Been a while

I just checked and ... I haven't blogged since September. Scary.

Since we have to have up-to-date blogs for mid-term and I can't post-date entries (I don't think), I'm just going to do a quick synopsis of all the exciting things that have happened.

1) September 7: Shortly after my last entry, I met with Patricia, explained all of my many problems and was very happy to hear that I don't actually have to DO animation for my thesis. Thank goodness. That means I might pass after all.

2) September 14: Story revisions. Vasilisa walks through forest looking for lost goose, gets eaten by house. Baba Yaga shows up and growls at house, prompting it to spit out Vasilisa's skull. Story at this point involves complicated thing with Baba Yaga taking the Hut for a walk. This will be cut by October 8th.

3) September 21: Look and feel. I'm presenting a 3D animatic by this point, and I painted some placeholder trees. I put them on NURBS planes and stuck them into the scene to give it some mood, thinking that if I use planes, my painted trees will have to be far more intricate. I have a painted tree with approximately the right level of detail. But surprise! Everyone in class loves my placeholder trees. I can keep them. Just means I have to paint everything else to match. They're kind of blotchy. I think I can do this. Making things blotchy shouldn't take as long as making things neat, right? ... Someone tell that to my OCD ...

4) September 28: Story. Am adding camera moves to my 3D cameras, have added mid shot to opening sequence. Have put border around frame, like a stylized page. Have also added page turn transitions. Story still isn't working and I'm starting to get nervous about production. Haven't done anything on production since summer. Wrote up production schedule and almost cried. Have not posted production schedule here for obvious reasons.

Also, watched Snow White. Curse Disney, the animation in there is beautiful. There's a nice camera move, with Snow White lying in the forest crying, where the camera pulls through some 2D trees. It's lovely, and I think it's a good reference for the look I'm going for.

5) October 4: Made model of skull. Have to change it up a little for Vasilisa's skull and the skull fence, but for now, have skull! Yay! Have redone animatic. Story still isn't working, but camera angles are starting to feel good. Workflow is also improving. Have made background file to reference into all of my scenes, so I can make sweeping changes to, let's say, skull fence. Or sky. And everything will update all at once. Have started sky painting, since I can do that while things render. And I need to render things, because Faculty Review is coming up. SCARY.

6) October 8: FACULTY REVIEW. Omg, so much better than I thought! Finally took out stupid thing with leash. Story seems much clearer. Panel all got everything except for the end when Baba Yaga comes out, but I think positioning characters differently will help. Useful suggestion: have Baba Yaga and Vasilisa on screen at same time, so we know they're not the same person. Have to find camera angle for that.

Other useful suggestion: my border is pretty but not useful and page turn transitions are cliche. My border should animate. It should move and it can help tell the story, since I'm not moving the characters. For serious, why did I not think of that?

Other other useful suggestion: Add sound. Have been using stupid song from previs that I don't intend to use but like. Should add ambient noises, chewing after Vasilisa walks into house. HAVE to do this.

7) October 16: Haven't made many changes to animatic. Changed a shot of Baba Yaga and added Vasilisa's feet sticking out of Hut when Baba Yaga enters. Bad camera angle; they are barely visible. HOWEVER. Have started recording audio. NEED TO DIGITIZE IT. Also, have started animating border. Am using tedious 2D cell animation-y things. Is tedious.

Sadly, everyone in class seems to like it. Must continue. Have to get whole border to swirl. Is there any chance I can do this within the next two weeks? I'm feeling the necessity of getting my 3D and 2D to match now.... Have to add that to production schedule, animating swirls as well.

8) October 20: Am animating border. I think I might switch to a black background behind the border -- looks like the painted boxes I was using for reference at the very beginning of this whole process. Purely coincidence! ... erm ... It's good to work with your reference in front of you all the time. Sometimes you end up with what you thought you'd get at the beginning. :) Still, border animation tedious. Also, can't tell if it's good or bad.

