Original Interface Idea

Remember the interface idea we had initially? We were going to lead the audience on to a menu page where they can choose the order in which they'd like to play the clips and then once they hit play they can't do anything but watch. They'd have to go through the process again if they want to switch things up. Our current one is clearly way cooler. You can switch any time you like and you loop automatically.

Team Thundercats' Pitch Gets Green Light!

So, what took us around 4 hours to articulate to each other yesterday took George 5 minutes to comprehend. Either that shows that hard work DOES pay off or George is a magnificent mind reader. Here are pictures of what we showed him (minus the doodles); namely, the timeline and interface structures.

Interface Design

This is a page from my sketchbook when we were working out the interface design and the timeline structure.

For tomorrow's pitch

How does this sound?

“We’re exploring the results of the introspection that occurs in each character when something shakes up the status quo, forcing them to realize that they don’t have as much control of there lives as they thought.”

I know it’s different than we discussed (and it’s wordy) but I think it hits everything we talked about plus it adds the element of not having control. I’m just not sure it’s a “theme”.

Preparing for the Pitch

After long hours of intense discussion about the project today, we've decided that:

1) basketball during such meetings help relieve stress and massage the creative mind

2) we can't say for sure what the main theme of our animatics is, but we definitely touch on terms such as introspection, disturbance of the status quo, and control

3) our look will be contrasting processed and unprocessed images and Daniel's big slimy whale eye

4) the plot involves an unusual meteor-like object crashing into Earth and how the lives of 4 strangers are affected / not affected by it

5) for interface, we'll have 4 stories all small enough to fit on the same screen so they can play alongside each other at the same time, with one of them larger than the rest when the cursor hovers over it (hopefully Lance can figure out how to lower the volume of the 3 stories down to 'indistinct chatters' while the one enlarged is fully audible)

6) our timeline covers moments leading to up to the crash, with all the characters' stories being interrupted by shots of the falling object at exactly the same time and the viewer has no way of opting out of it

Hope George approves!

Photos of us working on project - 2

For more, please visit the photo album at Flickr: Visual Story Project - Team Thundercat

eye ball!

how's this for a gross milky eye?

Proposed timeline

whipped this up so we know what we're talking about with george tomorrow.

Team Roles

George wants a list of who-does-what, so here are our 'official' titles for now:

Tze - Project Manager
Tiffany - Designer
Lance - Coder
Derick - Shooter
Kurt - Editor
Daniel - Special Effects

More meetings...

Super long group meeting at Lance’s apartment after our design studio scavenger hunt. Discussed ideas, themes and how to present the different stories. We narrowed down the central themes we would like to work with and focused on each story to allow these themes to be better communicated.

Photos of us working on project - 1

For more, please visit the photo album at Flickr: Visual Story Project - Team Thundercat

Early Theme / Story Brainstorming

This is a page from my sketchbook from one of our early brainstorming sessions.

Story ideas

Wrote two possible character narratives for tomorrow’s class.
Small boy plays in his room with action figures. He is wearing a cape and rubber boots. He sees a comet coming through the atmosphere through his bedroom window. He is excited. He gathers his toys in a cloth bag and puts on his head band. He runs out the front door and runs down the street. He is silhouetted by the explosion of light in the distance.

A business woman is at work. A co worker pokes their head over the cubicle and shows her a warning alert memo. The woman immediately grabs her purse and leaves work. She gets to her car speeds out of the parking lot. There is a traffic jam during her commute. Her radio is turned on and she looks out the window. She sees the comet. Frantic to get home, she swerves to the side and hits and oncoming car. She is knocked unconscious, her head lays motionless on the airbag.

We'll discuss these tomorrow and see how things go!

20 September meeting!

Short group meeting today. We talked about medium (photo/ illustration) and possible ideas for the different character stories. We decided that we would have connecting stories which revolve around one single event instead of working with several separate stories.

"Hello, I'm Daniel."

I proposed this idea I wrote to the group today. We then brainstormed on and worked on, and sweated on until it became the concept we're now exploring. The main theme here, is how egocentric people really are. I'm glad the group liked it and that it seems like the theme is moving on with the project.

Here're the paragraphs:

"He broke in abruptly, raging through glass, concrete and flesh. In one moment it was the sound of low conversation and typing on keyboards and in the next it was chaos. The arrival surprised a world of people used to the safety of routine and scientific prediction.
Later people interviewed by the TV news channels said that He stood straight up, looked around and walked out the door. Rather, through the door, frame and wall, considering his size.
In a desperate need to quantify and qualify this event and creature in some sort of way, journalists started out divided between calling him an alien or a god. Then, the attention diverted towards the reasons for the arrival. And then, two days later, he died alone.
Nobody, 6 billion people and nobody realized He’d come here to die."

First Meeting!

Broke up into groups and talked about our experience and skills to made sure we had the diverse skill sets to complete the job. We talked briefly about the concept and what our objective was.

Didn't go too much into detail about the project... we'll save that for later. Hooray!