I hope things are calmer for you - how did Thursday go? Drop me an email and let me know.
Meanwhile, I like the 'action sequence' feel to both your scenarios - especially the first scenario that feels like an emergency evacuation scene. This makes sense of your choice to go a bit 'Hollywood' in regard to the style and structure of your film. I'm assuming that the scenario so described is, in essence, accurate in terms of what happens to an actual cell?
On reading your first scenario, I was instantly reminded of the opening credits to Alien 3 (which I can't find on Youtube to show you) - which is a nice 'evac' scene in terms of montage of shots. If you can find it, just watch the opening and you'll see what I mean. It's about conveying that sense of emergency and crisis, which this scenario does very well.
In design terms, you've obviously got to ensure that the various components still resemble their real world counter-parts, while adding that sci-fi quality. You've also got to think strategically about your experience in terms of Maya etc. so I'd suggest you think about making more out of less - i.e. you design simpler machines, but think about how lighting, shaders, and glow can give you a strong sci-fi feel. In short, I'd avoid going for lots and lots of metallic tentacles etc. which will require lots and lots of animation.
In terms of the surroundings, I think you can probably keep things nicely impressionist - as opposed to including actual planets - because 'actual planets' might confuse audiences as to what they're actually watching. Maybe look at images of nebulas, which have that 'innerspace' of-the-human-body quality anyway:
The thing that's not so clear in your scenarios is the way in which text/info etc. is included or integrated into your theme; there's nothing worse than having a student smother their otherwise engaging cg with lots of writing - so that people are in fact 'reading' not 'watching'. There are a number of ways this can be achieved, but integrated text needs to be thought about very carefully.
As I'm writing this, it has just suddenly occured to me that maybe your evac scenario might suit a voice-over - if the film itself is treated rather like a training video - rather like the way on planes you're told what to do in the circumstance of a plane crash. Perhaps your 'DNA evac' video could work similarly? Just a thought.
I'm pushing students to have a working 'thumbnail animatic' on their blogs by the early part of next week, so we can really see how the structuring and sequencing of everything is playing out before you start committing to your presentation animatic for the pitch. These animatics should include sfx etc. See how you get on.
OGR 09/03/2013
ReplyDeleteHey Alex :)
I hope things are calmer for you - how did Thursday go? Drop me an email and let me know.
Meanwhile, I like the 'action sequence' feel to both your scenarios - especially the first scenario that feels like an emergency evacuation scene. This makes sense of your choice to go a bit 'Hollywood' in regard to the style and structure of your film. I'm assuming that the scenario so described is, in essence, accurate in terms of what happens to an actual cell?
On reading your first scenario, I was instantly reminded of the opening credits to Alien 3 (which I can't find on Youtube to show you) - which is a nice 'evac' scene in terms of montage of shots. If you can find it, just watch the opening and you'll see what I mean. It's about conveying that sense of emergency and crisis, which this scenario does very well.
In design terms, you've obviously got to ensure that the various components still resemble their real world counter-parts, while adding that sci-fi quality. You've also got to think strategically about your experience in terms of Maya etc. so I'd suggest you think about making more out of less - i.e. you design simpler machines, but think about how lighting, shaders, and glow can give you a strong sci-fi feel. In short, I'd avoid going for lots and lots of metallic tentacles etc. which will require lots and lots of animation.
In terms of the surroundings, I think you can probably keep things nicely impressionist - as opposed to including actual planets - because 'actual planets' might confuse audiences as to what they're actually watching. Maybe look at images of nebulas, which have that 'innerspace' of-the-human-body quality anyway:
http://ut-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/The-Fairy-of-Eagle-Nebula.jpg
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1102/rosette_lula_1700.jpg
In terms of designing your 'space craft' - check out the work of both Chris Foss and Syd Mead:
http://ucarochester-cgartsandanimation.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/supplement-chris-foss.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/sets/72157622906191929/
The thing that's not so clear in your scenarios is the way in which text/info etc. is included or integrated into your theme; there's nothing worse than having a student smother their otherwise engaging cg with lots of writing - so that people are in fact 'reading' not 'watching'. There are a number of ways this can be achieved, but integrated text needs to be thought about very carefully.
As I'm writing this, it has just suddenly occured to me that maybe your evac scenario might suit a voice-over - if the film itself is treated rather like a training video - rather like the way on planes you're told what to do in the circumstance of a plane crash. Perhaps your 'DNA evac' video could work similarly? Just a thought.
I'm pushing students to have a working 'thumbnail animatic' on their blogs by the early part of next week, so we can really see how the structuring and sequencing of everything is playing out before you start committing to your presentation animatic for the pitch. These animatics should include sfx etc. See how you get on.