LIFE's  A  GLITCHWillie Russell | Thesis 1 | Fall 2011 | Jun Sassa

THESISIntent

The goal of my thesis is to create a dynamic narrative animation that is un-expectantly touching. I want the audience to feel something, while having fun. I have decided to create a one-of-a-kind love story. A schizophrenic story of a worm’s search for love and the confusion that ensues. I also wanted to explore techniques that I have yet to try out. I have been experi-menting with technical way to glitch my footage to provide the ral effect. No plugins or internal effects allowed. I want the glitch to be an integral part of my main character’s schizophrenic personality.

PROTOTYPEStoryline

It’s morning time and a small bird is surveying a small hole in the ground, hoping for breakfast. She leans in to investigate when our main character, blasts out of the ground so large he fills the screen with his colorful skin. He flys into the air just like a dolphin would out of water, and falls back into the ground face first. As he collides with the ground, the screen glitches and reveals the main title. We fade into our character popping his head back out of the ground and turning his head, looking for food. He observes his sur-roundings. Our character notices birds flying together hand in hand and even rock forms around him putting their arms around each other. As he turns 180 degrees, he notices a beautiful creature, the first he has seen of his own kind, with a bow in her hair. He immediately falls in love as the music get majestic and epic, and we dive into a dreamy sequence of our worm floating in the sky with his lover as rainbows spring from the clouds. His skin glitches all of a sudden and he is back in the ground looking at his new love and the music is gone. He reaches for his love with his head and she ducks into the ground. He stands back confused. He reaches again and again and she continues to duck away from him every time. Each time she ducks his skin and the screen begin to glitch more and more. His face gets angry and we begin to zoom slowly towards him while the music builds up. We quickly speed up into his brain as the music drops and you can see his mind collapsing using abstract animations to the music. We quickly cut be-tween his mind and what is happening in the real world as he destroys mountains and digs up the ground forming an enormous crater. Once the dust settles, our character, defeated and depressed, climbs out of the crater revealing his whole body for the first time, with a bow tied around his tail.

PROTOTYPEStoryboards

Main  “worm”  character  shoots  out   from  beneath  the  ground  and  his  array  of  str ipes  wipe  across  the  screen  whi le  exci ted  8bit  music  begins  to  play.

BIRDS  EYE  VIEW:  Worm  f lys   into  the  air  and   is  introduced  whi le  b irds  soar  around  him  displaying  his   large  scale

As  soon  as  he  hit   the  ground    the  8bit  music  g l i tches  arcade  sty le  and  the  footage  goes  crazy  to  reveal   t i t le  of   f i lm.

Our  character  pops  his  head  out  of   the  ground  as  the  sun   is  coming  up  from  behind  the  mountains

We  c lose  up  on  his   face  as  the  environment  spins  around  him,   looking  for  something,   food  maybe?

He  spots  a  beaut i fu l  creature,  exact ly   l ike  him,  but  with  a  beaut i fu l  bow.

PROTOTYPEStoryboards cont.

The  camera  zooms   in  on  his   face  as  his  expression  changes  from  searchful ,   to  awestruck.

Again,  we  see  our  character   in  true  bl iss.

He  begins  to  reach  for  h is   lover,  but  she  ducks  away  from  him.

TOP  VIEW:  As  we  see  the  bow  s lowly  twist ing  into  the  darkness  of   the  hole.  Camera   is  s lowly  pul l ing  out.

As  we  pul l  out  the  hole   is   just  a  ref lect ion   in  his  d isgrunt led  eyes.  Camera  cont inues  to  pul l  out.

TOP  VIEW:  Our  character  begins  to  thrash  and  tear  at  the  ground  around  him.  We  zoom  quickly   into  the  smal lest  c i rc le  on  the  top  of  h is  head  which  turns   into  the  next  frame.  Gl i tches  are  happening  throughout  ent ire  “red  background”  sequence.

FROGS  EYE  VIEW:  Our  character   l i t   f rom  below,  begins  to  gl i tch  and  stat ic  at   th is   instantenous  denia l .

He  trys  again,  th is   t ime  quicker,  but  she  refuses  again.

Instant ly,   the  screen  and  his  skin  gl i tch,  and  you  can  see  he   is  back   in  the  ground.

Our  character  opens  his  eyes,  surpr ised.

As  we  pul l  out,  we  see  the  ground  far,   far  below  our  character  and  his  new  lover  as  they  f ly  to  the  c louds.

Clouds  f i l l   the  screen  as  ra inbows  popout  and  our  charcter   f ly  through  them  in  a  dreamy  sequence.

PROTOTYPEStoryboards cont.

The  smal l  c i rc le  turns   into  a  bubbl ing  sphere,  spewing  out  2D  animat ion  debr is.

Match  cut  the   inner  c irc le  with  the  c irc le   formed  by  our  worms  c ircular  thrashing  creat ing  a  giant  crate  around  him.

Our  charcter  then  crawls  out  of   the  crater,  defeated,  reveal ing  the  bow  t ied  around  his  ta i l .

The  music  stops,  and  the  dust  begins  to  s lowly  sett le.

Once  the  dust  sett les,  we  see  our  charcter  within  the  crater,  breathing  heavi ly,  a lone.

Quick  cut  back  outs ide  to  worms  head  swinging  into  the  s ide  of  a  mountain.

On   impact  of   the  mountain  we  quick  cut  back  into  his  “mind”  where  the  sphere  cracks   into  tr iangular  shapes  that  begin  to   f loat  away  reveal ing  an   inner  c irc le.

FEEDBACKAfter presenting this first round of storyboards, my professor and class-mates pointed out some essential holes in my story. Without these holes being filled, the story will not capture the audience like I want it to. These holes include, how can you tell that our main character is lonely? Our worm needs to access an emotional connection that we can relate to. Also, how do subtley hint that something has happened to cause the tail to pop out of the ground. This can’t happen in an obvious way, because the viewer cannot know that it is his tail. It has to happen in a way that at the end of the story, the viewer has an “ah-ha” moment, and realized that his tail popped out earlier for a reason.

Some solutions that we thought about consisted of the worm observing his surroundings more intently. He needs to see others falling into pairs, while he always stands alone. Also, the glitch could be an intergral part of the reason his tail pops out of the ground. He could be in some sort of trance, wanting to fall in love like all the other animals, but then bird fls into his face, or a tree falls him and surprises him. The screen would glitch and he would have a slight twitch in his body. That is when he turns around and finds his “new lover.”

Another hole is the destruction “red scene.” There needs to be more of a build up to the mayhem that ensues. The worm can’t just go crazy all of a sudden. He needs to get angry little by little. Maybe start by him just breath-ing heavily, and then hitting a rock with little force. After she denys him more, he could gradually get more and more disturbed and glitchy. This scene is the most important and largest part of the film and needs to be expanded. These are the next steps.

Main Character and SceneEARLIER  DESIGN  PROTOTYPES

FEEDBACKThese were my first round of character and set design. The set seems to be coming along nicely, geometric and simple, but somewhat intricate. But the worm character is the main focus. The feedback I received included the character should not geometic with hard egdges. In this geometric “pixel” world, the character should be smooth and have a splash of color, since the scene will be somewhat monochromatic. The idea was brought to have the worm’s skin be smooth, with a moving texture. Something like stripes that could also be glitching, signifying the character’s personality. I loved this idea and began to develop a new version of our main character pictured below.