Thursday, 13 October 2011

Further Character Design

These are just some quick sketches i did for a few of the characters. The main character obviosuly probably wont be carrying an axe but just quick ideas i had.. Hopefully we can build further from these, i will be doing some cg forms of the main character today.





Along with the main character the police officer or private detective sort of character is going to be a definate, so these two will be enhanced further. By the end of the weekend im hoping these two charcters will be a lot more resolved.



Finally i thought about Chris' idea of having a priest come to the school to help. In films such as the exorcist the priest is a very scary looking character, but as ours could have the element of humour i gave the priest both an evil spooky look, or the clumsy, fat oafish look.



By the end of the weekend with further discussions with the group, im hoping that we can crack on with individual tasks and move the project along.

Research For Character Design

After yesterdays meeting and giving each other some job roles to get down with. I did some research on the main character, im hoping these influence maps will give us some ideas on where to go with our designs.

Influence Map 1



Influence Map 2



Influence Map 3

Wednesday, 12 October 2011

Character Design ideas for the Telekinetic School Girl (Chris)

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

The link between the paranormal and adolescence (Chris)

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

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Chris new Synopsis 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.

Tuesday 11th October Meeting

Today myself and Chris had a brief meeting to discuss a few aspects of the project. We have compared each others synopsis and by tomorrow should have a stronger story. Also we have decided to focus on charcater design for today, and in tomorrows meeting show what we have and go from there.

Main Character Design 1st Draft

After the first meetings of the group, we have got a firm idea of where we are at and where we should be. The drawings below are just a beginning idea of what the main character from our project should look like, pretty evil looking, slightly disturbed. However at the start of the story i think she may want to look a little less spooky, but still creepy. Just a lot more innocent.

As you can see from my inspiration sheets there are hints from such characters as the one from 'The Ring' and 'Children of the Corn'. The details such as the girl having an overlly large jumper that is a little torn and chewed at the cuffs, possibly knee high sicks, along with dead straight hair.