Behind the Scenes

This video has nothing to do with my final major project, however it is the blooper reel of the many hours I spent filming.

Technical Robot

I came up with the idea of an Artificial Intelligence, due to the fact that i like the idea of a robot that can assist you and keep you safe without the fear of walking alone.

Scientists from Honda have created; over many years of research (1986 – ) A robot called ASIMO, this robot does’t have a will of its own but it is aware of it surroundings  through advanced coding that sends information to the camera, commanding the robots movements. It all started with Masato Hirose (the Chief Engineer of Honda R&D) when he applied for a job at Wako research lab; which performs research in four main areas, such as aircrafts, gas turbines, lightweight/ driverless automobiles and of course robots. When Hirose was hired he was sent to the project described as a dream of the Honda, but we know it as ASIMO. The dream was to create a two legged assisting machine, that can keep the lonely in company and help the many, however for Hirose, it was a long and unrealistic dream. Every test the machine would take its first step and topple over, but Hirose never gave in and eventually the prototype E1 was completed, it was the start but still not enough as the machine would walk at a slower pace than a person would, sending Hirose back to the drawing boards. He began to study the walking cycle of every being that could walk, from animals, super models to sumo wrestlers and even turned his associates into mummies, learning which part of their body would contributed to walking with each step. After learning the complexity of walking, Honda was finally able to create a robot with dynamic movement, that could shift its center of gravity. In 1996 Honda announced their development and research on the humanoid robots, and in 2000 ASIMO was introduced live in Aoyama, Tokyo. The Journalists cried out in surprise, amazed when the small robot walk out onto the stage beside the president of Honda Motor, Hiroyuki Yoshino.

 

   

Complications and Change of Plans

As i carried on the project, i was starting to worry with the amount of time i had left and what i need to do; but no matter the time i spent planning and creating to do lists, my head began to spin. At first i was going to have an animated character that would interact with the products that i had modelled, but i didn’t have extra time to create these characters, which would leave a gapping hole in my finished piece. However with more thought and consideration, i created a new idea that should help solve my problem; like i did in my James Bond project, I will record a volunteer to act the necessary actions that go along with my new storyboard, and after i upload them to After-Effects i will turn the person into a silhouette/ holograms and add everything else i’ve created with maya. Another idea that i had to change, was the idea of an old fashioned theme with steam punk; as much as i loved this style, it wouldn’t work with the new plan, however to keep a hint of my old idea, i added different music style of genre called Electro swing, which is a mixture of old soul and club music; though some are too loud and repetitive, i found certain song called chambermaid by Parov Stelar. The intro is unreasonably long, so i trimmed it down to around 2 minutes which is perfect for my advert. My advert will still be based on the idea of Bioshock, but instead of 1900, the style will change to the 21st century. I’ve also had to change the different programmes i was going to use, originally i was going to use maya, flash, photoshop and after effects. As you can see i overloaded myself with these goals, but because i had to change my idea, i’m going to use maya to model my products like before, and after effects to put everything together with a little bit of special effects. I am disappointed that i could go through with my original idea, but hopeful my change of plans will be just as good as i originally hoped.

Advertisement

The first paid television Advertisement was on the 1st june, 1941 during a basketball game in the USA it lasted for 10 seconds but never less, it made a critical impact on the world, with new ways to sale merchandise and cast short news reports. Soon after this, it became popular all around the world, each company selling slots for advertisements in a different range of prices. But even before TV adverts, there were many different types of advertisement, even before the idea of television came along. Such as posters, which became popular in the world wars when they needed more men to fight for the country, and radio shows, where the hosts where paid to slip in a catchy brand name.

Throughout the 21st, advertisement has been a part of our childhood and culture, everywhere you look advertisement can be seen anywhere, the videos underneath are examples of futuristic ads that caught my eye. I choose these two because i like the way they’re presented. The future tennis is the brand Lacoste, in 2012 they pictured how tennis will be payed in the future and advertised it; i liked the way they made the tennis player move, nice and smooth, also the style of the character and the little futuristic detail, such as the lines on the floor and the barrier that the tennis ball hits.