Have painted new face texture for Vasilisa to relax. I don't think it's blotchy enough to match my trees. We'll see. I'm thinking about running a quick test with surface shaders instead of the phongs I've been using. This is probably a horrible idea. I tried toon shaders over the summer and didn't like them, but that doesn't mean I won't like them again, does it?

Also, a friend sent me to look at the opening sequence of an anime called Monster, where a woman reads a storybook about a Monster With No Name. It's a great look for storybook style animation, with very little movement on the characters. Still more than I am going to do, but the style of the animation is interesting. It looks very collage-y. Which is interesting for me because of my blotchy trees. Maybe I can use this with toon shaders. Gah. Also have to finish up the second part of my story so that I can move into production!

I didn't think I was going to have this much trouble with story, honest.

In talking about my characters and my basic story problems with my friends, I mentioned the example story I got from Gavin during that last session we had last semester. Gavin's story idea was:
There's a girl walking alone late at night. It's dark. Everything's scary. She walks up a path lit with skulls to a seemingly quiet house. Suddenly, something makes a loud noise. The hut stands up on its chicken legs, squawking, and lays an egg. The egg rolls down a hill to the girl, who puts it in a basket and takes it home.

My variation on this story was to have the hut, instead of lay an egg, eat the girl and spit out her skull (I was playing with having Baba Yaga come out and whack the hut until it spits the skull out, but that adds a whole nother character, which, phooey). Here's an animatic for that: Animatic 1

My friends and I liked the egg thing, though, because ... eggs imply baby houses on chicken legs. And that's adorable! Here's an animatic where the girl winds up with a baby house: Animatic 2

They both start out the same way. And I use a lot of medium and wide shots. But my main character is a house. What's a close up of a house?

Anyway. I'm not sure how good either animatic is, or if either has the core of a do-able thesis, but ... they're all I've got. :(

Since the semester starts tomorrow

I'm having my traditional period of, "OMG, I don't know how to do anything and kind of suck at everything and shouldn't even bother going back to school!" pre-semester blues. But the semester starts tomorrow so it's time to put them aside and get back to work. Here's my latest Vasilisa render.

I've also been realizing that I don't have a story or anything. Which. Isn't good. I've been talking to friends and I have a couple of ideas, and I've made animatics, but I'm not in love with anything, and I still feel like I should be moving ahead with anything until I've got a story. How can you make a production schedule when you don't know what the production is?!

Also also, I just saw Renaissance, and without saying anything about the movie, it made me think about grey-tones. I really like them. I'm thinking about trying to do something with that.

I saw something else and it made me think about doing all of my backgrounds by hand, 2D. That's all. Also, I don't know anything about 3D, don't have a story, and am absolutely terrified.

More pictures

Having realized that it's just about the only thing I know how to do, I've been texturing my models. When school starts (in, what, a week?) I'm hoping that I'll get some advice. Maybe I'll even be able to keep some of the stuff I've done this summer!

Baba Yaga has no hair yet.

Long time, no see

Haven't posted since the end of semester. Now next semester is about to begin! Slacker.

I have been working though. My models are all polygons, and they're coming along. I post pictures. My texturing is sllllllllllooooooooooooooooow. You'll see in my pictures that I HAVE done some texturing. It's not going to look like much, but it's been a very long process.

I've been going over story with my non-major friends, to see what they think, and we've come up with a couple of ideas. I'll post about them later.

But that's what's been going on. I hate making hands, people!

Trees! And a realization about the green screen

Been doing a bunch of production design types of things. One of them is trees! What I want is for them to look kinda like gnarled hands. When I get a chance, I'll upload my reference for this design -- I have a lacquer box with a twisty tree like one of the sketches I've uploaded here. It's really stylized, but pretty.

Anyway, I'm going for something a little bit creepy, that will make an interesting silhouette.

But what do you think? Should I build real models? Or try Maya?

