500 word rationale

Over the past two terms i have been creating an animation that is an interpretation of Marry Shelley's Frankenstien. I choose this script as Im interested in creating a virtual environment that portrays the emotions and feel of an animation. I focused on creating an environment by looking into how my mise en scene and cinematography would be interpreted by an audience. I also like the darkness and creepiness of the script and the internal struggle that goes on in the professors mind about creating something new and groundbreaking and his total fascination and engrossment in his work. then at the end his disgust at what he has created.

The look of my animation had to be in the gothic style as it is sterotypical gothic. I also decided that the look of his lab should also contain references to his work, that his objects and rooms should look like the internal working of the body. My original idea was to have every object shaped as an internal organ, but some of the objects didn't work to well and added confusion to the overall look. My favourite example of this working well is the fireplace in the shape of a heart, it still looks like a fireplace but has gothic features as well. Another example is the stairs in the first scene has a subtle look of a human spine and ribs but all the normal features of wrought iron spiral staircase. For objects that didn't work well shaped as a combination of gothic and organs I added a organ/tissue coloured texture to add a quirky detail.

As I was focusing on the mise en scene and cinematography rather than character animation I decided that my animation should be in the style of a movie trailer rather than a whole story. Frankenstein is so famous that I wanted my animation to be a glimpse into my version of the frankenstien story in visual representation. I feel the overall look gives the trailer the gothic, scary feel of the original story and the emotions going on of the creator. I added a courtyard scene of a tree to represent the amount of time spent on his work. The stairs, to show the location of his work in the top of the house. The religious stained glass window to show his internal struggle of his emotions to create and whether his work is ungodly and wrong. I also added multiple shots at different interesting angles to add a feeling of power and wonder.

As telling the story was done through the use a visual environment I decided I would create my own textures as I felt this would work well with my ideas of combining gothic design with human organs and body parts. I feel the use of my own textures added a feeling of togetherness and brought the project and scenes together as a whole.

Looking back over the outcome of the project, I am pleased with the overall look but I am slightly disappointed with the animation, it looks like the way I visualized it but I don't think it portrays how much time and work went into it. The lighting is alot darker in some shots than when I rendered it. To add suspense and excitement I also added a quick moving ending to the animation but I feel alot of the detail and textures I created are lost. Although the use of erie music helps to add to the scariness. At the end of this project I do feel my skill from texturing, lighting and modeling making have greatly improved from my previous work.

Images from my animation!

Character Designs!

Although I am doing the frankenstein script I have still created two characters that go with the story. I created a professor/creator in a white lab coat and wearing black rubber glove to protect him from the work he does, I also gave my character magnifying goggles in a victorian style, so he can see his work in closer detail. The overall look of my characters are inhuman beings that are cross between a rodent/alien creature as I feel this helps the viewer understand the inhuman work the creator is doing and that the creator is also a monster for the work he does. The Monster is similar to the creator but on a much larger scale, has yellow/greenish skin and is not in proportion as mentioned in the script. I also gave my character longer arms because I see the creator uses his hands a lot when working and the monster also has long arms because he is made up of part of a similar creature to the professor.

Modeling!!!

Here are some of the renders of my modeling during my project. I feel the gothic/victorian gothic style is coming across well and the use of my own textures helps the overall look of the creator obsession of the human body and the way it works not only in his work but in his own home, creating an ideal place to work within his own world.

Creating My own textures!

As the focus of my script is the environment to tell the story I have created my own textures rather than using default 3ds max or of the internet. I have used the starting point from the art of seeing project to take my own pictures of the textures I would like to have in my animation. I then changed and manipulated these images in photoshop to suit my design of being inside the creators mind and thoughts of his work. I used these textures together in my project to make it look more real and layered different textures together so I could have a stone wall, put it was flesh coloured like human organs for example.

Visual Inspiration!

The overal look of my animation has got to be gothic. My main influences are these images of medieval architecture from churches and cathedrals. I want the look of my scenes to have a combination of medieval gothic in architecture but also to have aspects of Victorian gothic furniture and style to add more colour and patterns.