 

What i’ve learned from Product Design

My timing and planning needs to be flawless if I am going to finish this project on time, and having models to create in Maya is going to be difficult, because I don’t have a computer at home to make things easier; everything I need is, like a computer is at college. So by reducing the amount I model on Maya should give me enough time to do other things like how do I plan to animate my characters ? how can I make them interact with my products ? how am I going to do the staging ? etc. Its easy enough to have a plan that sounds fantastic, but putting them into action is more challenging then I had anticipated especially when drawing the body’s anatomy is your weakest subject in art. If I am going to over come this, I will need to keep drawing until a successful drawing is completed, and after that I could use tracing paper to keep everything in proportions and then change the characters pose.

 

Product Designs

These are my designs for the five Products that i will model. At the top you’ll see the two main products that I will model in Maya: which means I spend more time putting detail onto these models. Each drawings shows the concept art of my ideas and how i want my product to look, also every one of these drawings, shows the defensive mechanism that will keep the buyer safe from harm. I have put descriptive sentences to describe the objects functions.

      

This is a rough plan of what i want the animation to look like, each picture shows in detail what i wish to create through these weeks. On the left side of the pictures I’ve drawn the stages of each scene and on the right side, I interpreted the scenes in my own words, making it easier for me to refer from. My song is 3:01 minutes which is how long i wanted my final project to be however I will have to cut it down to suit the timing of my scenes. The last picture shows how i came up with my company name; that will show up in the animation at the end, i wanted it to be a anagram of my name, and since its Jessica i ended up with SIKA.

  

Inspiration

The musical fantasy, Labyrinth (1986); the film told a story about a young girl who wished away her step-brother to the goblin king (David Bowie), who will keep the toddler, if Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) cannot complete the labyrinth within the time limit of thirteen hours. As soon as I heard the soundtrack to Labyrinth, I became hooked, playing it every second of everyday. Through the songs David Bowie poured emotion into his music, making me feel close with the characters, and giving me a better understanding of the story; for instance, the ballroom scene when the Goblin King begins to slowly fall in love with girl and attempts to make her feel the same way, Bowie shows this by using the song “as the world falls down” this song descibes how he sees her sadness and wishes to take her pain away; a romantic gesture which shows one sided love, in a short amount of time. In the same year as the film was released, a book was also published, The Goblins of Labyrinth (1986), which is an encyclopedia of goblins within the movie. The sketches are beautiful drawn with a small caption describing the characteristics of each creature; I automatically fell in love with the style of art that Brian Froud portrayed, especially the way he made the illustrations come to life with realism; he also uses a pale colour palette, making the drawing seem historic but not as vibrant, as other illustrated books would be, giving this illustrated book it own unique style. The clothing and staging for Labyrinth seems almost gothic (1980); which is a style that combines romance and horror into historic clothing making a new type of genre, by doing this the director (Jim Henson), made the film seem even more magical and real. Each character has a different type of clothing which resembles there personality, for instance the Goblin King’s outfit shows his alluring, devilish side and armour that refers to 15th century knights and for Sarah, her outfit resembles her purity and innocence, which in fact attracts the Kings attention with a 18th century dress.

 

Labyrinth (1986) film. Directed by Jim Henson. [DVD] AND IMDb [Online] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091369/ [Accessed: 28/03/15]

Sketches by Brian Froud and captions by Terry Jones (1986) The Goblins of Labyrinth (Published in October 1986 by Pavilion books)

Goth subculture (1980) Wikipedia [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goth_subculture

“As the world falls down” [song] David Bowie [DVD, CD, Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_the_World_Falls_Down

 

Final Project idea

The idea is to create a humorous advert, about everyday uses, that become a weapon or a self-defensive mechanism; in which the characters will have to avoid these situations by using the products. The scene will be slightly static like an old TV box would and black/white, with a hint of colour for the important pieces and a mixture of style from 1800-1900. The advertisement will include a family that will react differently to the situation at hand; they will be in less detail due to the fact that the attention will be set on the products, during these scenes there will be a narrator that will explain the products in a funny way using pronounced words that sound serious but humours like the Tfl advert (2015) about safety.

I like the way the narrator speaks and how they use a children’s story to represent a serious problem about teenager careless thinking when crossing the street. The advert has a double meaning, the rabbit represents people who act rashly by being quick, which is how most people get killed when cars are involved because they don’t look before crossing. However the other meaning refers to the children story the tortoise and the hare; which is evolves a rabbit that acts impatience, and a slow tortoise. The rabbit races the tortoise believing he would win, but the tortoise waits for the right moment before taking the lead. The reason the advert uses this story is because the tortoise was patience which allowed him to win, the same as a person who waits till the road is safe before crossing the road, being patient can save your life