Erin Woodhouse

For this project I chose to select the first sound clip.

My initial mood board

My Character Design, final turnaround

Mouth Shapes

Storyboard

Background Design

Value Sketch

Key Frames

With Or Without You

My idea for the Creative Writing rotation was to create a disturbing short story from the perspective of a narrator who is obsessed with their best friend, Inesa. I chose the name Inesa as the meaning of it translates to ‘kind and innocent‘ showing how this character is oblivious to the narrator’s sinister obsession. The opening number ‘912151619’ represents the ages 9, 12, 15, 16 and 19 in a list, as the narrator proceeds to mention memories they deem precious from those ages. ‘Nine was our zero’ portrays how the narrator first met Inesa when they were nine years old, and how the first encounter, including an acorn, was childlike and playful. Three years later at the age of twelve, the narrator discusses how they would share things with Inesa. After six years at age fifteen, Inesa takes the narrator’s ‘sweetheart’, but the quote “the sugar you carried for Andrew was green” suggests that the narrator is under the impression that Inesa only did if out of jealousy, in the hopes that the obsession is mutual. During their seventh year at age sixteen it’s clear that the obsession has become dark and twisted as the narrator exclaims “you can not leave me”. After ten years at age nineteen, the narrator claims that at this point Inesa has ‘ruined’ their friendship. I didn’t make this clear as I wanted it to be open to interpretation, but at this point Inesa decided she no longer wanted to be friends with the narrator, but as the narrator feels as though they hold some sort of ownership over their friend, their unstable obsession led them to killing Inesa, as their friendship will last “With or without you, Inesa.” I chose to include some sort of time scale in order to show how the narrator’s obsessive mindset slowly graduates into becoming a sick and twisted fascination that eventually becomes dangerous, resulting in the death of the one the narrator loved most. Overall I really enjoyed this rotation as it pushed me to think outside of the box to create a creepy short story, thinking about many things such as language, form and structure.

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Creating character outlines out of shapes

Experimenting with how I want my character to look

For this rotation I chose the prompt of ‘Winter’ and decided to create a baby yeti designed for a younger audience. Firstly I experimented with different combinations of shapes to see what would work best for my character.

Inspiration for refining my design

For the shape of my character I took inspiration from these top heavy designs as well as the blue and off-white colour palette.

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Final design

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Drawing Sounds

Short film based on living in elephant and castle, in which I documented my journey home from London College of Communication.

Three images used to inspire my sound worlds.

My Final Film.

For my final piece I wanted to create three sound worlds based on the every day silences of mundane experiences in order to emulate the unspecific feeling of ordinary tasks. The first sound world is based on the time taken to boil the kettle and the feeling of waiting for the water to boil. I tried to create a groggy atmosphere to inspire the early morning tiredness before a cup of coffee and breakfast. The second sound world reflects the mundane and tiring action of studying, based on the ‘silence’ of being focused on the task at hand. I tried to exaggerate the sounds in-between the silences. Finally, the third sound world explores the feeling of going to the fridge late at night for a snack, and repeatedly rummaging around for a snack that is just not there.

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Final Sequence

My concept for the Sketching and Drawing rotation was to create a three-part narrative out of a sketch of two people raking a selfie. I used  the original sketch for the middle of my narrative, drawing two people behind I phone screen smiling for the camera. I kept the narrative simple by having the first sketch show the two people being immersed in an exterior group conversation, and the third sketch showing them reviewing the the picture that was taken. For the future, I would branch out and experiment with different narratives, perhaps with a longer sequence or including more action. Overall, I feel as this rotation encouraged me to use my imagination to bring my sketches to life, and I really enjoyed creating this short sequence.

To begin my project I captured a series of photographs whilst visiting home, surrounded by beach and castle ruins imagery. Whilst photographing, I narrowed my focus onto the composition attempting to take pictures based on angles and viewpoints. Afterwards I converted all of my images into black and white in order to not get distracted by colours.

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After reviewing my digital photos, I narrowed my options down to a final three, which I imported into Adobe Photoshop.

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Final Result

My initial concept for this project was to have the castle ruins be illuminated as a central focus, exaggerating the height and proportions in order to create a slightly threatening effect. I also enjoyed the narrative of a barren landscape, so involving the bare beach as the castle’s surroundings with an identical second castle is something I wanted to do in order to achieve a sense of uncertainty within the composition. Whilst visual editing my concept, I realised that I could warp and reshape images to work in my favour, so I began with stretching out the castle to appear taller and more looming in an attempt to make the viewer feel vulnerable. The angle at which the castle sits appears as though it is being viewed from down below, so I juxtaposed this with the straight-on viewing angle of the beach background in order to further illustrate the uncertain and impossible atmosphere. For the iron fence and stone foreground, I rotated this image in order to create an interesting contrast against the diagonal angle of the fence and hill that the castle sits on. I also experimented with the brightness of the three images, with the foreground images being darker than the background images therefore creating more depth. To reflect on my work, I enjoy the contrasts between nature and architecture that I have created, but despite this I feel as though I did not experiment with textures enough. If I was to work further on this project, I might try involving some softer textures to see how they work within the piece.

I enjoyed the traditional animation rotation as it taught me many skills such as patience and consistentcy, especially when creating my straight ahead animation. I had fun during the process of creating my squash and stretch animation, creating a baby character that bounced about on the ground. For my pose to pose animation I designed a skinny stick figure style character who switched between three different crazy positions. I enjoyed using the light box as it allowed me to view my previous frames and to see the progress of my work. Upon reflection, I would be more careful when planning my animation to make sure it runs as smoothly as is possible. Overall, I had lots of fun with this rotation and I am excited to work with the lightboxes again.

Squash and Stretch

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Pose to Pose

Straight Ahead

Storyboard

Initial Plan & Brainstorming

Reference Images & Inspiration

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Final Design

My concept for the 3D Story Worlds rotation was to create a Hansel and Gretel style Winter Wonderland. I feel as though this narrative was effectively communicated within my work throughout the mix of sweet decorations and the snowy trees. The process of learning Maya was very tedious and frustrating at times, especially when it came to modelling on a Macbook without a mouse, but I managed to learn new techniques as well as beginning to understand a new software. However, as someone who has never created any 3D work before, I found it very time consuming and simple tasks ended up taking me much longer to complete. Therefore I was unable to create as much within my Winter Wonderland scene as I would have liked, and if I was to go back and improve my work I would include some Christmas presents and decorations to incorporate a Christmas theme, as well as decorate my candy canes with stripes rather than leaving them a block colour. Overall, I enjoyed the experience that the 3D Story worlds rotation gave me, and I look forward to improving my 3D skills and creating new things in the future.