It's funny though. I'm thinking about building tree models because I know how to model (in real life) -- I've been doing that longer than I've been computer modeling, and I feel rather comfortable with it. And I've been learning about keying using Shake, and I feel pretty good about keying (I say this now -- HA!).

But I'm with Nicolette on this. I don't actually know HOW to organize a shoot or use the green screen. And that's really kind of an important step. Is anyone going to be working with the green screen any time soon? Who happens to need an extra pair of hands and will be willing to yell at me until I figure out what's going on?

Or does anyone know how we could organize a workshop?

Whether or not I build my trees in Maya, I think knowing how to shoot footage on the greenscreen would be really useful.

Erm. So. Long post. Unnecessarily long. Boils down to:
TREES -- 3D or model?
And: Green screen: HOW? Help!

Still no trees!

Also still no new title! Ahhhhhhh! I think maybe I'll just call it the One About The Hut On Chicken Legs, which is what I'll probably call it when I talk about it anyway.

I've added a closing scene to my 2D animatic, and if I can compress it enough for web viewing, I will do so and post it.

I spent some more time on sketching this week, to see if I could resolve some character design issues (like ... y'know ... getting my characters bodies). And having burned through another notebook, I've finally come up with a sketch I think I can use to get orthographic projections. For Baba Yaga. Still working on the girl. Didn't try the hut.

I also have a decent hand, so I'm putting that up here too. I'm thinking about using it as reference for her feet as well, although for those, I'll probably need to alter the profile.

Took a break from sketching to try making a gilt-edge shader in Maya. My results were disappointing. I want a swirly design that will flow around the border of an object. Right now, I have a swirly design that goes around Baba Yaga's face. I'm happy with the gold texture (ish). But the rest of it? Pfah. It looks kind of pretty from the front, but from the side, it looks awful. I tried using a facing ratio on it, but the facing ratio wants to pick up all faces around her nose, not just the ones around the edge of her head. So I've still got a lot to figure out there. (Any hints anyone?)

I also spent some time with toon shaders, and ... I have a lot to think about. I kind of think I don't like them. But I don't think I gave them enough time. So. A lot to think about.

But these trees I keep not talking about!
I had a really nice talk with John R. about trees, and I think before I really put my tree-ideas to rest, I need to build a model and just photograph it and see what it looks like. John suggested getting a fan, so I could simulate wind, and shooting them on a green screen.
I think that sounds like a pretty good process, assuming that I can build something heavy enough to not blow away, but light enough to move at all (my original thought had been a wire-and-clay maquette, but that might be too heavy). So I think before too much longer, I have to do a test there and see if I can come up with a good, manageable result.
I have some sketches of trees, but they're baaaaaaad, so no posting for them! Glad I did them though, since each sketch has been really informative in terms of what NOT to do.

Anyway! It feels like there are a million things left to do before the end of the semester! I've got a checklist, but I'm not quite organized enough to post it here. I keep forgetting about the Gantt chart. And the proof of concept.

One thing at a time though. Characters (sadly) need bodies. Should really work on that.

About trees

I have been thinking a lot about trees lately. I assumed going into this project that I'd be doing everything in 3D. But I've been wondering ... if I want a certain look for my trees, would it be easiest to build them in Maya, or to build models of them in real life, photograph them in high definition, and composite them into my piece? Or draw them. I could probably just draw trees and scan them.

Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about lately: trees. If you have any opinions on my options, I'd be glad to hear them. I haven't really worked with Paint Effects before, and I assumed I'd be building my own trees in Maya. I'll try to post some animatic stuff (or maybe some tree drawings) soon.

I keep forgetting, but with my revised story, my working title, "the Goose Girl," really doesn't quite fit anymore. But I'm really bad at naming things, so I've just been leaving it. Does anybody have a better idea? Help?

Script

I didn't want to work on my animatic until I had a workable script, so ... I've been working on my script. Here's my current draft.

