Process
Shirley and I drafted the basic storyline for the video, deciding on characters, events, and scenes. From there Shirley began designing the visual appearance for the characters and I worked on the storyboard in Photoshop. The storyboard had one (or sometimes more) image planning backgrounds and layouts for each short 5 to 10 second scene, as well as notes on animation, approximate length of the scene in frames, and desired effects. I created a list of which backgrounds to create and I was responsible for drawing each one, using FireAlpaca. After most backgrounds and characters were completed I started animating/setting keyframes for each of the scenes in Adobe Animate. Once the scenes were finished, I went back through and added effects like snow and rain, which I was responsible for drawing. I also went back and recut the scenes so that most lasted either two, four or eight bars, so that scene transitions could be timed more easily to music. Then I enlisted Garian to create the music for the trailer, giving him the storyboard and scene lengths as well as describing what sort of feeling I wanted at each point of the trailer. I worked closely with him to ensure that the music matched smoothly with the trailer. After all the scenes were finished and the music was added, I rendered and exported the video. |
Tools/Skills Used
Personal Responsibilities.
Other Teammates' Responsibilities
Shirley Mak
Garian Leighton-Anderson
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Studio IV // Future Worlds Conceptual Statement
‘When It Ends’ is a short trailer, advertising a currently unmade video-game. When It Ends will challenge people’s morals in a survival situation, where different choices not only determine whether Jonathan (The main character) survives the winter, but whether the dozens of characters he meets and form relationships with survive as well. Set twenty years in the future, When It Ends explores the effects of global warming on seasons, the economy, and society. While based in reality and future predictions, we’ve pushed the predictions towards extremes in order to accelerate the decay of the fabricated society, to make the game more interesting and tense to play, and from there, the trailer more exciting and eye-catching to watch. The three-minute-long trailer encapsulates the mood and story-line of the trailer while still leaving some mystery. The first scene quickly sets the tone for the game and trailer, showing how it is set over a long period of time, and also showing the extreme weather, which plays a key role in the game. The trailer aims to make the audience emotionally connected to the characters for the brief time that they appear. The first half of the video is low key, introducing the world, the characters, and showing how the player, as Jonathan, can interact, make choices, and talk to others. The second half of the video introduces tension and stakes, showing how the player’s choice can mean other characters live or die. It shows the deterioration of society and the worsening weather. The audience can see through the video the impact that global warming and the extreme weather has on the character’s lives, on society, and on their chances of survival. The trailer gives examples of positive and negative choices in the game, for example, the player can choose to feed a stray dog, and later in the trailer they see that they have adopted it and the dog is sleeping in their house. On the other hand, the character helps Holmes - who is homeless - talks to them and learns Holmes’ life story, but when Holmes warns them he will not survive the winter Jonathan does not act, and at the end of the video there is a scene of Holmes dead in the snow. Hopefully, this makes the audience question what choices they would make in similar survival situations. I also want the audience to consider what the effect of Global Warming and severe weather could have on their own personal lives and the people around them, just as how in the trailer we see the effects of the environment less as a whole and more on how it impacts Jonathan and his friends. Over this semester I have learnt 2D animation and expanded my skills in background art and pixel art. I had a conceptual document discussing the world and game storyline, and when writing the storyboard and creating the animations I would often refer back to it, assessing whether the current material in the trailer would convey all the elements of the game that we wanted it to. Shirley and I used a google drive with a shared document that allowed us to communicate and build the trailer together, as we relied heavily on what each other were creating in order to create the full trailer. While animating I got others to watch the trailer and separate scenes, and ask what they thought was happening in each scene, so that I could understand how an outsider would view the trailer. While my skills at creating backgrounds that look lived in has increased, in the future I would want to experiment more with lighting and shadows, and also colour palettes for scenes and full videos. Throughout this project the focus of the trailer has shifted less from pointing out that its global warming causing everything and more toward the interactions between characters, as we as humans relate more to stories and character interactions. A brief mention of global warming is all that is needed to explain the extreme weather, and the trailer can focus more on getting the viewers emotionally invested in the characters. |
Studio IV // Future Worlds Contextual Statement
When It Ends is set twenty years in the future, and explores the effects of global warming on seasons, the economy, and society. While based in reality and future predictions, we’ve pushed the predictions towards extremes. In the last century, the global temperature has increased by one degree Fahrenheit. While that doesn’t seem like much, “at the end of the last ice age, when the Northeast United States was covered by more than 3,000 feet of ice, average temperatures were only 5 to 9 degrees cooler than today.” (Nasa, n.d.) and the current predictions for the next century by The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United States and other countries, “forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.” (Nasa, n.d.) In our future world seasons have been pushed to their extremes, with roasting hot summers, autumns full of thunderstorms and flooding, and one long snow-storm for winters, which makes venturing outside for the three months of winter a death-sentence. “More extreme weather events of all kinds—from snowstorms to hurricanes to droughts—are likely side effects of a climate in transition,” (Scientific American, 2009). The change of weather means that “Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised.” (Nasa, n.d) In an effort to centralize resources and reinforce the cities against the storm, cities have begun to build upwards. The space above buildings is sold and used, “Airspace has become a commodity, and can be traded in the same way as a physical structure or land,” (Latham, L. February 2017) so there is a mash of old and new architecture right next to each other. The city has become maze-like, with buildings and roads built upwards in layers. This means that the lower and centre areas have some protection against the high winds, rain, and snowstorms. The climax of the game would be a superstorm, which the main character knows will occur in the future, but doesn’t know when. It is inspired by movies like ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ and ‘2012’, which both focus on calamitous weather events. “Nine of the top 10 years for extreme one-day precipitation events have occurred since 1990.” (EPA, 2016) When It Ends draws inspiration from games like Undertale (Toby Fox, 2015). Like Undertale, When It Ends has a focus on morals and choices, and the players actions influence the storyline. The trailer for When It Ends draws inspiration for the trailer for Undertale and The Count Lucanor, in terms of format and art style. The art style for When It Ends is also heavily inspired by these two games. When It Ends is a pixel art game, reminiscent of early computer games. The simple aesthetics are colourful and appealing, and also invoke nostalgia in the viewers of times when global warming wasn’t an issue. When It Ends is aimed towards Young Adults, as they are the generation that has the most chance of averting an environmental disaster. In the future, When It Ends could be developed into a full video game, with multiple choices and paths. References: Nasa (n.d.) The Consequences of Climate Change. Global Climate Change. Retrieved from: https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/ Scientific American (2009) Why Global Warming Can Mean Harsher Winter Weather. Retrieved from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-global-warming-harsher-winter/ Kloser, H., Gordon, M. & Franco, L. (Producers) Emmerich, R. (Director) (2009) 2012 [Motion Picture] United States: Columbia Pictures. Gordon, M. (Producer) & Emmerich, R. (Producer & Director) (2004) The Day After Tomorrow [Motion Picture] United States: 20th Century Fox Latham, L. (Febuary 20, 2017) Upwardly mobile: how the air space above your roof could become a new home. The Telegraph. Retrieved from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/upwardly-mobile-air-space-roof-could-become-new-home/ Epa (2016) Climate Change Indicators: Weather and Climate. Retrieved from: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/weather-climate Toby Fox (2015) Undertale. [Video Game] Baroque Decay (March 3, 2016) The count Lucanor [Video Game] |