Life's a Glitch Prototype

LIFE's A GLITCH

Willie Russell | Thesis 1 | 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 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.

PROTOTYPE Storyline

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. 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.

PROTOTYPE Storyboards

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 .

PROTOTYPE 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 .

PROTOTYPE 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.