More Character Development

What I aimed for, first, was a more realistic-looking character.  

Someone who looked like an older man, a farmer.

Personally, I thought he looked a little too old,
but I think I am going to be integrating more of his look back into the character.

For now I have a character that arose from this development:

Review

A younger look, and more of an animator-friendly design.

This last image is what I based my first character study animation off of.

Graphite Boil

The idea of not being whole resides with what I am going for.

I decided to try and achieve that stylistically, you'll see in this video as he goes through a transformation.

Music

I included the intro to Frank Sinatra's 'My Way' as a stand in to give a certain mood.

The social reference may be amiss, but the lyrics and tone of experience, failure, and individual empowerment, rings really well with me and my film.

Storm

I included a shot I did of storm clouds from Ruben's Special Effects class.

One of the more successful shots I made this summer out of Autodesk Maya.

Character Study 1 from Jay Castro on Vimeo.

First Storyboards

Main plot points in sequence:

- Farmer gets comfortable at home after a long days work

- Sits down with hot tea and a book

- Idea of a tornado starts to sink in as he reads

- Alarmed, he gets up to check out what's actually going on outside

- Sees the terrifying tornado

- Hides his kids in the shelter

- Goes back outside

- House disappears behind him

- Chase between him & tornado begins

[not storyboarded]

- Tornado disappears during chase

- Still gets sucked up by tornado

- See's house get torn off foundation as he gets sucked up

- Spots house on ground from above, inside tornado

[storyboarded. bottom-most shots]

- We see the door to the shelter

- Kids take a peek outside

- House is fine, father isn't there anymore

Why tornado

So at this point I had developed a few key things for my story that led me to get out a first version of storyboards.


But let me backtrack - these boards require some explaining.


My main focus last spring, when I was first conceiving the roots of my film, was a poem.  This poem was charged with everything I could think of regarding my subject matter of  and how it related to me (I'll post this poem up at a later date).

It was what my idea revolved around at the time.
Later in the summer, I found myself taking Ruben's, Natural Phenomena: Special Effects, course (which I recommend for animators of any medium).  By the end of it I found my next main asset, the asset which trumped over the poem and is now the main aspect of it: The Tornado.

Here's a little story about how it came about:
At the beginning of the class Ruben wanted us to give him written proposals on what special effect we wanted to work on and how we will be treating it.  Being that, by nature, working with special effects can take a large amount of time he wanted us to narrow in on what we will be experimenting on as soon as possible.  He gave us a range of examples, from cloth simulations to steam.  Before concluding his list of possibilities, he said something along the lines of, "if you want to be really crazy just go make a tornado.  It's just so freaking hard.  Don't even explain any details, all you literally need to do is get a piece of paper and right in the middle of it just write the word 'tornado'." So I did that.  I am always seeking out challenges.

That may have come about kind of aimlessly, but more and more I realized there was so much behind the symbolism of what it represents and how it can be decoded to refer to Depression.  I will get into the symbolism in a later post, but essentially this is what brought about the next key aspect in my film, the farmer and his home.  More and more, I developed it, and soon many aspects of what I had in my eyes, reflected what the poem was trying to say and more.




So in a little note to myself before the semester started, while I was still in the midst of dozens of ideas, wrote down what I had confirmed thus far and will definitely be striving to show come the final render of this film:
- 3D Renders of tornado
- 2D Renders of tornado
- Character being chased by tornado
- Character overcoming tornado
- Poem ideas
- Shot ideas

Then on September 22, I laid down what else I had confirmed before boarding:
- Farmer Character
- Farm House
- Getting sucked into tornado
- Shot of house being torn off it's foundation, watching from a distance
- Conceptual ideas

Notable Lesson from Ruben's Class

Enter Ruben's Class..

Enter notes from Ruben's Class..

 

This was from, I think the second and third week.  And well here I am maybe a month late... but it's okay those classes are still pretty fresh in my mind.

It started with critiquing short pitches of our films... thus the notes in the middle of the left and right page. Then in the second week we delved more into Aristotelian theories.

Art (experimental) World vs. Commercial World

At one point Ruben references Aristotle saying that 'you cannot be an artist while being commercial'.

This led into a lecture I'm realizing that more and more has become quite important to me as I have continued to discuss it on the side.

The main point in this discussion was that the art world is very much so alive and well today and so is commercial, but their relationship with each other isn't exactly of co-existence... the art world functions as feeding the commercial world, which then makes profits from it.  To exist in either one, whomever is creating the work must visually declare themselves to be functioning distinctly as one of the two fields.  Although, an argument can be made for existing in both, there are conventions and standards that have to be on display that will appease either field.

This presents an important dilemma for me to consider, and will soon take the form of a stream of think-vomit on this post.  I may have come to more decisions based on this dilemma, but the thoughts that were running through my mind went along the lines of...

Where do I stand amidst all of this?  Where does my work say I stand?  Which field do I want to be practicing in?  What is it going to take to define myself as either or?  How will this affect the result of my grad film?  How will the lifestyle that I want to have be affected by this decision?  Does a decision need to be made soon?  Or can I afford to wait?

What will Jay do next? Stay tuned for the next episode of my... lifeeeeeeeeeeee...

First Character Revision

Yeah scratch that first sketch

Not being so confident with my character design skills I called upon the help of my friend, Dora, who pumps out characters like Aaron Rodgers does touchdowns.  [ Using a football analogy for describing character design? yeah, I do that ] 

She had been there for my formulating the theme behind my film and had an understanding of what I was trying to achieve... and then she saw my character.  Criticality ensued, but for good reason.  In making him more human-like I can give him a more distinct age and can use human-like facial features that are universally recognized to describe a more facial wear and tear to the character.

So I took the critique with open arms and began to really get into character development.


Here's a sketch in the meantime showing his proportions, standing in a pose I might use to open the film.  On the page are some shot ideas and some notes from Ruben's class where he began to get into the nitty gritty of Aristotelian narrative.
 

This page is where I determined that it would be important to start with shots showing him being comfortable, to contrast what happens afterwards.

First Character Sketch

This is the first full sketch of my character, the farmer.

My main focus was to emphasize his eyes and make them stand out and also to be able to visually describe sadness.  His body type is to remain skinny as it describes a certain frailty that I want my character to achieve visually.

A nice surprise came in the form of his hat, as by the time I drew it and took a step back really had a way of defining his character... I took time to develop the meaning of his hat.

Here are some notes from my sketchbook:

[ - moment where he loses his hat is a moment of vulnerability

  - more symbolism for his hat?

           - symbol of possession/material

           - symbol of vocation

           - defines who he is

           - hides behind it, thus a symbol of safety/shelter/comfort  ]