Major Project

Production Dairy

Hong Yiu Sung (Sara) up714482

up714482@myport.ac.uk
18Jan, 2015
Lecturer: Eva Palacios

Context
1. WWF Campaign Introduction
2. Idea and Audience
3. Storyboard, cinematography Narrative
4. Character Design
5. Motion research
6. Background
7. Final Animation
8. References

WWF Campaign
Whales hunting has become a worldwide animal hunting activities, in this world,
more than 50 countries engage in whale hunting and this turn out the result of the
number of whales in the entitle world become less and less. According to the
research from WWF, between 1970 and 2012, the population of whales has
declined more than 40% and now just left no more than 10000, especially the
whales in North Atlantic remain 300 less. It is significantly to observe 50 years later,
there would be remain less than 4000 species of whale. As we known, whales
bodies commonly used for perfume making, food production, industrial purpose
etc. Although many countries has already resumed the hunting activities, there are
no way to see the whales are still facing the risk of extinction in this planet.
Therefore, in this project, I would like to emphasize the "outcome" of if the people
consume the products from whales, in order to strengthen the importance of
whales protection.

Idea and Audience

In this project, I prefer to use "horror" as the genre.
Fear and scary are a type of sense that human react
to something out of understanding or unknown, in
some situation, for example after watching horror
movie, some people would have nightmare at night
this is due to the memories of the impact from
horror. Therefore, horror is prefer to use as making
long term memory in people mind. I would like to
bring out the concept of what if the whales act like
after being eaten or killed. Audience usually stated
their view on how the person going to eat whales,
but in this animation would be set opposite view,
how the whales eat human horribly and bloody. This
create an opportunity for audience to think and
engaged in the narrative, in order to bring out the
impact from the animation.

Storyboard, Cinematography and narrative

[1] It is reading from left to right and up to bottom. In these 6 shots, camera
usually following the movement of the whale except the first 3 sequence, this
is a shot trying to emphasize the size of the whale body by placing the camera
on the same height. It is showed by a long shot of whale is swimming from far
away which represent the distance between it and camera.

[2] The scene of the whale falling down scene has been cut into various
times in order to show the high speed of fallen. Also the background
colour changed when cut into other scene, to reveal the depth of the
ocean, the darker colour the deeper it reached. After the body died, story
started again in the whale ghost perspective, camera away from the
character and concentrate on the environment, that the colour of the
background is red.

[3]Colour is an important element in this animation. When tons of

whales ghosts become a dark and giant whale ghost, the colour tones
turn into grey and black. Black preferred to negative emotion, this
helps to enhance the visual effect on the screen.

[4] After a cut, a sushi restaurant with warm colour is revealed.

Camera focus on the action of eating a piece of whale sushi, and
then it extreme close up to the pupil, which narrow into a whale
shadow, this present the man feel something scare. It is common
to use this form to show the fear of people, typically used in horror
movie.

It is clear to observe the genre change in whole animation, light blue and warm
colour used at the beginning shots, of course the brisk movement of the whale helps
is indispensable. The crush of the ship become a turning point of the narrative,
colour suddenly change into deep colour and end up in a light colour place. Refers to
the image of heaven, there was a place light and peaceful, therefore it means the
whale has already died. For the whales hunting scene, basically I tried to mix the
realistic human and drawing together, but the effect eventually not good enough,
finally I just concentrated on one type of drawing style. To the ending, I was trying to
use the technique from the horror movie genre, the character would be takeover by
the ghost and be destroyed. This ending is applied with this concept, destroy, people
hunt whales and make destroy on their bodies and soul in order to satisfy the
sufficient needs. Therefore, oppositely human able to suffer or lost if they destroyed
something. That is the main theme of the entitle story.

Storyboards (Testing)
The sequence of the beginning has
been changed, like after the crush,
just spend 1 scene to describe it is
falling. This results in not enough
time to show the falling process,
and looks rush. I tried to add more
details on the final version.