I'm not in love with my formatting. I wanted to have information about my shots along the side of the the action. And I only have one line of dialogue, so I wasn't sure how to stick it in. But in general, I think this is giving me a better sense of what I want to accomplish in each scene, so I'm really glad I did it.

My next job is going to be going back to the animatic, and separating out my back-plates so that I can show action.

I'm still looking for ways to cut back on animation.

I also kind of think that I want to start working on style and mood images. I'm inclined to think that if I do a good job on the back-plates for my next round of animatic, I can get a lot of use out of them in terms of helping me set up a color palate....

So that's what I've been up to. Writing and trying to focus. No drawing, no modeling, just writing.

It's the end!

My beautiful dream of going to my local farm and video taping chickens walking around (for reference!) clearly has not come true this Spring Break! I am crushed.

Spring Break!

I've started modeling. I was thinking about it, and I decided that I don't want to refine my animatic without first having a written draft of my story. But I know what my characters are going to look like, more or less, and the way that I model? I'm going to need all the time I can get.

Anyway! For posterity's sake, I'm gonna put my baby beginning models up here. The heads are both supposed to be low poly, but are probably a little heavy for where they are now. Baba Yaga is coming along okay. I still have some major issues to work out with Vasilisa. But. She does look like a girl, and that's a start. No, neither of them has hair yet! Or ... y'know ... bodies. But I've started! And that has to count for something.

I went to see the presentation from Blue Sky today and it was really awesome. It made me want to do a super-good job on texturing these characters. I think if anything, I'll be looking for ways to cut back on animation with this project so I can rig less and texture more. How can I cheat with that? Any suggestions?

I keep forgetting that I'm taking other classes. I haven't done any work for any of them! I think I need a whole nother Spring Break now. Can I get a do-over? No? Okay.

More storyboards

Somehow, these look even more pixelated after I uploaded them!
(Click on "these" and you will see my pixelated storyboards.)

Vasilisa

Everything looks different after scanning. It's weird. Anyway! This sketch is, like my last Baba Yaga, undone! But I figured it was good enough to post. Basically -- I hate drawing young people. Damn smooth faces. No character! So I was kind of stuck on how to go about this for a while. Then I decided to try to make her look vaguely like a young version of Baba Yaga -- not that close, just some of the bone structure -- and that's where I started with this sketch.

Then I put both this one and Baba Yaga to the side in favor of another round of storyboards. I'll be posting those soon. Since I'm presenting this week and all. Yeeks. Kinda don't feel ready for that at all. :(

Meanwhile! Vasilisa! Baba Yaga. Storyboards. Soon.

T-shirts

I should have posted this yesterday. Or last week, lol.
Here's a link to a website that will make t-shirts for you. A little pricier than just getting printer paper, but if you, like me, don't have a spare t-shirt lying around, or the time to run to Staples, or an iron, this is a little more convenient.
http://www.cafepress.com

Brilliant

I've gotten some great advice from my comments so far. Thank you guys so much. You're so much smarter than I am.

Erm. So. Between my comments, which were right on, and this paper, and the sketching I've been doing, I think I'm starting to get a new handle on my story, and I just wanted to try some new story beats to see what you guys think.

What I realized writing this paper is that I've been fighting against doing the most famous Baba Yaga story, because it's really complicated. There's a magic doll. There are horsemen. There are wicked stepsisters. So I decided to start with a simpler story. But I've made it more complex. And I think that I can use the character sketches I've done for either story.

So. I'm going to try the big one.

Here are story beats for my incredibly condensed Vasilisa the Fair:
1. Vasilisa is kicked out of her home, holding a candle
2. And is told (by someone off-screen) not to come back without a light.
3. She wanders through the forest
4. It's dark and scary.
5. She comes upon her neighbor -- Baba Yaga
6. Baba Yaga's house is lit by glowing skulls, which form a fence around the hut on chicken legs.
7. We see Baba Yaga
8. Vasilisa is scared, but approaches
9. But Baba Yaga uses a glowing skull to light her candle
10. And sends her home.

