Reflection/Conclusion

I find a better understanding of narrative communication through Speech Act Theory, but it is possible that others might not find it as useful.
I have unfolded one aspect of a narrative device that already existed in my work.
There is certainly a fractal order to perspectives on communicative analysis through narrative, this might be a post structuralist dilemma. There are many truths, quantization leads to an infinite series of discrete forms. But I have a way to talk about the work, and I feel comfortable and confident with the ability to talk and think about commonalities between different communicative forms, where initially I was overwhelmed. The comfort could be from a sense of ownership, discovering and mastering my own perspective; or it could be a virtue of the linguistic formula.

Indirect Citation

I keep getting this wrong.

Citing indirect sources

Sometimes you may have to use an indirect source. An indirect source is a source cited in another source. For such indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted. For example:

Ravitch argues that high schools are pressured to act as "social service centers, and they don't do that well" (qtd. in Weisman 259).

Hand-Made Aesthetic

I am looking for resources to cite and explain the difference between the experience of a hand held book and watching an animation. I have a sense that the hand drawn animation is closer to a book because the technique leaves artifacts that make the process transparent (i. e. people know how stop motion works, so visualizing the hand of the artist makes the product more indexical, like a hand made book).
Quotes I have and references:
 "Mary Ann Doane approaches the problem of sound from a psychoanalytic point of view and investigates the relation of sounds to the unified body reconstituted by the technology and practices of cinema. These technologies, which increasingly succeed in concealing the work of Jean-Louis Baudry’s apparatus, reduce the distance between the object and its representation, and this reduction of distance, and the attendant loss of “aura” first noticed by Walter Benjamin (see Section VII), is particularly evident in the case of the reproduction of sound. Doane believes that a proper understanding of the relation between sound and image is crucial to explaining the pleasure of the spectator in mainstream cinema. She analyzes such techniques as voice off, voice-over during a flashback, and the interior monologue and contrasts them with the disembodied voice-over commentary of the documentary. Its radical otherness with respect to the diegesis endows the voice-over with a certain authority. In the history of the documentary this voice has been for the most part male, and its guarantee of knowledge lies in its irreducibility to the spatio-temporal limits of the body on screen. The voice-over commentary speaks more or less directly to the spectator."

(Braudy 244)

"Cinema is the art of the index; it is an attempt to make art out of a footprint." (Manovich 2)

 live-action films, i.e. they largely consist of unmodified photographic recordings of real events which took place in real physical space. Today, in the age of computer simulation and digital compositing, invoking this characteristic becomes crucial in defining the specificity of 20th-century cinema (2)

they relied on lens-based recordings of reality. 2

Cinema emerged out of the same impulse that engendered naturalism 2

Cinema is the art of the index 2

What he does Paragraph:

"This argument will be developed—in three stages. I will first follow a historical trajectory from 19th-century techniques for creating moving images to 20th-century cinema and animation. Next I will arrive at a definition of digital cinema by abstracting the common features and interface metaphors of a variety of computer software and hardware that are currently replacing traditional film technology. Seen together, these features and metaphors suggest a distinct logic of a digital moving image. This logic subordinates the photographic and the cinematic to the painterly and the graphic, destroying cinema’s identity as a media art. Finally, I will examine different production contexts that already use digital moving images—Hollywood films, music videos, CD-ROM games and artworks—in order to see if and how this logic has begun to manifest itself. " 3 

 CGI -meaning of these changes 

n. It is no longer an indexical media technology but, rather, a sub-genre of painting. 3

rather than the art of audio-visual narrative, or the art of a projected image, or the art of collective spectatorship, etc. 4

Not about indexicality, but surprisingly related to my thesis:
"Consider the CD-ROM Johnny Mnemonic (Sony Imagesoft, 1995). Produced to complement the fiction film of the same title, marketed not as a “game” but as an “interactive movie,” and featuring full-screen video throughout, it comes closer to cinematic realism than the previous CD-ROMs—yet it is still quite distinct from it. With all action shot against a green screen and then composited with graphic backgrounds, its visual style exists within a space between cinema and collage."  (14)

Works Cited:

Braudy, Leo, and Marshall Cohen. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

Manovich from Denson, Shane, and Julia Leyda. Post-cinema: Theorizing 21st-Century Film. , 2016. Internet resource. <http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/POST-CINEMA_Theorizing-21st-Century-Film-PDF-13mb-Shane-Denson-Julia-Leyda-eds.pdf>

On Film and Time

True description requires a pause in temporal flow, which is not possible in cinema because cinema cannot stop time
Seymour Chatman from "What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (and Vice Versa) ," in Literary Theories in Praxis, ed. Shirley F. Stanton, 159-69 (philadelphia: University of Pensylvania Press 1987).

New Diagram of the Locution, Illocution, and Perlocution, through  Audience, Author, and Form.

Collage Approach

The text in this scene was made by cutting and pasting pieces from other texts to stitch together a narrative.