There was completely corrected for

the ending. It was originally the
whale shocked by the scene of
chopping whales bodies and eat it.
At the end died on the bodies
mountain with full of blood.

Character Design
This is the final version of the main
character Whale, there are two different
version, the normal ver. and the Dark ver.
I used a clear outline to recognize the
body structure of whale. Basically I mixed
humpback whale and orca as references
to the body outline design. Also the fin at
the back is really tiny to see. For the black
ver. used the brush to blend out the
colour to let it to look more unrealistic.

This is the first character design of this project, at

the beginning, I was wondering to design the
character to a collage style as the design concept
was the whale in dream, so thats the reason with
used flowers as the body construction. Also, the
reference was blue whale.

Character Design Research

For the final character design
references, I used Orca and
Humpback whale to be my light.
Both whale body structure are
different, Humpback has a long body
shape with rough skin compare to
Orca, it is round and with wet skin.
When I was doing research, I would
like to find a whale with fast
movement but looks not smart,
therefore I mixed the both
characteristic to be my design
inspiration.

Motion Research
I used Orca for my
motion research
target. Orca is the
fastest swimmer
within the whale
world. Compare with
Humpback, their body
movement is really
smooth

Background

The colour of epipelagic

zone
The colour of
mesopelagic zone

[1
]
[3
]

[2]
[4
]

The colour of
bathypelagic zone
The colour imagine of
heaven

Ocean layers

Whales bodies at pier. Reference used by

real photo.
Sushi restaurant entrance

Sushi restaurant. Reference used by real

photo.
The window in the restarurant

Final Animation Editing

Software:
Graphic and character design: Photoshop CC
Animatic: Photoshop CC and Flash Professional CC
Video complex: Premiere CC
Sound editing: Audacity and Premiere CC
Time adjustment: Flash Professional CC and Premiere CC

Weakness:
Observation among character movement is insufficiency, especially the tail and fin
movement.
Lack of sound effect in the animation
Insufficient in time management of preparation of Animatic
Limitation of colouring style

Future improvement:

Spend more time in preparation of design and research

Use more various resources for reference
Confident to present the idea to receive the advice from others
Attempt to use different brushes and style on design process
Visit the real place and record the opinion and feeling as referencing

References
Aqua biomes. Sheri Amsel.18May, 2015. Contemporary Biology 2015.
http://blogs.mtlakes.org/contemporarybio/files/2015/05/ocean_layers.jpg
Incredible Footage of Killer Whales Playing Underwater. Smithsonian Channel.5June, 2010. (1:50- 1:54).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbtaJs8AWw
Japanese table manner. root. 26November, 2014. News 6 Paper. http://travel5s.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Arestaurant-with-both-table-and-tatami-seating.jpg
Killer Whale in a jump over water. http://namonitore.ru/uploads/catalog/whales/kasatka_v_prizhke_nad_vodi_1600.jpg
Mass of whale hunting in Faroe Island leave sea blood red. Andrija Ilic. 25November,2011. http://lh3.ggpht.com/XcdoCLlxLNU/Ts6OZNSMS2I/AAAAAAAASQ4/BzbRNmTniIw/whale-hunting-2%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800
Orca Family Playing with Crowd. Tracy Brewer. 31July, 2008. (2:15- 2:21). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvWoC71Uc2o
Orca Family Playing with Crowd.Tracy Brewer. 31July, 2008. (2:08- 2.10).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvWoC71Uc2o
Shamu Killer Whale Image. Tessa. 24May, 2010.
https://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiU6J3Cg6z
KAhVJRhQKHWDcD2YQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clker.com%2Fclipart63468.html&psig=AFQjCNH2d8pNdgRsRN3qRHnWvguNO7SjWQ&ust=1452942899188650
Swimming with Humpback Whales. Aggressor Fleet. 31July, 2008. (4:15).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPaLN_1iOZ8