My ideas....

These are a collection of my major ideas that I would have considered to use for this project, after extensive research on the background of these, my ideas started to develop stage by stage to the current one I have done my animation video to.

First idea

The idea is that an object can seem new and inspiring from person to person. A guy walks across the park, sees an object and gets inspired to create something out of that object. Another person walks past and sees the guys creation as an inspiration to create something else. The person after looking at the previous persons creation build something different from that. A creation is built one after another based on the last.

This idea was solely based on almost word for word of the quotes. Very little research was done at this stage, this idea was my initial interpretation of what I imagined what direction I would go.

Second idea

I will be creating a short story of a child growing into an old person and then passing away. It starts off with a young child experiencing everything as they grow, most of which the experiences would be new. As the child grows older he sees more, and new or uncommon things become more rare. As the child grows up and becomes old, he has seen most things and almost nothing pleases his imagination anymore. The man passes away and he can't experience anything anymore.

This idea was the first proposed idea for the project. After some research, I tried to incorporate some of the research found on the web and generated with this idea.

Third idea

Someone can experience vast amounts of new things by looking into a screen, more so than someone in the real world as the screen takes the imagination to achieve what is impossible in the real world and projects it in front of us. The experience of a mere screen can be broader than the experience of the world.

The idea is executed as two different screens simultaneously playing. One screen is reality, showing someone in third person doing tasks, walking about and experiencing but limited to the real world.The second screen is a recreation of the reality screen but in the style and art of a game. It shows everything the real world shows but more.

After doing more research and read Sherry Turkles 'Life on the Screen' I came up with this idea. It was based on a mixture of Turkle and Addisons quotes. The idea was also sparked off from a Berlin trip I went to and saw a screening of some conceptual artist which had two screens running at the same time.

It was only after more extensive research that I have come to my current idea which I've used for my animation

Bokurano (Uninstall)...

This is an anime series called Bokurano (Japanese) or Uninstall (English). The anime is very dark and almost twisted and explores strange elements of parallel universes, giant robots, and destruction of mankind.

The story consists of several kids who find a cave on a beach and explores to find that there is a person living in the cave. The person offers the kids to try out a "game" but requires the kids to sign a contract before playing. Right after the contracts have been signed the kids end up waking somewhere on the beach and not long after that, a giant robot starts to attack the city they're in. Another giant robot appears and sends these kids inside it, only to find out that the person in the cave is inside. The person explains that there will be several battles to come and each person must pilot the robot they're in once and must win the battle against the other robot.

The rules are to fight the other robot and must win or else the world will get destroyed. After the person piloting wins, they die. There are no quits or refusal to battle, otherwise the world will get destroyed.

Soon after a couple of battles the kids find out that the robots they fight are not just any robots. They are actually robots with people in the same situation as the kids themselves except from another parallel world.

The series is revolved around these kids and their experiences in dealing with the situation and the pressure of having to operate the robot to kill another person in order to survive. Some are unexpected cold in killing, finding no hesitation, and others could not find the courage to operate the robot because they're scared of not knowing what will happen when they do.

I find this series enjoyable to watch although it destroyed my brain afterwards. I like the concept of people being scared to use technology against another person because the outcome could literally be anything. What was going through the minds of the characters is also another thing quite interesting to think about because one day they were normal, the next day, they're killing to save themselves. The impact it must have had on them must have been huge.

Digital styles...

I've looked into a few types of styles I could use for the part where the main character goes into the portal and decided to go with crisp, colourful and real cartoony style. The reasons for choosing this is because I think that a style like this is a really nice but obvious way to show a transition from real life montage style turned to computer graphics. The style contrasts a lot from the montage style and I think thats how it could works so good.

Heres a couple of examples of styles that I think are similar to what I will be doing:

Rex Crowle


Tom Baker

The characters size may be a bit inappropriate for my animation but I enjoy the crisp, edgy art and the vibrant colours.

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/3d__and__animation/animate_your_vector_characters

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/3d__and__animation/making_lip-syncing_simple

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/3d__and__animation/animating_scenery