Just want to say how much I like those thumbnails derived from those breezy, loose silhouettes - lovely workflow - however - there is ultimately a level of complexity and organicism implied by many of those creatures that give me cause to remind you of your likely inexperience at this stage in terms of modelling and rigging and animating (and all within 9 short weeks). I'm not saying you shouldn't stretch yourself, I'm just asking you to look at the timeframe of the project + your experience etc and think cleverly about how strong art direction and some smart character design decisions might ensure you can complete this film to a high standard in readiness for the deadline.
A couple of observations: when it comes to dealing with cancer, I think it's important that you balance the obviousness unpleasantness of the condition with ideas about how it is treated via Chemotherapy or similar. If you're teaching people about cancer, you can't very well 'not' teach them about treatment, otherwise you appear to be teaching people to be terrified of cancer - which is a mixed message. The other thing about doing cancer is that, in order for your audience to understand it, they're going to need to understand the basics of the cell-cyle, because they're going to have to understand how an unhealthy cell is allowed to go on replicating. You need to think how this sits with your underwater theme. The other issue re. cancer is that it is not one big monster, but rather something big made up of lots of little things, and also how those little things detach and spread around the body, spreading the cancer. I wonder if piranhas are a better metaphorical fit than a shark - so you have little fish as happy cells and little fish with big teeth as cancer cells (which shoal together to cause real damage?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZAkN_8rwcE
You just need to be careful that your audience doesn't think you're telling them a story about fish - as opposed to fish as a metaphor (people are easily confused) and I don't think you can show how 'the heart' is eaten up and the person dies - I think you need to show how the cancer-fish are wiped out and the waters returned to their more normal eco-system (the body recovering), which means having to tell your audience about treatment too.
The cancer scenario has certain responsibilities I think in terms of storytelling/audience - the first is that you need to establish the cell-cycle and first show how healthy cells are allowed to replicate, then show how a cancer cell evades the checkpoints, and then how the cancer cell replicates, then show the damage, but then give some further education about treatment or early intervention or screenings etc.
I do think the underwater idea works in these simple terms: the aquarium or whatever represents a healthy eco-system - cells dividing and cells dying as per the rules; then the introduction into the eco-system of an imposter/alien damages the eco-system - eating up what's there. You might visualise a tumor (a mass of cancer cells) for example as one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYl4m0xFcCU
Just a few things to think about as you fine-tune your response in readiness for the pitch.
OGR 16/03/17
ReplyDeleteHey Greta,
Just want to say how much I like those thumbnails derived from those breezy, loose silhouettes - lovely workflow - however - there is ultimately a level of complexity and organicism implied by many of those creatures that give me cause to remind you of your likely inexperience at this stage in terms of modelling and rigging and animating (and all within 9 short weeks). I'm not saying you shouldn't stretch yourself, I'm just asking you to look at the timeframe of the project + your experience etc and think cleverly about how strong art direction and some smart character design decisions might ensure you can complete this film to a high standard in readiness for the deadline.
A couple of observations: when it comes to dealing with cancer, I think it's important that you balance the obviousness unpleasantness of the condition with ideas about how it is treated via Chemotherapy or similar. If you're teaching people about cancer, you can't very well 'not' teach them about treatment, otherwise you appear to be teaching people to be terrified of cancer - which is a mixed message. The other thing about doing cancer is that, in order for your audience to understand it, they're going to need to understand the basics of the cell-cyle, because they're going to have to understand how an unhealthy cell is allowed to go on replicating. You need to think how this sits with your underwater theme. The other issue re. cancer is that it is not one big monster, but rather something big made up of lots of little things, and also how those little things detach and spread around the body, spreading the cancer. I wonder if piranhas are a better metaphorical fit than a shark - so you have little fish as happy cells and little fish with big teeth as cancer cells (which shoal together to cause real damage?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZAkN_8rwcE
You just need to be careful that your audience doesn't think you're telling them a story about fish - as opposed to fish as a metaphor (people are easily confused) and I don't think you can show how 'the heart' is eaten up and the person dies - I think you need to show how the cancer-fish are wiped out and the waters returned to their more normal eco-system (the body recovering), which means having to tell your audience about treatment too.
The cancer scenario has certain responsibilities I think in terms of storytelling/audience - the first is that you need to establish the cell-cycle and first show how healthy cells are allowed to replicate, then show how a cancer cell evades the checkpoints, and then how the cancer cell replicates, then show the damage, but then give some further education about treatment or early intervention or screenings etc.
I do think the underwater idea works in these simple terms: the aquarium or whatever represents a healthy eco-system - cells dividing and cells dying as per the rules; then the introduction into the eco-system of an imposter/alien damages the eco-system - eating up what's there. You might visualise a tumor (a mass of cancer cells) for example as one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYl4m0xFcCU
Just a few things to think about as you fine-tune your response in readiness for the pitch.