BFA Process Book

Transcript

1. 2 3 Table of Contents Part I: A Very Different Story Part II: A New Start Part III: Out of the Woods, Into the Home Part IV: Assembling the Story Part V: Moving Forward 4-9 16-19 24-27 10-15 20-23
2. 4 5 A Very Different Story Part I:
3. 6 7 A very Different Story... This BFA started out as a very different story, as you can imagine by looking at these images of nature, rather than those of a scrapbook. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure what story I wanted to tell, other than one about grief. It began in a roundabout way, having been recently bereft myself- I looked at what it means to be alive, and what it means to die. Momento Viveri and Momento Mori…”Remember to Live” and “Remember to Die”, respectively, guided this part of my journey as I looked at nature and how we go through life changes. I focused my attention on the symbolism of a butterfly, and of a little girl chasing it, growing older as she does. Looking at the design, I found inspiration from chunky concert art, Cartoon Saloon, and Craig of The Creek. The designers I looked at were Chris Sanders, Glen Keene, Danny Hynes, Mary Blair, and Shelly Laslow.
4. 8 9 What does grief mean for children? A Story About Grief And the story changed! However, my original story didn’t connect with my thesis. “While grief can be complicated and difficult for children, it is necessary to process and remember loved ones when they die.” I could not avoid grief in a thesis directly about it. So, I looked at my grief that I’ve harbored, and turned this film into something I would realistically want to do with my art. Grief is terrifying for adults, and even more so with children. Often with children, their first experience with death and mortality is through the death of a grandparent or older loved one. It can stunt development within them, and can be traumatic. Within my research, I found my writings about the death of my Nana from my perspective as a child.
5. A New Start 10 Part II:
6. 12 13 Starting Over But I kept running into road bumps UNTIL... Restarting was one of the hardest, but best things I had to do for this f ilm. With a new story, I had to rebuild the foundation of design I had already laid. Thankfully, my story was still about a little girl, so I had some ground to work on regarding character. My little girl is creative, hopeful, and wide-eyed at the start of our story. By the end, despite losing someone very special to her, she learns through her own creativity that remembering her late Grandma can bring comfort. So, I thought design should be easy, right? I found her, and her family...
7. 14 15 The Family Photo This is Mom! Mom recently lost her mother (Grandma) and now has to manage her own grief, along with helping her daughter through her first experience with grief. This is Dad! Dad is doing his best to support his wife and daughter as they make their journey with grief. This is Grandma! She loved making scrapbooks and her granddaughter. However, Grandma dies after falling ill.
8. 17 Part III: Out of the woods and Into the Home
9. 18 19 Home Sweet Home The shift from exterior based backgrounds to interior-based backgrounds was a bit of a challenge- between wrangling perspective and becoming more pointed with what I was designing, I had to find a way to merge the style I originally developed from my old story to this one. From there, I started using industry practices to help improve tone, composition, and texture within my illustrations. Overall, this was my favorite part of my thesis film- developing this world where my character learns and grows.
10. 20 21 Part IV: Assembling The Story
11. 22 23 Storyboarding The Process Story has to be one of the most challenging aspects of creation. It would get frustrating writing and rewriting, boarding, deleting, and drawing, and changing over and over again. However, I learned so much from this process- I couldn’t just dive into visual development without fleshing out my story. As my professor Lincoln put it, I was trying to frost a cake that hadn’t even been baked. Eventually, I figured it out. Everything starts with Storyboarding- for animated productions, it takes over a whole semester of changing your story, your shot choices, and character decisions. Next on the pipeline is Rough Animation- just trying to block in the movements based on your boards. After that, Cleaning is done, where we line our rough animation, and begin coloring. Finally, we reach Compositing, where we make sure our animation is solid, and add in shadows and lighting.
12. 24 Part V: Moving Forward
13. 26 27 Epilogue THANK YOU to... My Committee Members My Professors My Family & Friends The End Throughout the process of making this film, I had to process my own grief surrounding my grandparents. All have now passed as of one year ago. However, what I learned was that grief can guide you, for grief is not the absence of love, but rather the abundance of it. Despite the depression I went through, I wanted to make this film to honor my grandparents. They are part of the reason why I know love. I used that love to guide my thesis, in hopes that maybe I can make grief a little less scary for a child. This f ilm was made in loving memory of: Georgia and Carl Clutter & Kirannio and Ioannis Tsardoulias Aiden Burkley Amanda Lake Anthony Scalmato Jeff Simonetta Lincoln Adams Greg Leysens Lisa Tan Zach Owens My Amazing BFA Team Mom, Dad, and Max Maria Tsardoulias Samantha Fredle Che Sinclair Mei, Andrea, Jillian, and Matt The Animation Class of 2024 I’m so thankful for you.