Major Project

Production Dairy

Hong Yiu Sung (Sara) up714482

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

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

[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 (Template)

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. To
observe typically the
tail movement and
body posture when it
is moving.

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

Animation form: 2D
Length of animation: 40secs
Video quality: HD1080

Background music: Trout Quintet Schubert by Hong Kong Philharmonic/ Symphony No. 5 The
Destiny by Berstein Beethoven
Graphic and character design: Photoshop CC
Animatic editing: Photoshop CC and Flash Professional CC
Video complex: Premiere CC
Sound editing: Audacity and Premiere CC
Time adjustment: Flash Professional CC and Premiere CC

Personal review
Benefit in:
Follow and observe the references carefully in aspect of animatic
Able to try different style design technique, although result as failure

 Colour skills improved

The ending ends up with impact that is the opinion by classmate
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
Andrija Ilic. Mass of whale hunting in Faroe Island leave sea blood red. 25November,2011. http://lh3.ggpht.com/XcdoCLlxLNU/Ts6OZNSMS2I/AAAAAAAASQ4/BzbRNmTniIw/whale-hunting-2%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800
Berstein Beethoven. Classic music 100 Symphony No. 5 The Destiny. 16October, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYpPjK_JPU
Hong Kong Philharmonic. Trout Quintet Schubert. 3 Jan,2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhLSrIrPMkQ
Incredible Footage of Killer Whales Playing Underwater. Smithsonian Channel.5June, 2010. (1:50- 1:54).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbtaJs8AWw
Killer Whale in a jump over water. http://namonitore.ru/uploads/catalog/whales/kasatka_v_prizhke_nad_vodi_1600.jpg
root. Japanese table manner. 26November, 2014. News 6 Paper. http://travel5s.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/A-restaurant-withboth-table-and-tatami-seating.jpg
Sheri Amsel.Aqua biomes. 18May, 2015. Contemporary Biology 2015.
http://blogs.mtlakes.org/contemporarybio/files/2015/05/ocean_layers.jpg
Swimming with Humpback Whales. Aggressor Fleet. 31July, 2008. (4:15). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPaLN_1iOZ8
Tracy Brewer. Orca Family Playing with Crowd. 31July, 2008. (2:15- 2:21). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvWoC71Uc2o
Tracy Brewer. Orca Family Playing with Crowd. 31July, 2008. (2:08- 2.10). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvWoC71Uc2o
Tessa.Shamu Killer Whale Image. 24May, 2010.
https://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiU6J3Cg6zKAhVJRhQKH
WDcD2YQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clker.com%2Fclipart63468.html&psig=AFQjCNH2d8pNdgRsRN3qRHnWvguNO7SjWQ&ust=1452942899188650