Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Group project research: Telekinetic powers

"Most of what we term psychic phenomenon or mystical happenings happen in the "off" phases of consciousness. Consciousness is always in the on/off phasing, blinking off and on, as it were. Off/On phasing phenomenon is photon related manifestation of energy and light.

Telekinesis is essentially the ability to move an object on the physical plane using only psychic power. While some people think that it is an occult practice, this is not strictly so.

A common theory is that TK works by energy fields (magnetic or electric) or by "waves" of psychic energy, which are actually dense enough to push/repel an object."

Unknown. (Year Unknown). Telekinesis. Available: http://www.wingmakers.co.nz/Telekinesis.html. Last accessed 12/10/2011.



The Human Brain has been wrongly claimed in the past to only use 10% of its potential capability. While this is a laughable statement to many of the Scientific world, it is also true that we don't use its full potential at once. This is an excuse to claim an explanation into the unknown world of the paranormal acts that connect to the human mind.

The different types of phsycic powers that use the power of the mind to manipulate their surroundings involve the following:

• Telepathy – his ability to read people’s mind.
• Bending, breaking and softening metal and other solids such as spoons and keys, and more rarely plastic and glass.
• Fixing watches and clocks that had not been working for years.
• Moving compasses with his psychic powers – the power of thought.
• Erasing tapes from the computers.
• Dowsing – locating precious metals by the power of the mind.

Unknown. (Year Unknown). Some famous phsycics. Available: http://www.moonwhisper.com/famous-psychics/958-some-famous-psychics. Last accessed 12/10/2011.

Group project: Dark, telekinetic girl

I have started drawing up sketches of what a teenage school girl with dark abilities might look like. I have used some references to assist my drawings, to get further ideas for what works for this sort of characters visual appearance and what could create the uncanny effect of a corrupt innocence.


Until we gather together a full complete story the job of designing properly is hard. Fortunately a full Synopsis is due to be posted up the evening of this post, gathering together the different group ideas to make one collaborated story merging the different key ideas that work.


I originally had been told by my team mates that the characters shall have exaggerated features and the stylisation will be almost sketchy in appearance. My first impressions was to create the girl to be small and cute, then after a while refraining from the supremely cartoony depiction.


Whilst still not of the world of realism, I had tried to gather together an image of a girl who appeared a bit sterner, colder, harder to approach yet still somewhat a victim to her own inverted emotions. 



After a brief talk with Justin the Character Design tutor, he told me to simplify the Character once again back down into its basic roots and by the power of simple shapes design the exaggerations with obvious intent. This is where the best Character so far actually has emerged, to my opinion.


After observing the Synopsis and finalising the script I will have now got myself into the mindset to work hard at conceptual drawings and the animations theme.

Chris

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Rough Influence map for girls

Heres a few rough pictures from the net I have taken to help me mold a physical image of the School Girl in my group project. I have a strong image in my head which still seems to blurr and not depict itself properly when I put pen to paper, so therefore I just needed this to gather a better idea for the shapes that would represent the character at its best.


Chris

Character design: Using Circles to construct character's

In this class the focus was using circle shapes to structure the key parts of a characters body. Here are the character's I used to do this task with.


Chris

Monday, 10 October 2011

Film Reviews: Mulholland Drive

 
 
This film was made in 2001, and stars Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Harring and Justin Theroux. It is somewhat of a strange film, typical of David Lynch's repertoire. This film is no exception, with its story focused on using phsycological tricks to thrill the audience. This is regarded as one of Linches best projects and gives a perspective into how the intelligence of social analysis has become a big part of modern life since the turn of the millenia.

This film invokes a feeling of hazzy understanding into its plot, yet makes the audience feel a sense of fulfillment after viewing. It is based around a crash, of which a supposed victim went missing without a trace. It indulges into strange twists in the plot, enviroments causing a questionable confusion to the viewing audience, characters popping up in random situations and locations.
I found a good quote from a philosopher named John Searle which helps explain this films impact:

"The thesis that there is a reality independent of our representations identifies not how things are in fact, but rather identifies a space of possibilities... External realism articulates a space of possibilities for a very large number of statements."

After a car accident in Los Angeles, California, Rita is the only survivor, however suffers mass amnesia. She meets with the character Betty Elms, of which her story merges into. Betty is a young actress in search of Stardom yet takes a samarital interest into Rita to help her understand the mystery surrounding her. Unknown the reasons as to why Rita came to be in this situation, they pursue to gain knowledge about the conspiracy around Ritas attempted murder. Betty and Rita soon come to realise nothing is what it seems.
This film has a complex storyline to indulge in, its definitely worth checking out to gain a better understanding or a personal interpritation. Definintely interesting to watch and whether you get anything from it or not will help show Lynches success at playing mind games with his audience.
 