I am trying to organize the theoretical framework down into 3 steps/functions

Look at emerging media as a blend of existing mediums and break it into existing dialects with conventions, identify an overarching logical structure that can describe all the components, and use the logical form to analyze the structure, guide narrative support through the medium, and as a generative device to combine the dialects into idioms with virtues unique to the new blended media platform.

1. Overarching logical form to analyze structure,
   1. Speech Act Theory (J. L. Austin, Ronald Grimes, mentioned briefly in another writing on film crit which I have not found)
   2. The Heroes Journey (Joseph Campbell)
   3. The Spectator in the Text (Nick Browne)
   4. Mirror Stage (Jacques Lacan)
2. Applying the structure to guide narrative support through medium
   1. the decision to add pages to support the primitive
   2. importance of the equivocal artifact in the Pop-up page
3. Using the logical form as generative device to combine the dialects into idioms
   1. switching dialects to make the scenes performative

Nick Browne's "The Spectator in the Text" Bridges Cinema and Theatre, but Fails to Describe Blended Media

Professor Nick Browne proposes a reevaluation of the “center” through “reading” the film and assessing rational for camera motivation through an implied narrator placed by the spectator combined with the “implied position of the spectator”. Interpretation of the figurative placement or “center” of the spectator is complicated because the viewer can disagree with the opinions of the character represented through the geographic position and angle of the camera. This act of defiance with the physical perspective places the narrative authority in the possession of the spectator (132-133).
The switching of modes, alternating contrasting elements, is read as a as a coherent statement to the spectator, conveying a sense of meaning over time. Key to the process of reading is forgetting the elements that composed the dramatic impact, brought about by the placement of a new occluding significant event for the spectator to read, an effect Browne calls “fading” (135). A spectator reads emphasis implied through temporal variation in cycles of retrospection, fading, delay, and anticipation, an act that further involves the spectator (136).
Identification with a character on screen, without a sense of displacement as the shots change, relieves the spectator’s point of view from a “given spatial location” (134 and 137). The text the spectator inhabits is, as Browne puts it, “the product of the narrator’s disposition toward the tale” (136). Within the presentation of this structure the author transfers the appearance of authority onto the characters. To the reader, the “center”, in the context of the specular text, is a function that is adopted as the one who makes the form intelligible, and for the spectator the center is the impression of being able to occupy the space of the narrative (137).
Conclusion:
Nick Browne's text counters theories of camera placement based on theatrical spectatorship with a theory of an implied narrator and a placing the spectator in a suspended position, neither in the fictional space of the story, nor the perspective a purely passive viewer, similar to the perspective of the reader of a book. His theory has the ability to bridge cinematography and literature, but it certainly does not apply to several newer platforms. The Vive, for example, has narratives wherein the spectator can alternate between the fictional space of the story with an have an active or passive role.

Goose Facing Window

Point Animation Awning

I have re-sculpted the awning using the Point animation method described here
http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutorial/1878-Creating-an-Animated-Paper-Folding-Effect-in-Maya
The point animation uses linear animation (the points go from one to the next in a straight line; not a curve), but I do not have the gimbal lock problem, and I think the new angles look better from the final perspective.

Windows

I am making a display to go in the window. Ultimately it will be flat for the pop-up scene, but I want the slats to cast a shadow across the objects in the display, so I cannot just use a picture. This is the goose side.

I still cannot get Mental Ray working at home, so the texture on the cloth is not rendering.

Fabric and Texture Match

I have a match on most of the textures and the fabric is simulated

Pop-Up texture

I have most of the texture and mechanics of the pop-up transition shot working.

Euler Gimbal Lock

I believe I have found the source of my rotational error. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a solution; I am rotating certain too far on more than 3 axes. I am just going to have to fix the error in rotation frame by frame.

Matching the Perspective to the Pop-Up

 This is one of the original frames.

This is the original with the pop-up overlayed. In order to work I have to have an exact match on every brick... It is very tedious.

Everything is working except the Awning and Mentalray

I am using blend shapes for the street light, and the doors.

The pop-up from an overhead perspective

The blend-shape that adapts the pop-up with the composite model as seen from above

3 Ways to make an Awning Fold

I have been trying to get the highlighted flap to fold for a few days. It seems like it would be simple, but it has been very problematic in practice. 

The first attempt, a blend shape, did not work. The resulting shape sort of slid across, instead of unfolding. 

I tried using joints, but I couldn't get the seam to stay together in the middle, against the wall, and against the awning.

The best results came from a group method. The axis is kind of weird, and I could not get it to properly hold orientation relative to the group. The only way I was able to get the shape to work is by readjusting it and keyframing every few frames. 

The Group Method

Best so far

Mentalray is still not working. There has been no reply to my problem in the forum, and that is the only way Autodesk replies to questions (at least with the educational version).

Matching the CGI to the Pup-Up

None of the angles on the CGI model that blends with the real image are really straight because the angle of the building is not 90 degrees the sidewalk is not straight, and the exact position of the camera is not known. The model was made to match the flat image perfectly while aproximating the actual dimensions as closely as possible. The resulting model, cannot be made into a pop up book. To compensate, I am working on another model with 90 degree angles that functions as a pop-up which I am making a blend shape to transition to the photo-based model. Matching the UV maps on the skewed model photo model to the straight model is tough because the geometry that folds is straight with regular UV maps, but the photo-match UVs are all warped to match the camera's perspective.

