Evolve
Senior Thesis
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
CHALLENGE
This is my motion design senior thesis that shows a clear and sophisticated sequence of events that are engaging to watch or to “Evoke” an emotion from our audience.
For my Senior thesis, Evolve is an animated film about showcasing the highs and lows of one’s life in reflection, and trying to cope with it by staying strong and positive.
Concept
The idea of my thesis is a personal story to me, I wanted to explore the inner feelings of being human that not many people see, than seeing the outer being of somebody. Specifically someone with auditory processing disorder, that I’ve have had all my life, that has affected my communication to people and being social as a whole. The only escape from it was doing art and animation as a way to express my feelings and to commute. At the same time, personally I was going through tough changes in my college and social life to deal with and thought that the highs and low aspects of a person is what make us who we are now. The idea of sharing my feelings of being in pieces and trying to pull yourself together, the sense of being human showing the effects both inside and out is what intrigued me into telling and explore in my thesis.
Idea: A person trying to believe in themselves, but is stuck with self doubt due to reflection. (the mistakes, bad moments mixed with good thoughts) Seeing through someone's reflection, inner feelings of oneself as a complicated person. Being in pieces and trying to hold themselves together.
Emotion Theme: tense + impactful/sadness x happy = meaningful.
Emotion Moral: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” - Ernest Hemingway
Senario: person + mirror = torn apart from certain moments: happiness, positivity, mistakes, failure, and issues in their life aside from goodness (judgement, fear and self-doubts), while maintaining their good side.
Pre-production
EXPERIMENTAL ALTERNATIVE ANIMATIONS
The objective of experimental is to create a few potential design style options for Evoke.
ANIMATION EXPERIMENT 01
The first experimental animation I chose to do cel animation with an organic watercolor/hand made approach experimenting with color and scale. Created in Adobe Photoshop.
ANIMATION EXPERIMENT 02
Second is another cel animation but experimenting with vibrant colors and abstract art in a hand painted medium. Also created in Adobe Photoshop.
ANIMATION EXPERIMENT 03
My final experiment is a collage style of 2D and 3D designs, inspired by the works of Tom McCarten. This design style was very successful as it supported the story for my thesis in terms of color, it encourage me to go fully abstract in the visuals. Created with Cinema 4D and animated in Adobe After Effects.
Animatic
After going through visual storyboard changes, I’ve created an storyboard animatic of my thesis that became the structural blueprint for both pacing, timing, and for animating portions in 2D and 3D.
With visual abstract inspirations from the works of Tom McCarten and Henri Matisse known for his cut outs.
Styleframes
To make the designs and animation work, I created three style frames in After Effects for the transformation at the story’s climax.
The approach for the statue with the sphere representing the person’s collective mind of memories, was to do a realistic stylize 2D and 3D.