I think that's about a minute of animation. No exposition, other than that Vasilisa needs a light. Only two characters to animate (three if I want the hut to move). All the reference I've collected still applies. All the sketches I've done still work. All I need is new storyboards and a new animatic and I'm all set.

Anyway! To me, this seems more do-able. What do you think?

Baba Yaga sketch

She flies in a mortar and sweeps the sky with her broom. I've given her a pestle, which makes more sense to me. I was hoping I could leave her in the mortar, so I wouldn't have to give her feet. But I'm not so sure that's going to work. Abandoning this sketch until I figure it out.

Character question

First, I'd just like to join everybody else who's saying, "Midterms! Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!" Scary.

Mostly this week, I've been doing what I said I would and working on my characters. I've done a decent-ish job on Baba Yaga, but here's my question:
Initially, I wanted her to look like a fairly normal old woman at first. But I've just been writing this paper about Baba Yaga's supernatural aspects and antecedents, so now I kind of want to give her a more other-worldly look.

So I'm posting two images here -- my finished sketch and an earlier version where I hadn't put Baba Yaga's eyes in yet. I kind of think she looks more like an ogre in that one. So what do you guys think? Eyes and normal, then she opens her mouth and has shark teeth? Or no eyes and creepy right from the start?

I'll have a full body image of Baba Yaga soon. Sooner than I would like, given my unresolved face issues, but hey, at this point, I figure all drawings are helpful somehow.

Ugh

I was thinking about just starting over completely, then a friend sent me to this lovely little Russian cartoon, and I think I'm getting the faith back.

But this story thing is killing me. I think I can tell a story, but I've been working at it so hard, I can't see the forest for the trees.

It's two weeks til I present again, and I'm going to take that time away from story and start working on something else. I've got these basic characters -- a hero, a mirror, a hut and a witch.

I'd like to try just working on creating these elements. I think if I do a good job realizing them, I won't need to worry about story. Or at least, I won't need to worry about story as much. I've got a hut right now. That's a starting point. The witch is next.

So that's my plan. No storyboards, no animatic, maybe not even any computer work at all. Just drawings, and if I'm happy with my progress, I'll start trying story again. But a written outline, a proposal, something to give me some form before I storyboard again. I hate this mishmash I've gotten into. It's making me punchy. That's no good.

Okay, that's it for now.
Hopefully the next time I post, it'll be fantastic amazing drawings.

Animatic

I've been working on my animatic all week, and it's not the five minute epic I feared. It's 2m38s, which is still long, but not dreadful. Of course. This probably means my timing is terrible. I'll find out the next time I present. Eh, worst comes to worst, I can scrap my entire story idea and just have my thesis be a hut on chicken legs doing a little dance.

Meanwhile! Drawing, painting, modeling, fun.

More logos

Here's this week's iteration of my logo, which will have to double as a title image for now. I really hope to get started modeling my hut on chicken legs today, and do some more drawing. I figure for the characters, I'll start working from photographs, just to get human proportions, but I need a good drawing of my magic mirror, so if I could get going on that, that would be great.

Preliminary sketch

Preliminary sketch for the hut on chicken legs, which is, of course, the driving force behind all this.

Reference

Doing an image search on google for Baba Yaga images. Some of them are quite beautiful! Most of them are somewhat involved with telling the story of Vasilisa the Fair, which isn't the Baba Yaga story I chose -- believe it or not, that one's actually MORE complicated.

Anyway, one site I visited had a very interesting essay about Baba Yaga and how to break down her symbolism (again, it dealt with the Vasilisa story, but I think all of the terms apply). The author of the site was NOT the author of the essay though, so I may have to do a little more research before I can site anyone in a paper.

Here's the essay though. There are some nice illustrations on the page, too.

