Butterflies...

Wow, it's been a while since I posted! It's summer, I'm working two jobs, and trying to figure out this thesis stuff all at the same time! What I've been i[ to since school got out in regards to my thesis: I met with Mike Cushney (sp?) and we talked about my project for a long time. Basically I feel like I have to redo our previz semester, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like this. I was at a dead and, and what I ended up with in May was not really what I was trying to come up with in January. I've talked with a bunch of writers and met someone who was a script writer in NYC, and had also gotten bitten, twice, by a Black Widow Spider! And for the real catcher, his name is Joe, which was the original name of my character! I thought he should definitely write my script. He's done a couple of drafts for me, and we're working together to get the right balance of medical terminology and entertaining narration. By reworking my script with a professional, I'm reworking my story. When we finally get the script where we want it, I'll redo my storyboards and animatic. This is what I'm thinking right now: I don't want to shoot live video. I don't have experience doing it, it's not what I'm trying to show in my thesis, and I will probably never need to do it again. Therefore, my challenge is, how do I tell my story without it? What I've come up with is a sequence of still images. I'd shoot a bunch of digital photographs of an actor, and then I'd pan over them, and move them in and out of the frame. My main focus is going to be the modeling and animation going on INSIDE the human body, so I don't want to focus on the outside as much. It will almost be like a film strip, where you have one still image, that image gets smaller and moves to the upper left side of the screen, then another still image fills the screen, and then that one moves to the left side under the first one, and it keeps going like this, so you have past images on the left side of the screen in a vertical way, and the new images keep popping up and filling the screen in order to tell the story, along with the narration. My writer is actually writing about his experience, which is actually very similar to my original idea. I'm not sure if this makes any sense without graphics to accompany it, so hopefully within the next couple of weeks I'll have an animatic to share with you. Until then, any comments would be helpful and greatly appreciated! I hope you're all having a great summer!

Progress

So it's been a while since I posted last, I keep forgetting! It's been a crazy couple of weeks, finishing projects, and it's going to be a crazy next couple of weeks. I've been working on completely redoing my animatic and figuring out the best way to show what will eventually be my 3D organs inside the body so that the audience can understand what I'm trying to say. I also need to record a voiceover, but I have all of my sound FX. I've been working on the paper also, but I'm a little confused about the research part. Are we supposed to use the same research as we had for our midterm deliverables, or should we be doing different research? I've also made a rough Gandtt chart for this summer and the thesis semester, and it's really scary! I have so much to do, and still to learn, before this fall. I have a bit of live action footage that I need to shoot and edit/composite for my thesis, and I'm not sure exactly how to do it, aka have no clue because I've never done it before. SO if there are any volunteers who'd like to help me out and will be here this summer I'd love to know! I'm guessing i will just be able to borrow the equipment from CADA? Any advice would be appreciated! Good luck to everyone in the next couple of weeks!

My Script

Here's my current script. I'm making sure it will fit in time with my animatic, but let me know if anyone thinks it's too much info. It should definitely teach you something!
Widow's Peak Script

Script

In preparation to present my new animatic, I'm writing a scrip that I can read while the animatic is playing. Mitch has been telling me that I need to show how myc thesis will teach the viewer. The whole point is that it will show realistic looking 3D images of venom traveling through the bloodstream, as well as the organs that the venom is affecting. Without these 3D models, it's hard to show exactly how it will look and the effect that it will have. I'm going to try to show this as well as I can through my 2D animatic, and reading the script while it is playing will also help. I'll post the script as soon as I have it done.

"Live Action" pictures

So these are obviously right out of my camera, but I uploaded them so that I can work on them in photoshop tomorrow from a different computer, and I thought I might as well post them here for you all to see. My sister's name is Lynzi, she's 14 and would kill me if she knew how many people were seeing her making funny faces. Anyway, I'm not sure what I'll use out of this, but its a start to making a more realistic looking animatic.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1512.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1513.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1516.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1514.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1522.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1517-1.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1519.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1520.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1521.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1523.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1524.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1532.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1531.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1530.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1533.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1534.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1535.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f321/ndeluccia/100_1536.jpg

New thoughts...

Thanks for all of the responses about my girl/boy issue. I agree that a guy camper might do better for my story, however, since I'm with my sister for the weekend, she'll be the one I use for now. I've taken some live action shots of her that I'm putting into my animatic. I've also been watching my "I Shouldn't Be Alive" DVDs this weekend. I'm not sure how similar I can make my thesis. Obviously, mine will have a sort of comedic flair, which the show certainly does not. Also, in the show, they do interviews with the survivors, and mine is only the story. However, the way they should what is happening inside the body is a look I like. I know I've been thinking about these "Scientific shots" to show what is happening to specific organs. A lot of my comments on this blog have suggested a voice over to make it more understandable. Try to picture this: what if I had a CG body, which was "see through" except for the organs inside, and the way I went from live action to CG was just a quick flash from the camper, to a CG body in the same position as the real camper had been in. From there, we use the fake CG camera to move into the body to an organ that a narrator is talking about, explaining to the viewer what is happening with that specific organ or muscle. I know this deviates a bit from what I previously had been planning, but this is what I've been seeing done in the reference I have been looking at, and I really like the look of the transition. This way I would be better able to show off my modeling skills, but the same body (model) would be used through all of the shots. I'll show a clip of my reference on Wednesday to better explain what I'm talking about. Thanks for reading this long post everyone! Now my question is, should I continue working on an animatic with "scientific shots", or should I work on stills with a CG body to put into the animatic instead? Any ideas??

Progress...

So I've gotten together all of the information I want to use for my "Scientific Screens". I've decided to make them pretty simple, something an average viewer can read and comprehend in 5-7 seconds on screen. I'm also gathering sound effects for all of my shots in my animatic. I have two questions that I'd like to poll you guys on...#1: Is it that big of a deal if my camper is a guy or a girl? My younger sister loves posing for pictures and she'd probably be the easiest for me to use for at least my animatic, but my storyboards featured a male. Big deal or no? #2: Does anyone have any ideas for a "Jaws like" music sequence I can use whenever the spider enters the frame? Let me know! Thanks:-)