Idea for Final Project

1. Overcoming fear by inspiration. How does one overcome fear? There are many answers to this, but I believe the one that stands out the most is inspiration. We at one point or another have been nervous or afraid to do or overcome a problem/situation, but then have seen or been inspired by another's actions to overcome that fear whether that person overcome the same problem or not.

2.

Sir Quinley the Unquestionably Small Knight

A mysterious warrior approaches a castle and is spotted by the guard on the battlements. The towns folk become fearful and hide as he approaches. The guard tells the king of the foe and points to the wall of wanted posters. A little knight by the name of Quinley speaks up before the king wanting to face the adversary. The king doesn't believe that this small fellow could be of any use to him and ignores him. The king sends out his most skilled and toughest knights. The fearsome foe kills them all with ease. The king becomes frantic and sends more men out but they all day by warrior's sword. Without any more men to spare the king finally lets the little knight go to battle. The towns people watch as he approaches the warrior. The little one strikes and lands a blow but it does not seem to faze the monstrous warrior. The Quinley is knocked to the ground several times but keeps getting back up. The towns people watch and wonder why this knight won't give up. He is thrown to the ground one more time and before he can get up the warrior is stand over him lifting his sword for the final blow. Suddenly a rock hits the man from behind. He turns and sees the towns folk have gathered, rocks in hand. They drive the rogue warrior out and cheer for the little knight.

3. I want to show how an individual can inspire others to over come their fear even if they are not succeeding but by getting up again and again.

4. Aesthetically I will hand draw the images then clean them up on the computer. I want to try to make the images simple and easy to make, yet interesting to the viewer. I would like to have a mixture of still image shots with camera movement and heavily jointed characters with basic camera and shots. I have a lot of shots to produce but would like to save time by making the character's aesthetics as simple as possible yet pleasing and interesting to watch.

5.

6. Act 1. Warrior approaches. King is notified. Towns people are afraid.

    Act 2. Kings sends knights out. They die. Quinley is sent out to battle. Town folk watch intently.

    Act 3. Quinley gets knocked down for the final time. He is rescued by town.

The colorful aesthetic of this piece is something I'd like to try and use for my final, maybe not as much detail though.

Creative Commons Review

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Midterm Final Version

Marty

The Farmer

March 31, 2011


Midterm Final, The Farmer from Martin Englert on Vimeo.

1. Farmer is out in his field. He pauses and turns to see a meteor heading for his house. He turns running towards the house. He doesn't make it and the blast knocks him back. Bits of rubble and body parts land near him, though these are not his body parts. He picks of a picture and in that picture is his wife and child.
He puts the picture away and sees what was the meteor but was actually a robot stomping on what's left of his house and his family. The farmer becomes enraged and grabs the shotgun also lying among the rubble and faces the metal goliath. The robot moves forward but is knocked back by a shotgun blast to the chest, and then goes down with another. The farmer snapping out of his fury, begins to weep and mourns for his family.

2. The farmer fears for his family safety and runs as fast as he can towards the house to try and warn his family about the meteor. This is showing courage, putting himself in danger to try and rescue his family.
He doesn't make it, and his family is dead. He then sees the robot and becomes enraged with fury and stands up against it. This is showing our instincts can take over and over come certain fears such as death. This can be called "the Fight or Flight response".

3. For this midterm project and this version of it I wanted to convey a mixture of what fear can do to an individual and how an individual reacts to that situation and what motivates him/her to overcome fear.

4. I made most of the goals I set out to revise. I have collected sounds for the piece and might add some more to the piece.

5. Working on the piece I had trouble at first spatially, but I believe I fixed those errors. I had trouble being able to turn on the sound when in AE but the problem was that I wasn't hitting the right button.

Critique of Mid-term V2

Mid-term V2

The revision of my project spatially made more sense than the first version. It did however change my topic from the first version, but I am going along with it to save time and it's less complicated.

It was understood that the farmer was angry that the robot destroyed his family, though the only thing that told that he had a family was in the second shot when he picked up the picture frame. The picture also told way he ran towards the house/the landing spot of the robot.

The beginning was a too fast, and needed more of a reaction from the farmer and more time for him to realize the meteor/robot was headed towards his house.

The farmer also needed more expression on his face when getting angry and upset over his family.

The ending also seemed rushed and add more expression on the farmer.

The list of goals I made early have been added to the project, except for the sound. Sound has been collected for the project, but I have some more questions before I use it.

List of Goals To Further Improve Mid-term

1. Open with black and add title screen.
2. Shot One: widen the view
3. Shot One: more time to show the meteor, and time for the connection it takes the farmer to realize his family is still inside the house.
4. Shot 1: movement of the character towards the house.
5. Shot 1: clean up the drawing of the farmers back view.
6. Shot1: farmer's movement needs work while moving to the house.
7. Shot 1/2: add carnage and body parts to the explosion blast.
8. Shot 4: more facial expression (eyes need work) to character's face while he is on the ground.
9. Shot 6: more facial expression when getting angry. (work more on mouth and eyes, possibly grit teeth)
10. Shot 8: movement towards robot needs less bounce and more strut.
11. Insert a shot between Shot 9 and 10
12. Shot 11: more expression in face. (time of mourning, add more sadness, tears)
13. Add end credits.

