Animatic 3

This is the 3rd version of my animatic: a work in progress submitted to the industry critique of March13th. Among the panelists was FLORIAN from "Psyop" and HOON CHONG from "Suspect". The critiques focused on paying attention to the production
quality of the work: fluent transitions, good keying, and no pixilation or blurriness...

Animatic Updated

Faculty Critique Session

Thursday February 7th 6:00PM
An important event held in CADA To help evaluate the work progress of each thesis student.

Scene1_Shot1 Update

CALENDAR

Click to open Thesis Production Schedule in a larger window

scene1_Shot2

The growing Paint that takes place inside the Fairy-tale book

Scene1_Shot1

These are a few tests of keying and camera move for the first shot of the first scene. I got few takes of the turning page , and should choose the most convenient one- in terms of timing and of keying.
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Research Paper

Click to Open The PDF link

Keying Test

Behind the scenes: Green screen

This is Meriem ,The actress That portrays the adult stage of the character.

Audio Track: CHARBEL ROUHANA

The audio track is by Artist CHARBEL ROUHANA
CLICK ON TITLE TO LINK TO THE ARTIST'S HOME PAGE

ANIMATIC

BOOK + CHARACTER SYLE

This video depicts the book style and the turning of the pages. The character motion is one thing I was asked about during the faculty critique session; a silhouette style...

PRODUCTION STYLE BOOK

COLOR PALTTE/ STYLE GUIDE

The color Palette includes both the dull and the vibrant part Representing the two different world: Fairytale and real World

SYNOPSIS

This is a story about a girl’s journey in life. The girl is at a transitional moment of her life. It is the moment when we put away our childhood fantasies and fairy tale visions of the world to become an adult and face the brutality and violence of the real world. The girl is enacted by three main female characters, a child, an adolescent, and a grown up. These characters represent the different stages of life, as emphasized by the physical differences of each character’ body.
The story is constructed within two worlds: A Real world and a fantasy (fairytale) world, which start completely independent and parallel from each other. As the story progresses they start to intertwine and eventually lead to a single outcome.
This journey takes place inside a Fairy tale book. It does not contain more than superficial reference to any actual place, person or event. It takes place “once upon a time” rather than in actual time -As in most fairy tales.
The story will take place inside a fairytale book. The story starts with a little girl, holding a fairytale book and turning its pages. We then zoom into one of the pages where the story starts to unfold in the form of a growing displaced paint on the book page.
The story consists of tree major scenes, which will be marked by the turning of the fairy tale book page. The fairy is the element that leads action and that maintain the relationship between the three different scenes.
Also, worth to mention that, except from the first scene, the script relies on the poem for the succession of events.
o Beginning: Fairy tale world
The fairy emerges from the book page and leads us to the first environment of fairy tale .The visuals; at this level is mainly graphical and abstract, bright and colorful, reflecting a the one hand a dream like imagery, and on the other hand, the little girl’s fairy tale vision of the world.

o Middle: Day Scene
The Fairy, again, introduces us to this the second scene: desert environment where the actual walking journey starts. Real world imagery of new natural characters /elements (Serpents, lizards and scorpions…) are introduced, in addition to a silhouette of he girl walking across the scene.

o End: Night Scene
Another climactic change marks another turning point in the story. The environment changes into a night desert. The visual styles of fairy world and real world/ desert scenes come together. New elements are introduced, which will work with the girl to reach the knowledge she has been looking for.

