After developing my idea more from both my own ideas and with help from feedback given from a focus group (which can be seen in my work folder) and deciding exactly where I want my character to go on her travels, I decided she would travel the world with the sole intention of seeing the Seven Wonders of the World. This, I thought, would broaden my ideas but also make it easier for the audience to relate to. Whether my audience would know about the Seven Wonders either from word of mouth, visiting them themselves or through films and TV series such as 'An Idiot Abroad', people will have at least a slight knowledge about it and the ancient artefacts that they entail.
Rather than using the Ancient Seven Wonders of the World, I decided to use the New Found wonders, to keep the animation piece in a modern story. The Seven Wonders are:
Great Wall of China- China
Petra- Jordan
Christ The Redeemer- Brazil
Machu Picchu- Peru
Chichen Itza- Mexico
Colosseum- Italy
Taj Mahal- India
Great Pyramids Of Giza- Egypt
Although I will base the different locations around the Wonders, I think that this idea came about because i wanted the audience to feel involved and recognising the locations and the story. As well as including the attractions, the different cultures that are surrounding these places I will involve in the story, and will be something that my character has to over come both in a positive and negative way. Although at first, using all of the Seven Wonders seemed like a good idea, I think that using all seven will be too much movement and keeping up for the story and animation to be easily watchable for the audience. Because of this, I have chosen only a few of them which I will explainin detail in my next blog post.
After gaining points of view from others about my idea and it's concept, a comment made about doing my animation on After Effects instead of stop motion animation has crossed my mind a lot. I am going to try and discuss and develop my animation style through this blog post.
Below is a short clip of how my desired look of the scrapbook can look when done on After Effects.
The clip above is exactly the style i was wanting my stop motion animatoin to be in. The layered images, the depth the image gives, how both the scenary and the character is animated is something which I would have picked up on a lot if I was to have developed this video too. I especially noticed how the main tourist attractions are featured in this, and this idea is something which i have been wanting to include from the beginning of my idea.
Within this link (http://www.revostock.com/After-Effects-Project/25618/Travel-Scrapbook.htm) is a video, (which i will give stills of below) showing a template that can be used in After Effects to create the look I am going for. Although this template must be paid for, but looks very effective, I don't think I will be downloading it. However, it does give me hope that I may be able to achieve something like this myself with the software. It may be difficult to do, but the video shows that it is possible.
However, despite the idea of using After Effects for my animation is becoming a lot more appealing, I don't want to yet decide which path I will take and I'd rather not let myself forget my inspirations for my initial idea of stop motion animation. The first inspiration that springs to mind is again, as already mentioned in earlier posts, the Google Street View advert from Germany, showing the knitting together of their 360 degree photographs.
The video above was from the company 'Production Sehsucht Berlin GmbH & Co KG' and the Director was 'Mate Steinforth'. I plan to research both the company and the director themselves.
Another video that i took inspiration from which is completely stop motion animation is one called 'Pen Story' which was made by Olympus. This video also seems to be a story of someone travelling and growing older, much like the company is trying to get across that their products and themselves are like. This may be something that is worth me looking into.
I completed a feedback sheet which I hung up next to my Ideas Board with the following questions:
What are your thoughts on my idea?
What do you think of when travelling the world?
Are there any other comments?
From the first question on my feedback sheet, the most helpful point was 'I like the exotic feel, maybe this can be brought out in the music you use'. This feedback was a lot of help, as it helped me to think of using traditional music for the areas she's visiting, to set the scene but also the mood.
I asked the second question of 'what do you think of when travelling the world' because I wanted to see if there were things that i had missed out on when thinking of my idea and locations. The answers to this question were quite varied, form laws to clothes and food and languages and music and bright colours. Cultures of the countries can have an impact on my animation, for example, whats acceptable for women in arabic countries and what isn't, what traditional foods countries eat, what laws she may find herself breaking. When looking at my idea board, I thought that my animation might be filled with dull colours, so that fact that somebody said travelling the world reminds them of bright colours was a help. The bright colours and lights will keep the audience interested and will work exceptionally well in scenes at night time.
For the last question, I asked if they had any other comments. Some good feedback I got from this question is "It might be more polished if you did it on After Effects, I really like the scrap book effect, maybe you can have things like postcards and the scrapbook." This has helped my idea develop, as I think i may combine the idea of After Effects and real life stop motion animation, with using the scrap book still. I think that I could use After Effects to create the characters and the movement of them, and their surroundings but have the main locations in images. For example, if she visits a market, my character will be made in After Effects and any other people that she may come into contact with, with an image of the actual market printed and collaged and images of the hustle and bustle. Another thing that was helpful in my feedback was that she should visit slums in India, to see how young girls are treated in China and falling in love with a Muslim boy. This would see a shock of cultures colliding and bring an interesting element to the story. Another person said that my idea reminded them of the Wild Thornberrys, which is about an animation of a family of scientists travelling the world. This is something I can do research on.
Above is my ideas board for my idea discussed in my last post. I tried to emphasise my idea of creating my story in a scrap book that comes to life. I tried to find images of scrap books, as well as images that tie into my idea. For example, I found a 'growing up' image which I thought was the ideal style that I was looking for. I think that the overlapped images with the ripped edges work well to an extent, although I think if people hadn't taken the time to read the idea, they would think it looks messy. However, the images go well with my idea and I think that this made it work visually well.
I wrote about my synopsis, locations which I will feature in my animation by collages of images, where i have taken inspiration from and my target audience.
Locations which I included in my ideas board were The Pyramids, Taj Mahal, The Great Wall of China, as well as typical holiday places such as streets, beaches and markets. I thought about including some popular travelling destinations as this would keep the audience interested and if they have visited them, they would feel connected with it.
My target audience that I included in my ideas board was girls aged 16-24 because of the facts that teenage girls will be going through the same problems that my character would be.
As well as my ideas board, I created a feedback sheet which asked people to comment on my idea and give me feedback. I asked the following questions:
What are your thought on my idea?
What do you think of when travelling the world?
Are there any other comments?
From the feedback given, I will have to develop my idea.
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel only read one page"St Augustine.
My idea for my Final Major Project was inspired by the quote above. My story is a stop motion animation about a girl who's life you watch develop from a teenager to an adult when on her travels round the world. She deals with normal teenage and adult ups and downs, from love, friendship, hate, jobs and money. But, because her life is about travelling, and wanting to see the world, she also has to overcome and face problems that she will find along the way, from cultural differences to world affairs. People say that they travel abroad to find themselves, which is what my idea also comes from, with a teenage girl travelling the world to grow up and subconsciously find herself.
From the quote from St Augustine, I was drawn to the idea of having my stop motion animation in a scrap-book style, with collages of images and materials making up the locations on different pages in a book that come to life. I think that this will give the animation a different and appealing look. For me, the concept of scrapbooks is to treasure memories with pictures, writing with creative decoration. This I think works well with my idea as travelling the world would be a memory to cherish.
As well as the quote from St Augustine, I also gained inspiration from animations I watched. The one below is an advert from Google Street Maps, which uses a scrap book coming to life with images of their street view service to see places such as New York, Australia, Africa and driving a long the coasts. After coming up with my additional idea of seeing a girl find herself and grow up travelling round the world, this animation showed that I can make the idea possible.
