are a few images placed together within an influence map to help me further grasp an understanding into the mash up's needed to create my Characters enviroment.

All of these different landscapes seem to amazingly merge into one despite their vast differences. There is apocalyptic scenes from mankind's own self made destruction, there is science fiction based futuristic Cities floating in the sky, there are Steampunk Cities (already similar to my envisionment) and there are basic estimations of a typical futuristic City scape.

Chris

Character design - Synopsis update and Ninja research

I have decided to follow the route of a genre mash up where the Ninja is more of a symbolic creation based upon the dogma of its origin. The Ninja would be a constructed, well trained, steampunk robot that follows the ancient art of Shinobi as his form of power. The Ninja would be made to originally gain control over the population of the Steampunk City, however there is one that the inventor creates especially to rebel against the system to save the lives of thousands of innocent people.

Ninja research!

Ninjitsu is supposed to have originated more than 2,000 years ago as a treatise on the art of spying in the ancient Chinese book on military science called Sun Tzu. It was written by the great Chinese strategist Sun Wu who lived between 500 and 300 B.C.

Andrew Adams (1970). Ninja: The Invisible Assassins. California: Ohara. p31-190

Legends even in their own time for their amazing cloak-and-dagger deeds, the ninja were actually capable of performing feats far more fantastic than the mythological marvels accorded them by modern-day films and books. Indeed, the real-life exploits of these sinister bands of espionage experts rival anything ever dreamed up for the fictional super-agent known as James Bond.

Supernatural tales claim the ninja was able to fly, walk on water, live underwater like a fish, become invisible at will, sink into the ground, flow through stone walls, disappear in a puff of smoke and even transform himself into a snake, frog, bird of insect, Improbable as these stories may seem, there is a logical explanation for each one, a spark of truth behind the billowing screen of smoke.

Andrew Adams (1970). Ninja: The Invisible Assassins. California: Ohara. p23/24-190.

These apparent claims that stereotype the Ninja give a feel that the identity of its original source has been lost over time, becoming more of a fictional character based on a real existence. When designing a Character of this nature, this distortion of the true facts would have to be put into play to create anything of recognition to the image of a Ninja.

This is the often conceived image of a typical Ninja:

Unknown. (2011). Ninja material. Available: http://entertheninja.net/?paged=2. Last accessed 28/09/2011.

Technically my Ninja could undergo training similar to that which a real Ninja would follow.

The first step in Ninpo training is that of physical endurance. The important thing here is to polish your techniques, use your spirit, and endure physical forces until you reach a critical state where everything is on the line. The second step is that of mental and emotional endurance. If an animal encounters an enemy, in generally bares its teeth straight away and launches into a fight. However, no matter how fearsome the enemy, human beings have the ability to laugh. Even if somebody comes to cut at you with a sword, as long as your heart does not waver you can smile at them, endure the situation physically and flee without injuring them. My teacher used to say "Harmony has supreme importance in a warrior's heart." This concept of "harmony" really refers to the fact that everything in the universe is connected, everything in nature, all the seasons, love and hate, good and evil - all are interconnected aspects of a fundamental unity. The third step is the endurance of knowledge. The word "Knowledge" (Shiki) can also be interpreted phonetically as "four fears". The image here is that someone at the top of a pyramid (in the metaphorical sense too) can see clearly in all four directions, gaining in the same way a comprehensive, balanced understanding of nature's cycles (i.e the four seasons), and that this perspective frees you from fear. While mental and emotional endurance can be an active process of setting your mind to endure, enduring knowledge goes beyond both physical and emotional endurance to a level where you develop the power to understand everything without conscious thought. This means not just responding to things that have already happened, but sensing things that are about to happen and handling them naturally. In other words, enduring knowledge is connected with having a rich education, while also practising endurance with respect to ones own sixth sense and subconscious mind.

Masaaki Hatsumi, Ben Jones (2004). The Way of the Ninja: Secret Techniques. Unknown: Kodansha International. p22/24 of131.

This gives me the insight to possibly make this long process a part of which helps to keep the television series ongoing, where the Ninja Steampunk Robot is learning the ways from his Master and we follow him on his adventure into completing his training and undergoing missions on the way.

Structuralistic (?) theory of my own.

I was listening intently to Phil's lecture this morning and it reminded me of a concept I recognised a few years ago when researching into the interesting world of quantum physics and alternate realities.

Ive always had a theory that individually our perception of how we see and hear things differ to another. In effect being that each reality is different for one person to the next. Yet as this isnt an obvious realisation, existance flows by in harmony with itself, an Ouroboros in effect. A person may look Human with a head, two eyes, an ear, a nose, a mouth, but what if someone else saw a Human as you see a Cat? This also meaning your reality is distorted to my own, that what you are currently reading isnt directly what I have wrote down and would recognise in my own concious world, but it is at the same time. Therefore this paragraph is basically like looking into a mirror.

Chris