Mostly, it deals with the idea that the old woman is the personification of Death -- anyone who is sent to Baba Yaga is sent to die. And yet, she can be very helpful. If you can face her, you can always solve whatever problem sent you out to Baba Yaga in the first place. Of course, there's more to it than that (when is there ever not?), but that's my abstraction.

Here are some more pretty pictures:
Russian illustrator
Painting of the house
Very nice sketch, classical western style
More modern, abstract interpretation
Not sure where all the images on this page come from, but I like a couple of them, so I figured I'd keep a link to it.

Welcome!

I've got a lot of posts already!

I actually started this blog at the beginning of the semester to help me narrow down my thesis topic. And if you feel like reading a whole lot about that, go right ahead and skip back to my first post! It's quite long!

More recently, I've added some rough storyboards and logo designs.

I have this scary feeling like I'm incredibly far behind and I need to produce prodigious amounts of work just to catch up. This blog is probably going to be very reflective of that fear.

Well, with that being said. Welcome to my blog!

Storyboards

I like storyboards. I like the way they make you think. These are very rough and my story is clearly still way too long, but here's my first stab. Storyboards

Logos?

Logos for my working title. I think I like the second one best, since it's got my lacquer box feel. I like the little fowl guy too. I assume I'll change out the clip art for my own work once I've got my own goose. If I go with that logo. Meanwhile, I'll take what Illustrator gives me.

I've actually got a whole bunch of other potential logos to go with this title. But it's really just variations on a theme at this point. I assume that as I start working on character and set design, I'll be able to get more specific.

Story beats

My story, as bullet points.

1. Svieta checks herself out in mirror
2. Loses her geese
3. Follows them into forest, gets lost
4. Finds hut, curls up for night
5. Baba Yaga is a scary old woman
6. Svieta tricks her, escapes
7. Baba Yaga chases
8. Svieta throws her mirror behind her
9. Mirror turns into lake
10. Lake stops Baba Yaga
11. Svieta can find her way home now

New story

Here's my new story -- it still needs some condensing, I think. But it's better.

We start with a girl looking in a mirror. We'll call her Svetlana -- Svieta. It's a hand mirror she's looking into, and she clearly enjoys her reflection. She's playing with her hair. A voice off-screen calls, "Svieta, pay attention!" Svieta looks up suddenly and we see that we're in a field and the sun is setting. As Svieta looks up, she sees that the flock of geese she's supposed to be tending are flying away. She gets up to chase them and runs into the forest.

In the forest, it's very dark -- the sun is setting, after all. Svieta wanders around for a while, not paying attention to where she's going and getting herself completely lost, and eventually comes upon a hut. It's very dark at this point, so she goes inside. With nothing to do until morning, she gets out her mirror and tries peering into it again.

The hut is Baba Yaga's hut, and before too long, it stands up on its chicken legs and starts running, with Svieta inside. When it stops again, its door opens and Baba Yaga walks in, lighting candles and a cooking fire, illuminating the inside.

Baba Yaga sees Svieta and walks towards her, menacing. Baba Yaga is an old, crooked woman with very sharp teeth. She is terrifying. Svieta holds her mirror up as if it was a shield and Baba Yaga is momentarily entranced by her reflection.

The back of the mirror has a face -- it winks at Svieta.

Between the wink and Baba Yaga's pause, Svieta regains some confidence. Baba Yaga gently pushes the mirror away and points Svieta towards the cooking fire, above which is a large pot. As Svieta looks over, she sees human bones -- skulls, etc. She says, as bravely as she can, "Baba Yaga, you can't eat me now." Baba Yaga stares at her. "Baba Yaga, you're an old woman. It's too late for you to eat. Think of your digestion." Baba Yaga's expession changes. "Baba Yaga, I'm completely lost, there's no where for me to go. Don't worry about me, you can eat me in the morning." Baba Yaga smiles, delighted.

Baba Yaga goes and sits by the fire, eventually falling asleep. Svieta, too scared to sleep, goes over to the window and watches for dawn.