Chris

Group project: Synopsis/ Pre Script idea

Group Project: Freemind Animations
Animation title: High School Revenge

Synopsis:
This story is based around the issues of a troubled child who in her adolescent years displays paranormal side effects in reaction to her unstable condition. The film starts when a Detective is called into a School in response to reports of a serious number of accounts relating to students being bullied, however it is the teachers themselves who are really seeking the help, as they fail to mention the strange incidents happening to them.
This somewhat film noir setting shows the Detective witnessing himself caught into a distressing ordeal involving a teacher, leading him to sceptically approach the situation but with a sense of the uncanny at play.
The Detective questions the troubled teachers who openly admit to the fact something demonic seems to be at the heart of these issues. He then explains about an incident a few months prior to the Detectives arrival when the problems began, which spawns the investigation in a different light.
A Priest is called in to find the cause of the issue, who comes to find no trace of demonic entities within the School, yet while informing Professor Smart of this embarrassing ordeal he finds a young girl sitting with him crying. Her name is Melanie; she is tormented by her life at School as the other children victimize her on a daily basis. She fears going to School, not only for herself but for the people she has come to hate. She can’t have friends anymore; whatever she tries to get close to always seems to go wrong in some way or another. It is here they find the sinister twist that has become out of Melanie’s control, leading to her eventual last tantrum while being held in Detention.
The Detective is harmed as it is him who has ordered her restraint, so the only person who can get to Melanie now with the knowledge of her issue is the Priest and Professor Smart who together overcome the unstable projections of Melanie’s subconscious emotive ability.
Melanie is moved to a peaceful place to live and be taught by those who can relax her, with the addition of physiological drugs to help her maintain her stability.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Script (To be wrote in after group acknowledges my Synopsis)
Chris

Group project: The link between phsycic phenomena and adolescents

There has always been a strong link between the wild energy of a child to the unknown forces of the paranormal world. This is because it is said that the child's innocence actually reflects the lack of social interruption to the purity of a persons soul, therefore the individual is still more tuned to the spirit world. It is also to note that Children are relatively more imaginative than that of an adult, they see the world in a different way, perceive things to be magical or intriguing which as an adult the mind will find easy to comprehend. This leaves room for a perception on the world that most adults find difficult to grasp, thus making reality closer to that of a dream world, which is linked as a closeness to the spirit world itself. Meditative states are said to bring one close to ones own id, their guardian angel, or their spirit guide. This being said, when a Child is immersed in the tense hold of adolescence at the start of their path to adulthood they will still have the general mindset of a child, therefore being theoretically still connected to their own sixth sense and potentially able to unwillingly seduce the energy around them to create certain paranormal happenings.

  • Poltergeist's

"The word Poltergeist is German for 'Noisy Spirit' and this particular phenomenon has been recorded for many years. This is probably the most destructive and terrifying of all paranormal activity. British paranormal investigator, Harry Price didn't hold back his objectives. Price stated that poltergeist can be cruel and spiteful. He also stated ghosts seem to haunt where poltergeists infest. There is a possibility that the haunting phenomenon and the poltergeist phenomenon may not be related, however, there does not seem to be enough scientific evidence for such a theory. Some scientific establishments refer to poltergeist activity as being caused by a suppression of sexual energy which is often found in
adolescents."

unknown. (Unknown). Poltergeist:Strange and Paranormal activity. Available: http://strangegr.tripod.com/strangeandparanormalactivities/id32.html. Last accessed 02/10/2011.



Image found at this link: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=poltergeist&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1680&bih=864&tbm=isch&tbnid=qhG6HkDDvZjsVM:&imgrefurl=http://www.zurichmansion.org/ghosts/video1.html&docid=3VSNlZQGWkWfgM&w=642&h=469&ei=I_OSTtO1JdDKsgbVt5H9Dw&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=312&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=187&start=0&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0&tx=135&ty=78

There is of course a film we all know based on this subject entitled "Poltergeist". In the film, we see a young Girl becoming possessed by the spirit of a demonic force which takes hostage to the house and inhabitants of the building it dwells within.

Movies Poltergeist

(Pictured above, the tragic child actor Heather Michele O'Rourke, who plays the character of the possessed innocent little blonde girl Carol Anne Freeling.) Link: http://free-extras.com/images/movies_poltergeist-11257.htm

Usually it is often found that little girls are the more likely to be more sensitive to the paranormal than boys of the same age. Therefore it is usually found that young girls are more uncanny, their intact innocence and uncompetitive, pre-social self destruction is yet to come of reality. Perhaps this is because males tend to be more corrupt to social pressures and more sensitive to upholding their real world surroundings even at a young age.


"The book set out to claim that witches did exist, and that they were usually women, who were weaker and easier for the devil to tempt."
Rachel Bellerby. (Jun 15, 2009). Witchcraft in the middle ages. Available: http://rachel-bellerby.suite101.com/witchcraft-in-the-middle-ages-a125228. Last accessed Jun 15, 2009.
Of course the other well known story of a child "possession", or demonic ability that the child isn't initially able to realise would be "The Omen". In this film, however, we see the character as a Male child. This however could be due to the fact that Damien, the apparent child of Satan, is of a more direct power to the paranormal itself. It ties into the subject of sexism, where Damien is the "son" from the start, born into the world as an entity of evil and isn't of his nature due to a weakness to the power of the paranormal as he is his own power. This is basically suggesting that the Male phsycic, paranormal figure is more dangerous or dominant to the original context of the power source, that the female is merely seduced by it due to her own weakness as a Woman.

Damien from the film "The Omen".

  •  Adolescence
Boys and Girls change physically and mentally at seperate ages, but most prominently during the teenage years. In this period the Human being would undergo changes in strength, size, personality and sexual awareness. It is due to this transitionary stage that many beleive the weakness of a persons physical and personal well being can become supseptible to paranormal effects.


Carole Sutton (2000). Child and adolescent behaviour problems: a multidisciplinary approach to assessment and intervention. Leicester: British Psychological Society. pg9-320.

This chart gives some indication to the difference between Male and Female changes within the intense period of puberty. You could imagine how this behavioural pattern could be linked to something dark and distinctively unhomely, as the child's innocent apperance is undergoing real changes and new neurotic brain wave patterns that are most likely disturbed.

This can easily be assosiated with the apperance of some form of possession, or phsycological angst brought on to the child's behavioural patterns unwillingly. Over time of course these changes develop and settle, maturing the child into the adult and taking them away from the displeasant journey of adolsecence.

Chris