First art for "The Fountain"!!

If not apparent by now, I think I'm going with "The Fountain" as my thesis animation. Woohoo! Scroll down a few posts for the premise.

Doodled these in class today. I'll clean them up this weekend, but I wanted to get them up before my scanner got buried in the storm of clothing, notebooks, high-heels, and lacrosse gear that inevitably tears through my room every Friday afternoon to Sunday night.

It's Arthur!! Older and younger versions. And a few doodles of Young Penny, which I've decided I need to re-do... umm, please ignore the dinosaur-bird in the top corner. There's also a weird zoomed-out view of a camera move I want to do through Penny's hallway (without the drawings on the walls yet), kind of like a reverse trombone-shot with a little bit of a warp thrown in. It works in my head, ok...

PREMISE # 4: something completely different

I call it "Mimesis"

Nothing really solid to write here other than it would be dreamscapey (but not cliché!), more like a lucid dream/stream of consciousness swim through a 3D space (in Maya) with bits of 2D animation (traditional, paint on glass, live action, flash) projected onto planes and other 3D shapes. As we move through the environment, it is a journey through the mind of, well, me. I'm sure there would be some profound realization at the end, or maybe it would just be resignation. Either way, it's saying something.

EDIT: I think I'd like to work in some form of poetics, too. Play off of the intersection of science and poetry, the intellectual vs. emotional/active, how one directs the other and heavy reliance upon one throws everything horribly off-kilter. Think "Science and Poetry" by I.A. Richards. Also think 'music of the spheres,' the beauty of logic, etc. Maybe some more abstract visual poetry thrown in here and there for our little hero to run up against.

PREMISE # 3: the can of worms

Under the Dodo Tree

Steve lives with his wife Carole and two children Mary and Marty in the suburb of a small, idyllic town. Everything is perfect or nearly so. The only difference between our reality and theirs is that the only animal ever domesticated was the dodo. They have never known it to be another way. Steve is the not-so-proud owner of Darwin, a hapless dodo beloved by Mary, Marty, and Carole. Steve, however, despises the dodo and all of his kind. One day, Carole makes Steve take Darwin for a walk. On the way, however, one of Steve’s neighbors warns him of a troupe of dodos that have gone feral in the town’s park. Steve pays to attention and continues on his way.

In town, Steve tries on countless occasions to rid himself of Darwin to no avail. They go to the park and Steve finally manages to shoo Darwin away from him. Content, he falls asleep while reading the newspaper on a park bench. When he wakes up in the dark, he looks for Darwin so that his family won’t hate him. Instead, he is attacked by the feral dodos. Darwin saves Steve and so gains his love. The next day, Steve happily takes Darwin out for a walk, but discovers that the town is dark and abandoned, the ghost-town atmosphere punctuated only by the scuttle of dodo feet in the shadowy recesses. They quickly return home after realizing that all of the town’s dodo population has gone feral and discover that Steve’s family, along with the rest of the town, has been kidnapped! Darwin and Steve formulate a plan to infiltrate the feral dodo nest and free the townspeople. They sneak their way in past the giant clydesdodo guards and Darwin battles the head dodo. He emerges victorious after appearing to fly down from a ledge and land on him, much to the astonishment of the other dodos. Darwin becomes the alpha dodo and leads the others out into the park, allowing the townspeople to escape as well.

Soon, it becomes apparent that even though the feral dodos return to their owners, they never quite return to normal. They remain bedraggled and with red beady eyes, occasionally lapsing into barbarism only to look up at their masters with pleading eyes upon punishment. The townspeople decide that they will let the dodos die out, as their domestic lineage is irrecoverable. Darwin lives out his days as the last dodo beloved by all and after a tearful death, is stuffed and placed in a museum so that his heroism remains immortal.

PREMISE # 2: expansion of a short

This is actually a treatment from last semester for a short I made in Maya with some Flash elements. I'd really like to expand on it because the original though was much more involved and involved chase sequences around the city of Florence, knocking over the statue of David, a bus launching off the top of the Duomo, and many other things. Rather than rewrite the whole thing right now, I'll just post the short treatment and figure out reblocking the new scenes later... ehh...