As soon as it is light out, Svieta very quietly climbs out of the hut on chicken legs and starts running. "The sun rises in the east and moss grows on the north side of the tree," she tells herself, checking her bearings. She keeps running.

Behind her, Baba Yaga has woken up. She looks around, and very quietly leaves her hut. She sniffs the air and starts running as well.

Svieta keeps repeating her lines about direction to find her way home. She pauses to breath and hears a noise behind her. It is Baba Yaga, who is tireless. Svieta starts running, in a panic.

As she is running, she takes her mirror out and throws it behind her. It's a magic mirror. Maybe it'll help, she thinks. It's hard for her to part with the mirror, but maybe it'll help.

Without looking back, she keeps running.

The mirror hits the ground without breaking. It starts growing and turns to water. Very rapidly, it turns into a lake. Svieta realizes this when the ground beneath her turns to mud and her feet are suddenly wet. She looks behind her, and she can barely see Baba Yaga in the distance, across the lake. Baba Yaga can't run over the water and is giving up. Svieta gives a sigh of relief and goes home.

Focus and moving forward (sort of)

I took a week off from this class to see if I could clear my head a little. The conclusion I came up with was that both my ideas were awful and that I didn't want to do either of them. So BAH.

Then in class, I kind of calmed down. I think that I sort of have to do the fairy tale idea. I know I can't do it alone. And I know I can't do the whole thing. Not in a year. But this is the only time I'm ever going to get to have help with narrowing it down and focusing on the important parts. So I'm going to try it. Scary, but good, I think.

Plus at the end of class, I got to sit down with Gabriel and talk about ideas, and I sort of feel better about compressing the thing now. I'll post that later.

Some feedback

I was talking with some friends about my thesis ideas (my friends LOVE hearing about my thesis! Many of them are still talking to me!) and here's my summary -- the prince has to go. Any purpose he can serve (by my interpretation) is negative. Plus he's useless. I need to get rid of him. But the hut on chicken legs could be really interesting.

If I go with this fairy tale thing, I can also give it a really special look/feel -- I've been thinking about lacquer. Like a box. I'll get a picture. Here.

If I go with my planets, I'll be sticking with a more realistic look.

Now the sane one

Idea 1:

This one I think I can get out without writing a novel.

I'd like to visualize a planet, capable of supporting life, whose star is at a different point in its lifecycle.

PROS: Well. This is visual effects! That's what I'm here for.
Other pros -- planets are cool! This could be a lot of fun.
CONS: ... Not a lot for me to say here. It'll be a lot of research, but I like research. Everyone I've talked to about this idea seems to think it's pretty engaging, so I guess the only con is that if I screw something up in my research, someone out there will be able to call me on it. So. This one I'll have to be more careful, that's all. Nothing wrong with that.

I chose this blog template because it was pink

Here's idea 2

This one's the problematic one.

Because. Here's the thing. There's all this baggage. Because. See. Well. Okay. All the movies you see with computer animation? Are made by men. And ... think about this. Disney, the original Disney films, all had female main characters -- they were by no means all good, strong, positive role models, but they were female characters. And look at the shift that's happened between Disney's Cinderella and Pixar's Toy Story.

While Cinderella herself has no modern voice for girls, Toy Story presents no voice for girls at all.

Okay, so we step back in history a little way (and history is a dangerous place to be stepping back, especially in computers, ESPECIALLY in art -- because history, as we learn it in school, is the history of men, with the occasional sop thrown to this female artist or that one) and look at the Cinderella story as Disney told it.

It's sanitized to a point where it's barely recognizable.

The original story? It's about blood and tears. Neither one of those things make it into the Disney version. And that pisses me off, almost as much as Toy Story pisses me off.

So ... that's my baggage. Sort of. That's the short version anyway. I am really pissed off about movies by men made for men. And I really feel like I should be doing my part to try to get some sort of female voice into storytelling in the age of cinema.