Midterm_v2

Marty

Midterm_v2

During my first critique of my midterm, it didn't go as smoothly as I wanted it. I spatially didn't have the information I wanted and and needed for my concept and it lacked a solid conflict. with the amount of time I had to make version two I ended up having to cut somethings and change my concept around.

It opens with a farmer on his fields, he turns sees a meteor coming for his house and begins to run towards the house. The meteor hits the house and blows him backward on to the grass. While on the grass he sees his picture among the debris and it shows his wife and child. (This is why he ran towards the house, to warn them and save them) He then looks up and sees that it was a robot that destroyed his house and killed his family. He then takes his shotgun from the debris lying around and faces the robot. He then destroys it but after taking his revenge he still is sad about his family.

With the time I had, I changed my concept for this piece cause it visually makes since this way. It's  overcoming fear through revenge, in doing so revenge changes nothing and it will not bring the farmer's family back.

I hope to work on it more later.

Midterm Project

Martin

Mid-term


There is a farmer who lives alone. One day out in his fields something crashes out of the sky to the ground. He checks to go see what it is. A huge robot stands up out of the crater. The farmer becomes scared and starts backing away from it before it can cause him harm. Then another thing crashes out of the sky and lands in between the huge robot and the farmer. It turns out to be a smaller robot, but this robot is trying to protect the farmer and his land from the gigantic robot. The farmer stays far away from the two as the battle. The smaller robot at first seemed to have the upper hand but was struck down. Just before the bigger robot could finish the smaller one off, the huge robot gets knocked back by a gunshot in the chest. This time the farmer steps up to save the little robot who tried to protect him.

This semester my topic is overcoming fear. So far I have been basing my projects on how fear affects us mentally and physically. Now is the time I would like to start building the bridge to overcome fear. Though there is more than one way to overcome fear, depending on what that fear is and the circumstances.

The main topic of overcoming fear I plan to use inspiration, being inspired by someone/thing/idea to find the courage to overcome their fear.

I plan on using the smaller robot as inspiration to the farmer to be brave. Later in the story the farmer will act like the smaller robot and stand in between the bigger robot and the smaller one, as the smaller one did for him when he was afraid. 

Midterm Idea Sketches

villagers and huts

mountains and forest

knight

Midterm Concept Idea

This semester my topic is overcoming fear. So far I have been basing my projects on how fear affects us mentally and physically. Now is the time I would like to start building the bridge to overcome fear. Though there is more than one way to overcome fear, depending on what that fear is and the circumstances.

For the midterm I plan to use what I have learned in AfterEffects and what I have learned about fear and its different affects it has on an individual to overcome fear/ be courageous and face their fears. The main topic of overcoming fear I plan to use inspiration, being inspired by someone/thing/idea to find the courage to overcome their fear.

I intend to work with a narrative story about a village who have always lived in fear from a monster ( I haven't quiet decided to on what this monster will look like, if all else fails it will be a dragon) for my midterm. During one of the monster's raids, a traveling warrior/knight is passing by on the hills near the village. He rides to the village in hast to help the defenseless villagers. He arrives just in time to block the monster from getting to a group of villagers. The monster and the knight fight almost equal to each other in strength and both waiting for the other to make a faulty move. While they fight the villagers watch intently, never before seeing someone so brave to face this fierce monster. Suddenly, the monster lands a blow knocking the sword from the from the knight's hand and sends the knight crumpling to the ground. The knight crawls to post himself up against a wall. As the monster comes closer, the knight tries with all his might to pick himself off the ground but fails to do so. The monster, now standing before the knight, reaches back for his finishing blow. The beast swings his mighty claw at the knight. The knight closes his eyes, wincing for the pain that is about to be inflicted on him, but instead he hears a loud painful roar coming from the monster. The knight opens his eyes seeing the back of a child stood before him. The child clutching the knight's sword in his hands had struck the monster while he went for the knight. Soon the rest of the villagers grabbed their shovels, axes, and pitch forks swinging them at the monster driving the monster back into the forest from which he came. While the others drive the monster off ( or finish killing it) the boy helps the knight to his feet.

I don't know if I will end the narrative there or not. I might add a scene or two of the knight leaving or changing the "running off" of the monster into"the killing" of the monster.

The main idea I am trying to convey in the piece is the villagers who in the beginning are fearful of this creature, are shown by the knight that there is an alternative to running away/ avoiding their problem. If they overcome there fear and face the monster they can defeat him.

Project4_v2

Marty

Project4_v2

Instinct, Fight or Flight
March 3, 2011

A cat is trying to sleep on a window sill. It is rainy and stormy outside. Lightning strikes and scares the cat, and he jumps off the window sill. ( The cat actually hears the thunder and gets scared, but I don't have any sound. So the best I could do was have him jolt off the window sill a second or two After the lightning struck.)

I wanted to show how our instincts alert us to fear/danger. Our five senses collect the information around us and when we sense fear, our fight or flight response takes over.

I wanted to try and illustrate instinct and the subconscious take over of the fight or flight response.

The conflict would be the sound of the lightning strike/thunder and the cat, unfortunately I did not have sound but I believe my timing is alright.

I would like to have the time to learn more effects.

While I was working in AfterEffects when moving through the timeline and playing it so I could see which movements I needed to correct it would load very slowly. This was very frustrating and time consuming.