Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Sunrise

This is a test of an animation I've been working on for a while:


Extended Sun Sequence from Wesley Cathon on Vimeo.

The story dealt with these cloaked characters who have the job of raising the sun up in the morning. In this other world, instead of rotating around the planet, the sun simply shrinks down into a miniature form and hovers there until morning. In order to create this change, there are beings that are assigned to conduct the whole proceeding. This is where that idea of music comes in to play. What eventually happens (not animated yet) is that the cloaked guy (named the conductor for future record) raises two giant statues out of the lake. both of them are classical looking figures holding instruments, standing on top of pillars. The conductor motions them to start, and then it was going to be this sequence where he directs the statues, instruments aimed at the miniature sun, to play music, making the sun grow into it's normal size. Eventually the sun shoots up into the sky, ending the animation.

It's a fairly abstract story. I don't know if I did a good job describing it with words. But anyways, this was my own attempt at using sound as sort of an element that made physical changes throughout the story.

The characters really stuck for me. I had been searching for something for a while, and I knew I wanted something kind of strange with an elaborate headdress. I'd say the first big thing I saw that really made me stop and think "wow, that could be a really fun thing to animate" was the cover (strangely not the movie) of 1984 "Amadeus"


That stark silhouette, just kind of radiating energy, hands outstretched, totally blew me away. I'm not even really ashamed at how much influence this single image had. I was more amazed that someone hadn't really tried to give it motion, and develop it further than just some abstract rendition of the live action film.
From here I wanted some more animal influences. I was really into the shape and function of things like moths and bats, which is ironic being that they are natural enemies. I also kind of enjoyed the idea of implementing the hearing abilities of bats.


I mean, we all are familiar with that exaggerated, pronged look. I also had the thought to switch around the way the ears perceive all kinds of wavelengths with the ability to emit sound. Think of that: large fixtures on a creature's head that serve the purpose of a voice, almost like a tuning fork. Thus the design of the conductor came into being. That is also  how these creatures would communicate, and control the giant structures: by emitting frequencies with the prongs on their heads. I reminds me of the scene in "Phantasm" where one of the characters discovers a portal to another dimension made by two vibrating nodes. He tries to close it by placing his hands on the top of them. 
This stops them from vibrating, just like a tuning fork. Anyways, those are some of the thoughts behind this specific animation. There's plenty more nerdy back-story and other artwork I've made based in this world, but I'll save that for later. King K. Cool, too Kool for school, Baduuulioooo. Yeah. Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Sounds that Do Stuff

I've always been interested in the use of music as a sort of force, like something that is used as a physical thing as much as a soundtrack. It's something that has been done before. If you've ever played any of the later Zelda games, you know what I'm talking about. The music transcends being some external influence in the story and becomes a factor that can change things within the story. And that leaves a lot open, because you can create a whole science behind how the whole "magic of sound" works. Since there are no rules around it, you can make music do pretty much anything. If you need to make rain, play a tune:


And you could open this whole idea up a bit, and say, "well musicals in general do the same thing." And they do, I mean there are just intervals of time where everyone falls under some goofy spell and can only interact by singing.

Another big moment that pushed me into this direction was watching the 1984 film, "Dune". There is a major sort of science that is used in the story, where the Atreides family finds that thoughts can take shape as certain sounds. Later on, this science becomes the turning point of the big war. A whole system of technology and weaponry is built to use this:


Eventually, Paul pretty much becomes the dovahkin (no doubt skyrim took some influence from this) and can change the world around him simply by yelling out cool sounding words.

Paul Muad'Dib being awesome


So these are just a few things that have poked at using sound in new ways. There are countless other examples of sound as something a bit more tangible. I mean, you could even reach all the way back to the idea of musical leitmotifs in things like "Peter and the Wolf", where all the characters are represented by specific instruments.

In the next day or two, I'll post up some of my own work that has been influenced by these ideas, along with some of the other ideas I had about character design and settings and stuff. Till then, hopefully this was kind of interesting at least.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Hey there! This is a blog, so I'll be bloggin' here from now on. I assume that's how it works.

-Wes