Here's a link to the short (if you haven't seen it on my facebook): http://vimeo.com/19243308

ANIMATION TREATMENT: "The Bus"

The camera pans down to reveal girl walking with a backpack (probably on S. Egidio). She is looking down as she walks toward us. The buildings are tall and somewhat off-kilter and papery looking. A faint noise is heard in the distance. As it grows louder, she looks up and into the camera. A beat later, a demonically red bus zooms past and the girl starts in a big way. After the bus has exited, she is left in a pretzel-like pose, on one foot, arms wrapped around her head and clearly shaken.

Title frame: “The Bus”

Next, cut to the girl, this time walking away from us. She approaches a corner. As she is about to turn, a bus zooms around it, sending her against the wall, eyes wide. She clings there for a moment before sliding down a bit.

Next cut: The girl walks toward us again, apprehensive and looking quickly from side to side every so often. She comes up on another corner and stops short of it by a few feet. She flattens herself against the wall and sidles up to the corner of the building, easing her way over to try and see around it. Just as she does, the bus again zooms past but this time from behind her. After it passes, she is revealed standing stiff as a board. After a beat, she begins to tip backwards and then falls over flat (think like a tree).

Next: close ups of a door slamming, lock being slid, window being closed and curtains drawn. Cut to the girl, wracked with tremors, sitting down at a table in a small apartment. There is a pizza box on the table. She puts her hands on the table and it, too, shakes.

Zoom in to frame just the girl and half of the table with the pizza box. She takes a deep breath and stops shaking. She smiles and reaches to open the pizza box. Just as soon as she swings the lid up, a bus scales up out of the box (this all happens very fast) and smacks her in the face, pushing both bus and girl out of frame.

PREMISE # 1: emotasticness

The Fountain

The world is populated by people that would otherwise be ordinary except for the fact that their fingers are made of crayons, chalk, pencils, and other drawing implements. The children have the longest fingers, as they have not had much time to use them yet. Our story centers on a young girl, Penny. We meet her at school, surrounded by children running, laughing, playing, and drawing all over everything. She sits, dejected, as her fingers appear to be fountain pen nibs. Penny cannot draw, as she has no ink. The other children laugh at her. This continues on through high school. She tries to draw using paint from a boy with paint-fingers, Arthur, but it only dries up. One day, Penny returns home to mope in her room, as usual. She strokes her fingers up and down her arms. Scowling, she digs her fingers into her arm and inky ‘blood’ wells up. Shocked, Penny is frozen for a minute, then begins to write on the wall. It works. By the time Penny is an adult, her classmates’ fingers have all worn down to artless nubs. They are now drudging businessmen drones, lacking any semblance of individuality. Penny tries to be a part of the workforce, but all of the employers judge her for her pen-fingers. They have not worn down at all. In fact, they are sharper than ever. She wears long sleeves, too, that occasionally seep ink from inside. Workless, she returns home. This time, though, her house is full of etchings, cartoons, and wall upon wall of words: essays, poetry, and everything in between. One day she finds Arthur milling around downtown mindlessly. She tries to snap him out of it, but it is difficult. It isn’t until she leads him to her house that he sees her art and becomes like his old self. His fingers, though, are still woefully bare. He convinces Penny to share her art with the world. She is uneasy, but agrees.

Penny’s art is a hit. Everyone flocks to her exhibitions and upon leaving they each seem livelier and less of a drone. After a few weeks, however, things grow out of hand. People are obsessed with Penny’s ability to create art while the rest of the adult world can no longer do so. They hunt her down, begging her to create more. Her art consumes her life: she sits at home all day and night, bleeding out her work.

Four possible endings:

Ending 1: Penny becomes engrossed with her fame and lets it carry her away. She eventually bleeds dry and the world goes back to the same way it was before (sad but realistic ending)

Ending 2: Penny becomes obsessed with her fame, goes insane, and after nearly bleeding herself dry decides to use the blood of other people, becoming a frenzied murderer in the name of art. (let’s not do this one…)

Ending 3: Arthur realizes the plight of his friend Penny and eventually talks her out of torturing herself for art. The rest of the world, still obsessed with her art, hunts down both Penny and Arthur, killing them both. (let’s not do this one either…)

Ending 4: Arthur talks Penny out of harming herself in the name of art. This act convinces the rest of the world that one person alone cannot give individual meaning and identity to everyone. The people work together to reclaim their own senses of self. (happy ending!)

As usual...

Hello! I'm Alessandra Waste.

This blog will catalogue the progress of my thesis animation at the University of Southern California.

More info to follow...