End of term 1.

Wow, term one has finished! We ended the term by presenting our work to the class. Our group went first. It was a little nerve wracking but I think we pulled it off well- we got good class feedback which is positive but you never quite know what your tutors are thinking... until you get your grades back :S

Ok, so now it's Christmas break. I'll probably put this project on hold over the holidays and work on my dissertation instead. Last term, so much time was spent on our essays and presentations that there wasn't much time to spend on our project. I figure that if I at least get 3/4 of a first draft completed of my dissertation that then I can spend the majority of my time next term working on this project :)

Have a great Christmas!

Contract and Timescale.

Because time was slipping away, I wasn't sure if I would have time to completely design and make the contracts for the group. I wrote down some points and gave them to Jake to make into a contract as he could fit it into his time schedule. Below are my points, however Jake added a few of his own, which seeing as they gave me more power I decided to leave in as the group seemed happy!

Original Contract Points:

By the signing of this contract, I agree that:

1. This will be the main project that I work on.


2. I will not abandon the group. In the case of wishing to leave permission must be obtained by the director.


3. I will put my full potential and ability into my work.


4. I will not take credit for work that is not my own.


5. The directors decision is final.

I also created a timescale way back at the beginning of this project, but until now, forgot to upload screenshots of it into my blog. The full version is located in our groups public sharing folder and is updated every time we complete a piece of work.

Layout Drawings

I created a layout drawing so that it would be easier for my group to see how I viewed the surrounding environment for the ride. When I showed it to them I was happy to see they imagined it the same way. Great minds think alike! This image isn't up to the best standard, so hopefully if i get time later I can improve on it. At the moment its clear enough to serve its purpose :)

I tried the cutout filter for this one in 'Photoshop' because as a group we've used it successfully on our work previously, like in the Gargoyle animation. Although I think it is too much to completely render out the film in this style, I think it does work well when using the tool to create individual textures for objects. A method we will probably use again.

A quick testjust for me really. The group know I like black lines around objects, a personal preference, but none of the others do :( siigh, so the outline will have to be axed!

Colour tests

Scary, scary! Big deadline tomorrow! I miss the good old days where you just handed in all your work and could go and recover at the Chinese restaurant with your friends. Now the Chinese food has to wait a few hours while we have to present our work to the whole class :S Ah well.
Anyways! Here be some colour tests that I constructed.

Normal tree colour. I feel that we need normal trees in our environment as well as tinted ones so that at first glance the environment appears normal but on a second glance, it is much more mysterious... adds to the whole mood of the piece :)

After working on my film analysis essay, I have become really interested in colour symbolism and how artists incorporate it into their work, so I thought it would be cool to add some in our project as well, by finding trees that look creepy tinted, but also represent something. I thought about having one side of the glade that surrounds the ride have positive coloured trees mixed in with the normal trees, and on the other side, trees tinted that represent danger etc. This represents the two parts of the ride, the good one for good people and the bad one for bad people.

Although purple looked mysterious, it didn't really fit in with what the trees are meant to represent. However it did inspire the colour for the main body of the ride, as its meaning really worked well there. I spoke to the group about it and it was decided.

Although as with all colours, green has both good and bad representations, neither side again really fitted in too much. So at the moment this is in my mental 'maybe' category.

Yellow fits in perfectly in the negative representations and would work well against blue. So amongst the normal trees, look out for blue trees on one side of the ride and yellow on the other!

A test for the old market stall colours. I couldn't decide which one I liked the best visually, between pink and blue, as I thought yellow seemed a bit bright. I chose red, returning to the colour symbolism theme- pinky/red as a warning about the ride perhaps :S

A test for the sign above the entrance to the ride. When I showed the group we decided against having a clown on the sign altogether as the clown gave the impression that the ride could be a fun house. We thought it a better idea if the ride remained looking neutral so that the audience would have no idea what sort of ride the characters would be entering and it be a surprise.

Designs for the exterior of the rides wall. They were inspired by looking at the patterns on the carousels that were in my moodboards.

More tests. (Just click the image to enlarge and read the text).

Although judges always wear black, when I was sketching out the design, I had it in my head that he would be wearing red. However, after a quick colour test I realised that wouldn't really work as the audience might not be able to recognise him as a Judge or just think that I'd got the colours wrong accidentally. I like this test because it looks like he's a deranged news reader :)

The clowns in the jury when the girls enter the room. They are completely still.

The clowns when the girls turn back after making the wrong decision after the Judge asks them a question.

A quick wave test. I don't want the waves in Kittys room to be stereotypical wave shapes. I prefer it slightly stylised like above.