This short supports some major themes:
o The Fairy Tale:
Although fairy tales are widely adapted for children literature, adults were originally the audience of the fairy tale. Older fairy tales are usually indicative of psychological conflicts and are useful to both children and adults as way of symbolically resolving issues.
o The Journey
The journey may look like an outward trek across dunes of sand in the harshest climatic conditions, but the actual movement is inward into the lands of the soul and the depths of our consciousness. It’s usually about how we can reason our way into discovering and then defining ourselves, and who we are within the circle of life.
The harshness and pains of the journey also represent the paths we must chose from in life, and the crossroads we must bear.
o The Desert
According to Sabine Bouvet, an independent writer who specializes in travel and gastronomy “Mankind’s place in the universe is never as clear as in the desert. Some people climb these immense stretches of sand in search of a place. Others come to nourish themselves with the wisdom of the Sahara… to travel in the Sahara is to make a spiritual journey in search of striking revelations. Whether a simple bare truth or a reflection of the surrounding landscapes”
As to the first time visitor, the desert offers some of the harshest and yet magically beautiful and awe inspiring landscapes on earth (from the crushing sun and heat of the day to the glorious splendor of the star-spangled night.) Which no doubt makes it a great parable for life. All the annoyances we may encounter from day walking, and expeditions in general provides such effective lessons in foresight, organization, endurance, patience, and objectivity, lessons that allow plenty of time to ponder- a rarity these days, at least under certain skies.


o The Light
The moonlight is the revelation, which is granted to man, and which is reflected in his heart after being received and consciously grasped by his reason (the radiant moon); For it is through reason alone that truth can find its way into the hearth of man.
For Saba Haider, in her article “Knowledge is enlightenment”, from New York Spirit Magazine, Enlightenment is a deeply personal realization of oneself, with an “S”, and who we are, fed by our experiences and then living and acting and behaving from there.

o The Tree
The tree is an allusion to the organic continuity of all revelation which, starting like a tree from one root or proposition and growing steadily throughout man’s spiritual history, branching out into a splendid variety of experiences, thus endlessly widening the range of his perception of truth. The association of this concept with the olive-tree was derived from this Quranic verse:
“God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of his light is as it were that of a niche containing a lamp; the lamp is enclosed in glass, the glass shinning like a radiant star: a lamp lit from a blessed tree that is neither of the east nor of the west, the oil where of [is so bright that it] would well-nigh give light [of itself] even though fire had not touched it.”
The olive tree is considered a sacred tree and is characteristic of the lands in which most prophetic precursors of the Quranic message lived, namely, the lands to the east of the Mediterranean. But since all true revelations flows from the infinite being, it is “neither of the east nor of the west” and especially so a revelation that is universal in its goal and that its inner consistency, truth and wisdom ought to be self evident to any one who approaches it in the light of his reason and without prejudice.

THESIS STATEMENT

My thesis consists of creating a short animation about a girl who chooses to travel in the desert and face its dangers, to emerge transformed by the experience.

The story is treated in the form and style of a fairy tale. It will combine real world imagery and some animated graphics. special effects will be used to help convey the emotions and to maintain a fairytale environment.

INTRODUCTION

The poem that inspired this story was originally thought of and written in simple Arabic. Its meaning though might be universal as it describes the continuous human search for guidance and need to clarify the confusion about man's destiny and the world around him

In an Arid desert 

With a torrential wind

A scorching sun

serpents, lizards and scorpions

cactuses dispersed 

Here and there

Far in the distance I see a mirage 

I can see the lure of the rain

I carelessly headed toward it

Unwary of any pains

I walked and kept walking 

strained and thirsty

I kept walking and walking 

Finally I reached the mirage 

It was night time, then 

In an arid desert 

With a torrential wind

Its scorching sun

Yielded to a full moon 

And an absolute darkness

It wasn't a vision what I see

The mirage was a truth

That was a lake

Of water, oil or medley

I can't tell 

It was too dark to see

But, I looked around

where is the moon, hidden?

Its light,

Why is it obstructed?

There, inside the lake

I can see the moonlight

Coming from deep within the lake 

Emanating from the moon top

But, is that really the moon 

This is much brighter 

That wasn't the moonlight

What I saw within the lake 

That  was a shrub

A blessed olive 

Neither of the east nor of the west

Its oil lit with the moonlight.