New Website

I have a new website thats up and running... well at the moment theres 2 videos missing, but should be fixed by tomorrow. On my website theres a couple of my art work and my films. Go check it out !!
http://www.lin-wen.com/

also my deviant art site:
http://inwe007.deviantart.com

Though some of the pics on there are the same on the gallery. There are a little more fan art

FINISHED!!!

so i have officially finished uni!!! well i had handed in the film the previous week, but handed in the rest of the stuff today. My final film is finished and is called 'Differences Appeal'. But wont be posted up until after the graduation show in london. But meanwhile you can check out my new showreel, which has some clips.

Also i am making a website, it is the process at the moment, may be up by next week but the site will be www.lin-wen.com will probably post an update on here when its up!so will be back soon! :D

IDeas!

From my previous review and finding that the narrative is portraying what i want, i think i need to remind myself what it is i am trying to portray.

CONCEPT REMINDER: I want to portray 'orientalism' which was influence by my dissertation. From my research people who are represented as from the 'orient' are usually portrayed as negative and only the location is portrayed as exotic. My concept is taking on that people to are portrayed as 'exotic and different', due to personal experiences from moving schools.

BASIC STRUCTURE:I want to portray that the main character is physically different and i want her to be portrayed as 'different and exotic'. This shall be portrayed by other school girls crowding around her and wanting to be her 'friend' or just take an interest in her, with this portrayal i do not want any physical bullying.

At the moment it seems that i may need to change the opening, as it needs to introduce the audience that she is different and that is what the other girls find her interesting. I have one idea which actually introduces the main character as a 'new girl', which may portray the concept better. I did have this concept before storyboarding, but i decided against portraying that. As this may change the concept, to the other girls finding her interesting because she is the 'new girl' but not because she is 'different'. But this can be avoided, with a couple of point of view shots and close ups.

Second Animatic & Mid-review

So in my second animatic, have coloured in the girl characters that are being portrayed as foreign or "different". I have also extended the ending, so that it is not so quick. I have had many problems with the story at the moment, in that what i am trying to portray is not getting through. When i view the animatic, it seems so clear to me as it was a personal experience, but i must make myself objective, that way the story will be more clearer. During the mid-review, it was suggested that some scenes were unclear and looked like flashbacks. Also, i think that sound really must be added to the animatic , so that it is clearer, as sound may help me portray the concept better.
The same tutor that had suggested in my previous project that the characters should eat each other, had suggested that the main character in this one should either have a gun or rusty lawn mower, to get revenge on the other girls. XD

Concept sketch!

Another tutorial today and got some feedback from my animatic. some of the shots were still a little confusing, as some of the angles made it confusing. another point was also the ending was a little too quick, which i picked up on the other post.I also drew out one of the scenes, with an influence of the Alice in Wonderland DS game:


it seems that it is a little more effective with a slight outline where it marks the floor and the building, but that its my point of view. i will do the same with some of the angled shots, because it may work for this scene, but it may not work for the classroom scenes. Also to solve the angle problems i need to draw out a sort of blue print, to map out where the characters are in each scene, as i think this would make me more aware of the space and angles.
Another point that was raised in my tutorial was the concept of the new girl coming in at the end. At the moment I haven't distinguished whether she is different as a foreigner or maybe she is different physically. This is important as both will portray different meanings, so i need to decide on what i want to portray and then do some character designs for her.

storyboards & animatics

So i've finally done a storyboard. I did two versions of the storyboard as i had planned. One of them was telling the story without the puppet and the other with scenes with the puppet. After having looked at both the storyboards, the story without the puppet seems to be stronger and a lot clearer, though i was really into the concept of the puppet before, having looked at it together, it doesnt work that well.

This is my animatic for now. I feel that the ending ends to fast and must be developed and the middle part with the conflict, must have more close up shots and possible different shots.
After showing my storyboard to my classmates, they have suggested the same. Also on my storyboard that is not on my animatic, is that i have coloured the main characters hair and skin. As I want to distinguish the physical differences, one of classmates had suggested that visually it was better this way, leaving the main character coloured.

i had also done some styles to test, what it would look like with colour and another with a backgroud with grey scale:



It seems that it is more effective with the grey scale image. I have also been playing the new Alice in Wonderland game on DS. I think the style really works and there is very limited colours.

So i've been thinking...

about simplifying my story and cutting the whole puppet idea, is not really the way i want to go with the project. I think i like the idea that there is a slight fictional element to it. I think it might be because it is personal matter that I'm trying to reflect, i didn't really want to reenact it and that is what is really bothering me. I am already finding it hard to clean up the storyboard already, without the puppet concept, because i already did a rough storyboard with no character designs and it does work fine without the puppet. But it seems that there is going to be conflicting element here... its either make the story to make me happy or make the story so that the audience can understand it. So it seems what i hve to do now is set it in my mind that i want to do the puppet idea and use the non-fictional one as a backup, otherwise i'm not going to get anywhere.
On this topic, i also found an animation that was quiet influential:

From watching this i didnt quite get the whole concept, though it is still visually pleasing.

