The Post With The Most 13/02/2011

In many ways, it's the early stages of students' projects I enjoy the most - when everything remains 'in potentia' and ideas are fluid, plastic and yet to fully coalesce. Thomas Edison once said that genius is "1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration". He's right. Anyone can have a light-bulb moment, but it takes a different breed to subject that idea to close scrutiny, refinement, and the mud-and-shovel labour necessary to polish it to perfection. This is the stage at which the CGAA community is now; ideas are most definitely in the offing, but the role of design, personal style and good old-fashioned story-telling is paramount, and students are working hard in pre-production to realise their respective visions more concretely.

As Tom Beg whittles away at Oscar Wilde's faustian novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, in readiness to transcribe it in cg, he's also been exploring his visual concept through the production of evocative thumbnails. Working between graphics tablet and marker pen, Tom is exploring the compositional opportunities of working with an alternate aspect ratio and expressionistic aesthetic.

Leo Tsang continues with a world he first envisioned in response to Soundscape 17, as part of his award-winning '1 Becomes 2' summer project. With his emphasis firmly on opportunities for flexing some serious animation muscle, Leo's now exploring further his Tribe 17 - both in terms of environment and character design - and using freeware, Alchemy, to encourage spontaneity and broker break-throughs born of 'happy-accidents'.

2nd year Charlotte is also keen to ensure her environment design for the Amazon-based city of Manaus, as described by Eva Ibbotson's in her novel, Journey to the River Sea, is strongly realised in terms of art direction and visual concept. Out come the paints, brushes and ink washes, as Charlotte explores an impressionist approach to modeling and texturing.

Meanwhile, Ethan Clements goes 'cut, paste & collage', as he gets to grips with his cg excursion into the deep, dark depths of Poe's gothic City In The Sea. You can see more of his digital decoupage here...

... and Rich V-C combines photographs in a different way to generate this hyperreal concept piece for his up-and-coming WW2 environment design project (with a difference).

First Wilde, then Poe, and now Lovecraft gets the CGAA treatment. Ruben's ambitious adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Music of Erich Zann reaches the storyboard stage - but with more refinements to come.

Last week, I featured Jolanta's animatic for her 'Ivan' short, as a means of demonstrating the importance of pre-vis for exploring potential problems with narrative, performance or character arc. JJ has worked determinedly to produce a further animatic that addresses the narrative issues identified by the original pre-vis, and which nuances Ivan's 'acting'.

Sam Hayes is also at the animatic stage - working 'quick and dirty' to get a firm grip on the mechanics of his story. Sam is using Aaron Copeland's Hoe-Down as the basis for an original animated short - a story of two suitcases separated on their 'wedding day' in the Wild West - and the frantic bid for reunion that ensues.

CGAA Year One are busily readying their screenplays for their Greenlight IOR. Some are already getting stuck in to visualising their characters and environments. Paul-Arthur has set his story in Paris - and this concept piece is wonderfully evocative of time and place.

As evocative are these wonderfully balletic character studies by Domantas of his waiter.

So, it's already week 3, which means... it's 3 weeks before deadline day for Year 1, 7 weeks for Year 2, and 13 weeks for Year 3. Plan your time, keep looking at your briefs, at the assessment criteria, at the calendar - and don't mistake 'getting it done' for 'getting it right'. Remember the words of Thomas Edison; anyone can have a great idea, but it takes a special individual to turn those dreams into realities. Wishing you all a creative and productive 7 days... Be amazing!