Here.
An introspective look into my mind from January - March 2020 when I especially felt like most things happening around me didn’t make sense but having the overall feeling that I was exactly where I needed to be although most things felt they were in their extremes.
Beginning Stages
I went into my thesis class with the general idea that I wanted to combine my love for film and typography.
I wanted it to have texture and not just have it be a flat matte background with sans serif type.
I quite literally felt caught in the middle at different points because I had suggestions from peers that I should make it more illustrative but that wasn’t my desire and so as much as my film is about being caught in-between things, I was living out my thesis as well in the process trying to hear and discover my own voice.
Image is an exploration from ‘Overlapped’ done in the quarter before this project but used as a starting point for my second exploration during my senior capstone.
Project Goals for Here:
> To follow a schedule:
- Week 1: Chose Topic
- Week 2: Animatic/Style Frames
- Week 3-4: Motion Tests
- Week 5-6: Rough Cut
- Week 7-8: Refinement
- Week 9-10: Final Cut
> To adapt the visuals throughout the process
> Work through ideas and find new solutions
> Build off of discoveries made from Overlapped
> Influencing Quote for this body of work:
“We can never be the people we admire - we can only be ourselves & that alone is admirable”
— Unknown
Scripts
My script was written in reflection of my Winter Quarter experience of my Junior Year at SCAD. Typically I would write a reflection of that 10 week period and these were my sentiments as I was headed home for spring break and was not going to be studying abroad for Spring Quarter because of Covid-19. While I know now more than I did then, this script describes how that Winter I felt like everything was up in the air but as much as it simultaneously felt right and wrong, I was exactly in the right place, at the right time.
The only change I made to the script during the process of making my senior capstone was changing the word unworthy to untrustworthy for two reasons. First, ‘untrustworthy’ is the antonym to ‘trustworthy,’ which precedes it in that sentence, and secondly, it wasn’t that I was unworthy of trust but more that I felt that people perceived me as being dishonest and unreliable but in reality I was in the midst of people’s storms and projections of themself onto me.
Initial Script for Here.
I feel like I’ve been getting myself ready, set and then told to wait. This literal in-between period has left me feeling like I’m winning, spinning, loosing and falling, running - in place. I feel anxious and calm; busy and unengaged; lonely and loved. I feel like the protagonist and antagonist of my own story. I feel infinite and temporary. I feel immune and vulnerable. I feel dependable and trustworthy and then unreliable and unworthy. I feel totally free to be who I want to be or thought to be. And most of all, I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be - even if it all doesn’t make sense to me.
Final Script for Here.
I feel like I’ve been getting myself ready, set and then told to wait. This literal in-between period has left me feeling like I’m winning, spinning, loosing and falling, running - in place. I feel anxious and calm; busy and unengaged; lonely and loved. I feel like the protagonist and antagonist of my own story. I feel infinite and temporary. I feel immune and vulnerable. I feel dependable and trustworthy and then unreliable and untrustworthy. I feel totally free to be who I want to be or thought to be. And most of all, I feel like I’m exactly where I need to be - even if it all doesn’t make sense to me.
Storyboard
Initial - Paper
Revised - Digital
Refining the Idea
Was I going to include Cinema 4D assets or not?
That was the question that I pondered for awhile. In the end, I chose not to because I felt like I was communicating the intent and feeling of my script through filming and occasional geometric assets.
Turquoise or Ultramarine Blue?
Initially I started with a turquoise (that you can see pictured below) and orange color palette, and I stuck to it in the initial design process. A classmate of mine kindly and privately messaged me suggesting that she thought my piece might be more successful if I traded turquoise for ultramarine. I changed the #HEX code in my After Effects file and never went back. It was the perfect match for my project!
Turquoise color palette
Ultramarine Blue color palette
How was I going to add texture?
In addition to discerning what to do, I thought back to how I wanted to add ‘texture’ to my piece. I was inspired by braille and how the patterns of raised dots created a written language. I also have a large affinity for dots/circles in general so it felt like a good match for my search to express how I was feeling.
Dots
Words
Dots + Words
Where it can be found:
In the first scene as a detail on the thermometer in the right hand corner. The dots spell “I FEEL LIKE”.
It can also be found in the last scene, as the dots reveal the word “Here.”
Where did the “thermal camera” idea come from?
If you know me personally, you’d know that I love gradients or anything holographic. I find natural rainbows to be super beautiful.
I was scrolling through Pinterest and saw this person walking through their house with a thermal camera. I thought to myself “What if I used a thermal camera as a lens for my perspective.” It also felt like a great match for my project and another visual layer to explain the “hot and cold” nature of my script.
Title of Work
“In-Between”
“Caught in the Middle
“Here.”
These were all names that I considered for the name of this piece. Ultimately, I chose “Here.” because while feeling multiple extremes, I was still existing and experiencing it all. It was “here” that I was found peace and “here” that I found clarity.
Final Frames