Tutorial

So I've had two tutorials since the last time i blogged. I also felt like i had a problem with the end of the narrative. To sum up my story; it would start off with a couple of girls playing in the playground. They're huddled up, so you can see what they're doing, but the bell rings and recess is over and you see that they've been playing with a toy/puppet. the puppet is actually the main character and is actually a girl. so the concept is that when she is with the other girls she changes into a puppet. This was influenced by the anime The Wallflower , as Sunako is portrayed as a sweet chibi character when she is herself, when there are serious emotions she would transform into the usual anime characters. In my story the other girls play with the main character constantly and i was planning to portray it as if she was being used. To conclude it, a new student would enter and the other girls would loose interest in the main character. The main character would feel relieved and it would end, however i felt that this ending was very weak. So after a couple of sleepless nights, i eventually came up with the idea that the main character would 'save' the new girl from being in the same position. Though it may change later.

After the second tutorial it was suggested that the puppet concept is fictional and is a little too similar to my previous animation 'Chains dont hold me Down'.
The problem with my previous film was that not alot of people understood the narrative. So at the tutorial it was suggested that i should stick with a simpler narrative, that way i would not be in the same position as i was in my previous film, as that was where it fell down in marks.

Influence

Alma animation.

New Project, New Ideas!

So the dissertation's been handed in and is a lot less stressed. Though that is the case, it seems my new idea that I'm gonna do, goes back to the concept and ideas that were used in my dissertation. However before this idea, I had another narrative which involved a magicians' apprentice who wasn't very good at magic. The apprentice would some how fall in to the magicians hat, inside the hat there would be a maze or problems that he would have to solve. On encountering these problems, he is learning to become a better magician.

After coming with this concept, I came up with a more of a personal concept which also linked with the dissertation. Title Orientalism In Contemporary Western Entertainment: The Use of the Orient and Techno-Orientalism . In my research I noticed that some contemporary animations used Orientalism as a theme or characters, because they were 'different or exotic'. This also links to my personal experience, as I am Chinese. When I moved to new schools for the first time, many people would be interested in me because I looked different, though I was still British.
My classmates would ask me to say things in chinese and try to teach it to them. When there was a new foreign student, their new interest would move on to the new student. Its like getting a new toy in pre-school, everyone would want to play with it. But in my case I want to express that its not a toy, but a human. It is a childish behaviour, however I believe that this concept is a lot stronger than my previous concept.

After drawing a couple of sketches out, I wasn't too happy in setting it in a school environment, though it would be the obvious place. After pitching the idea to the rest of the class, i got quite some good feedback and other ideas, one involving making the character into a puppet or a toy.

I was more happy with this concept incorporated with the setting of the school, because i think it'll be more interesting and it'll express my concept clearer.So next step will be drawing out some concept scenes and the storyboard.

Oh? What do we have here?

Been going through all my old sketch books and I found the first animation I ever did. I did a short animation for my final major project for the foundation course at UCA. I used plasticine for the body and wire for the skeleton to create these creatures. It was really fun in making the characters, mainly because I was designing these characters like a pick'n'mix. I would pick an eye from the bag and then pick the head from another bag. I would then come out with something like this:


And I would make them into plasticine models:


I think it is possible to make these characters from the top of my head, but i think i would have made so many creatures. there were also many problems in making this film, because i didnt have 'dragon'(stop motion software) at that time, i had to use a digital camera, which only ran on batteries. So after every 3hours i would have to wait 30mins to charge it up again. Also other probblems included, the plasticine melting in the lights. From this project, it helped out my other film 'Death's Best Friend'

The narrative, is based on the relationship I have with my sister. She is younger than I am by 2 years, but she tends to act like the older sister most of the time. She also likes to take naps and I tend to bug her alot during those naps.... Also before you watch the short animation try and have a guess what the sound effects is used for the purple creature( answer below)

WAKEY WAKEY!


Well I hope you enjoyed it!!



ANSWER:ʎәʞuop

Kung Hei Fat Choi

Its almost Chinese New Year!! So, its an early Happy New Year from me and my family!

'Chains Dont Hold Me Down'

Well i've finally finished the project. I'm quiet happy with how it turned out in the end as a whole. But from my point of view, i think that i could have done some scenes alot better. Also if i had more time I would animate the chain links instead of the lines i have used. The editing and the sounds have improved too, but thats because of the previous films and i have learnt from my problems.

Hope you Like My Film!

close to the end

almost near the end of the project, and just as i predicted at the begining, i may hav to change the visual of the chain to a line, but use chain sounds to still get the chain feeling of it. i really wanted to do the chain, but its taking too much time to animate and i've been doing some scenes again because some of the actions werent quite there, so its has slowed me down abit.