LIFE's A GLITCH
Willie Russell | Thesis 1 Final Document | Fall 2011 | Jun Sassa
THESIS Intent
The goal of my thesis is to create a dynamic narrative animation that is unexpectantly 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 experimenting with technical ways to glitch my footage to provide the real effect. No plugins or internal effects allowed. I want the glitch to be an integral part of my main character’s schizophrenic personality. The goal of this narrative is to simply create a film that will touch, shock, and surprise its audience all at the same time. I want it to be an animation that uses an odd combination of practices to create a truly unique film.
RESEARCH Life’s a Glitch
glitchNoun/gliCH/ 1. A sudden, usually temporary malfunction or irregularity of equipment: “a computer glitch.” 2. An unexpected setback in a plan; a hitch, a snag
I needed to research both how to technically glitch my animation, and how to tell a solid narrative. So I have researched both computer programs and the art of telling a story.
RESEARCH continued
This image is the first glitch I created by simply compressing an image over and over again in strange file formats.
RESEARCH continued
I learned how to glitch my footage using FFmpegX and AVIdemux. FFmpegX compresses my footage in a way that I can edit these frames called i-frames and p-frames. I-frames contain an image, and p-frames contain the actual moving pixel information. AVIdemux is a super old editing program that allows me to take away i-frames from footage. With only p-frames, the pixels will move around on the wrong image, creating interesting and amazing accidents.
RESEARCH Mindmap
STORYLINE Life’s a Glitch
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 surroundings. Our character notices birds flying together hand in hand and even rock forms around him putting their arms around each other. Everyone and everything around him seem to have a second half. But as far as he knows, he is the only one of his kind. 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 between 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.
STORYBOARDS Life’s a Glitch
M a i n “ w o r m ” c h a r a c t e r s h o o t s o u t f r o m b e n e a t h t h e g r o u n d a n d h i s a r r a y o f s t r i p e s w i p e a c r o s s t h e s c r e e n w h i l e e x c i t e d 8 b i t m u s i c b e g i n s t o play.
B I R D S E Y E V I E W : W o r m f l y s i n t o t h e a i r a n d i s i n t r o d u c e d w h i l e b i r d s s o a r a r o u n d h i m d i s p l a y i n g h i s l a r g e s c a l e
A s s o o n a s h e h i t t h e g r o u n d t h e 8 b i t m u s i c g l i t c h e s a r c a d e s t y l e a n d t h e f o o t a g e g o e s c r a z y t o r e v e a l t i t l e o f f i l m .
O u r c h a r a c t e r p o p s h i s h e a d o u t o f t h e g r o u n d a s t h e s u n i s c o m i n g u p f r o m b e h i n d t h e mountains
W e c l o s e u p o n h i s f a c e a s t h e e n v i r o n m e n t s p i n s a r o u n d h i m , l o o k i n g f o r s o m e t h i n g , f o o d maybe?
H e s p o t s a b e a u t i f u l c r e a t u r e , e x a c t l y l i k e h i m , b u t w i t h a b e a u t i f u l b o w .
STORYBOARDS cont.
T h e c a m e r a z o o m s i n o n h i s f a c e a s h i s e x p r e s s i o n c h a n g e s f r o m s e a r c h f u l , t o awestruck.
A s w e p u l l o u t , w e s e e t h e g r o u n d f a r , f a r b e l o w o u r c h a r a c t e r a n d h i s n e w l o v e r a s t h e y f l y t o t h e c l o u d s .
C l o u d s f i l l t h e s c r e e n a s r a i n b o w s p o p o u t a n d o u r c h a r c t e r f l y t h r o u g h t h e m i n a d r e a m y sequence.
A g a i n , w e s e e o u r c h a r a c t e r i n t r u e b l i s s .
I n s t a n t l y , t h e s c r e e n a n d h i s s k i n g l i t c h , a n d y o u c a n s e e h e i s b a c k i n t h e g r o u n d .
O u r c h a r a c t e r o p e n s h i s e y e s , s u r p r i s e d .
H e b e g i n s t o r e a c h f o r h i s l o v e r , b u t s h e d u c k s a w a y f r o m h i m .
F R O G S E Y E V I E W : O u r c h a r a c t e r l i t f r o m b e l o w , b e g i n s t o g l i t c h a n d s t a t i c a t t h i s i n s t a n t e n o u s denial.
H e t r y s a g a i n , t h i s t i m e q u i c k e r , b u t s h e r e f u s e s again.
T O P V I E W : A s w e s e e t h e b o w s l o w l y t w i s t i n g i n t o t h e d a r k n e s s o f t h e h o l e . C a m e r a i s s l o w l y p u l l i n g o u t .
A s w e p u l l o u t t h e h o l e i s j u s t a r e f l e c t i o n i n h i s d i s g r u n t l e d e y e s . C a m e r a c o n t i n u e s t o p u l l o u t .
T O P V I E W : O u r c h a r a c t e r b e g i n s t o t h r a s h a n d t e a r a t t h e g r o u n d a r o u n d h i m . W e z o o m q u i c k l y i n t o t h e s m a l l e s t c i r c l e o n t h e t o p o f h i s h e a d w h i c h t u r n s i n t o t h e n e x t f r a m e . G l i t c h e s a r e h a p p e n i n g t h r o u g h o u t e n t i r e “ r e d b a c k g r o u n d ” s e q u e n c e .
STORYBOARDS cont.
T h e s m a l l c i r c l e t u r n s i n t o a b u b b l i n g s p h e r e , s p e w i n g o u t 2 D a n i m a t i o n d e b r i s .
Q u i c k c u t b a c k o u t s i d e t o w o r m s h e a d s w i n g i n g i n t o t h e s i d e o f a m o u n t a i n .
M a t c h c u t t h e i n n e r c i r c l e w i t h t h e c i r c l e f o r m e d b y o u r w o r m s c i r c u l a r t h r a s h i n g c r e a t i n g a g i a n t c r a t e a r o u n d h i m .
T h e m u s i c s t o p s , a n d t h e d u s t b e g i n s t o s l o w l y settle.
O u r c h a r c t e r t h e n c r a w l s o u t o f t h e c r a t e r , d e f e a t e d , r e v e a l i n g t h e b o w t i e d a r o u n d h i s t a i l .
O n i m p a c t o f t h e m o u n t a i n w e q u i c k c u t b a c k i n t o h i s “ m i n d ” w h e r e t h e s p h e r e c r a c k s i n t o t r i a n g u l a r s h a p e s t h a t b e g i n t o f l o a t a w a y r e v e a l i n g a n i n n e r c i r c l e .
O n c e t h e d u s t s e t t l e s , w e s e e o u r c h a r c t e r w i t h i n t h e c r a t e r , b r e a t h i n g h e a v i l y , a l o n e .
FEEDBACK After presenting this first round of storyboards, my professor and classmates 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 breathing 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.
EARLIER DESIGN PROTOTYPES Main Character and Scene
FEEDBACK These 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.
PRODUCTION Schedule
December 23rd - January 15th Complete modeling and rigging of any building, character, or setting piece within entire film. January 15th - January 30th Animate intro through title sequence February 1st - February 15th Animate after title sequence through dream sequence February 15th - March 10th Animate glitch and destruction scene March 10th - March 20th Animate reveal of characters bow tied around tail March 20th - April 15th Create sound design and soundtrack