Category: Previz and Advanced Body Mechanics

Story in one sentence:

This week I did my first draft previz. Though the concept part is hard but I had fun doing it. I really want the story to present a cheerful feeling: though life is hard, there is always nice people there cheering and support you as long as you believe there is a way out. Locking yourself inside only leads to inappropriate behaviour which cause a emotionally weak person. Like the devil in the story, who locked his feeling and believed in that. He even put small monkeys in his mental garden as a defensive mechanism. However, the friendly and nice doggie is a savour that come to make his life better. Again though everything is very abstract and filled with metaphor, that is just the way I choose to tell the story.

NEW STORYBOARD:

This is just a storyboard I did on how can I develop the story further in the future.

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I decided to use the story of the dog and demon as the final previz and keep the magician’s hand in the beginning. The hand is crucial If it is really going to be a story, so I’ll keep it. Also I will keep some parts with little keyframe because I want to just keep the crucial shot.

Introduction

1. Era: modern
2. Location: circus
3. Time: night
4. Character: the circus girl is a performer at a circus. She actually comes from a noble family of magicians. However, she escaped because no one gave her attention. Now she lives her live widely like a nomadic.

Stage1:

Sketches on circus performers

Rendered image of the rough set

Stage2:

Posing in the set

Rendered image of the set

1. Era: modern
2. Location: office
3. Time: midnight
4. Character: Birdman is an antimemetic creature that slows down viewers, taking the appearance of a female with a metal bird mask. The birdman will distort the viewer’s brain, making the viewer think that his existence is integrated with the birdman. The viewer will have a sense of space confusion and time confusion. Example 1: The viewer is working, but in the next second, he loses awareness of his own appearance, such as dislocation of facial features, increased number of eyes, et. Example 2: Last second, the viewer thinks he/she is standing in the corridor. The next second he/she got lifted and floated in the air like a marionette somehow.

Development on the character and story

Example 1: The viewer is working, but in the next second he loses awareness of his own appearance, such as dislocation of facial features, increased number of eyes, et.

Work on the idea of the set (with assets I made before)

Rendered image of the set

Example 2:

last second, the viewer thinks he/she is standing in the corridor. The next second he/she got lifted and floated in the air like a marionette somehow

This week I rework on a few shots from before to make it have more depth. I change the focal length of the camera in the software to achieve that affect.

The focal length of a lens is determined when the lens is focused at infinity. Lens focal length tells us how much of the scene will be captured and how large individual elements will be. So it is important to pay attention to it while doing previz.

FEEDBACK: this is the tutor’s feedback(sketch on the left) on how to improve the camera shot.

1.I think I’ll take the advice on shot 1 and 2 (when the dog approach the door) I’ve been told my choice of composition is too flat. I think the problem might be the setting on the camera length. When I use 135mm one, everything looks more flat and it conveys a feeling of peeping through the camera. And when I use a 35mm one, the camera looks into the whole scene deeper and tells more information but it is harder to control the composition.

2.I’ve also been told that the third shot is nice so I guess I’ll use it. I was advised that the monkey shot should be on the left. I think I wouldn’t put that way when I have my final piece(a rendered one). I prefer a composition with a character in the middle, though it might lose the narrative of the story. I always prefer the aesthetics.

Goal for the past week: building the first previz.

Difficulty: find a beautiful composition that can show the narrative of the story.

next week’s goal: improve the composition following feedbacks and research.

feedback sketch

My four main shot

The shots

SCREENSHOTS