Not that my thesis will ever be seen by anyone outside of school! It's just ... every time I am asked to make a movie, my first thought is, "How can I put the most of myself into this?" And I don't mean ME as a character. That's lame. I mean the voices in my head that tell me how to do things and how to feel about things.

So that's what I'm looking to do with this idea -- make a movie with a distinctly feminine voice.

Here's the story:
It's not necessarily a feminIST story, but it's folklore, part of the oral tradition passed down from mother to daughter forever and ever.

There was a girl watching geese -- a goose girl, and in the way of stories, she was lovely and everyone who saw her fell in love with her. And she was kind, and she was attentive and she watched her geese well.

One day, the prince of that kingdom rode past on his horse, and he saw the goose girl, and like everyone else, he fell in love with her. Maybe they met. Maybe they kissed. Maybe not.

The prince's advisors heard of his love for the goose girl, and decided it was dangerous -- the prince can't MARRY a goose girl! Of course not! She's a commoner. So they decided to take action.

By trickery, they managed to send the goose girl out into the woods at night. The woods are Baba Yaga's woods -- the ogress who lives in a hut on chicken legs, flies in a mortar and pestle, and eats little children who are naughty and don't say their prayers at night. And of course, the goose girl strayed into the woods at night and was caught by Baba Yaga.

What the prince's advisors didn't know is that this was no ordinary goose girl (this is a fairy tale! Of course she's not!) -- she was the princess from a neighboring kingdom, held hostage for her good behaviour and made to watch the geese.

Before she was taken from her home, her royal parents gave her three magical gifts -- a ribbon, a comb, and a mirror. These three things, she took with her into the forest, so when Baba Yaga caught her, she was frightened, but not panicked.

"Oh, Baba Yaga," she said, "You can't eat me now! It's after dark and you're an old woman. I'll give you indigestion."

"What a thoughtful girl," Baba Yaga said, "to think of an old woman so kindly. You're right of course. I'll eat you in the morning."

And when morning came, the girl said to Baba Yaga, "Oh Baba Yaga, you can't eat me now! If you do, who will sweep the floors?" And thus, Baba Yaga kept the girl alive again, and the girl swept Baba Yaga's floors and cleaned her house, and when night fell, it was once again too late for Baba Yaga to eat her.

As soon as Baba Yaga was asleep, the girl crept out of the hut on chicken legs and started running.

It was night and the forest was strange, and she hadn't made it very far when she heard a sound and turned to look behind her and there was the hut on chicken legs following her. She took the ribbon her parents had given her and threw it on the ground. It grew into a river -- to wild for the hut on chicken legs to cross.

She ran again, and again she hadn't made it very far when she heard a sound and looked up. This time, she saw Baba Yaga in her mortar and pestle flying after her. She threw her comb on the ground this time, and it grew into a dense forest and hid her from view. She kept running.

Eventually, exhausted, she stopped to rest. When she did, she looked behind her, and in the distance, she could see Baba Yaga, still following. Her last gift, her mirror, was very dear to her, but she threw it to the ground anyway.

The mirror grew into a vast lake, with her on one shore and Baba Yaga on the other, with no means of crossing. Finally safe, the girl was able to go back to her geese and eventually her home.

PROS: Everything mentioned above.
CONS: This is going to be very labor intensive, especially because I am not declared as a character animator. So really, my thesis statement would be something like, "As a visual effects artist, I was drawn to this story by its intense ... characters?" So really, it has nothing to do with what I've professed I want to do with my life.
But then, I've hated my last two visual effects classes, so who knows, maybe a change is what I need?
Other cons -- this story is too long, I think. It needs to be cut down. There are too many characters. I don't want to have more than three. Ideally, I'd only have two. The story needs to be far, far more simple while still getting the story across, and I don't think I've really come up with a way to do that.

Okay, that's it! Done with this one, for now.