Here the angle of the photo-match polygon (in amber) was warped to match the perspective of the camera, attempting to match the outline with the polygon shape that folds best (in light blue) yields problems matching UVs. This paticulat flap has been very very troublesome.

Blend Shapes

I made some blend shapes to transition parts of the model from the flat pop-up to the live video. It is working out well.

Maya is loading, but Mentalray is still not working... Ugg...

file -f -new;
// Warning: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/rememberViewportSettings.mel line 43: Active stereo does not work with Aero enabled. Active stereo has been disabled. //
// untitled //
commandPort -securityWarning -name commandportDefault;
// AbcExport v1.0 using Alembic 1.5.4 (built May  8 2014 13:47:10)
// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/mentalrayForMaya2015/plug-ins/Mayatomr.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
 //
// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
 (Mayatomr) //
// AbcImport v1.0 using Alembic 1.5.4 (built May  8 2014 13:47:10)
updateRendererUI;
// Error: line 1: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/mentalrayForMaya2015/plug-ins/Mayatomr.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
 //
// Error: line 1: The specified procedure could not be found.
 (Mayatomr) //

Maya is Working!!!

After downloading several drivers and various versions of Maya, SP 6 with a seperate Mentalray plug in has booted up!

Maya is still down

My home copy of Maya is still down. I am awaiting a response from Autodesk.
Some are related to Mental Ray, which is missing from the newer version, so I have tried reinstalling the latest 2015 service pack, and the Mentalray installer, but nothing has solved the issues yet.
The error in the command window is:
// Error: Unable to dynamically load : ModelUISlice.dll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: DSO <ModelUISlice.dll > failed to load properly or perhaps commandList is incorrect. //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/initContexts.mel line 133: Error evaluating argument at position 1 in procedure "rememberCtxSettings". //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/mentalrayForMaya2015/plug-ins/Mayatomr.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(Mayatomr) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/plug-ins/fbx/plug-ins/fbxmaya.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(fbxmaya) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/MayaMuscle.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(MayaMuscle) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/mayaHIK.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(mayaHIK) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/OneClick.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(OneClick) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 60: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/OneClick.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 60: The specified procedure could not be found.
(OneClick) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 61: Invalid object or value: //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/mayaHIK.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(mayaHIK) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/mayaCharacterization.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(mayaCharacterization) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/AbcExport.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(AbcExport) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/AbcImport.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(AbcImport) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/gpuCache.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(gpuCache) //

// Error: line 1: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/gpuCache.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: line 1: The specified procedure could not be found.
(gpuCache) //

// Error: line 1: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/modelingToolkitStd.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: line 1: The specified procedure could not be found.
(modelingToolkitStd) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/plug-ins/xgen/plug-ins/xgenToolkit.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(xgenToolkit) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: ImportError: file S:\Maya_2015_DI\build\Release\runTime\Python\Lib\site-packages\maya\OpenMayaUI.py line 21: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found. //

// Warning: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Failed to run file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/plug-ins/xgen/plug-ins/xgenMR.py //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: (xgenMR) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/bin/plug-ins/shaderFXPlugin.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(shaderFXPlugin) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/plug-ins/bifrost/plug-ins/BifrostMain.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(BifrostMain) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/plug-ins/bifrost/plug-ins/bifrostshellnode.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.
(bifrostshellnode) //

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: Unable to dynamically load : C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/plug-ins/bifrost/plug-ins/bifrostvisplugin.mll
The specified procedure could not be found.
//

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2015/scripts/startup/autoLoadPlugin.mel line 46: The specified procedure could not be found.

(bifrostvisplugin) //

Maya 2017 Compatibility Issues

The render layers I set up in Maya 2014 - 2016 are not transferring into 2017, and installing 2017 seems to have corrupted all the older versions on my home PC (2014, 2015, and 2016 are no longer loading). A simple repair reinstall does not work, so I have had to uninstall 2015, download another copy,  and reinstall. 2017 Seems to be working, but there have been a lot of comparability problems, so I want to have the same copy at home that I use in the lab.

Maya is Not Using Mental Ray in 2017

Maya 2016 is giving me issues, and apparently Maya has stopped including Mental Ray in 2017. So all my stuff has to render in a stand alone or something. I haven't really figured out how to use them yet, but all the Mental Ray stuff if not going to render in Maya 2017.
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Changes-to-rendering-in-Autodesk-Maya-2017.html?v=2017

NVidia says it is "Coming Soon for Maya 2017"
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia-mental-ray-products.html

Blending the PopBook

I am using a blend shape to make the pop up book transition into the CGI/live action shot. For some reason the pivots on my blend shapes are moving around, and it is causing a problem with the mechanics.

Pop-Up Books are Tricky

I have been struggling with the off axis angle, and it is just turning into a mess of groups that are not spinning on the proper axis. I am just going to start over with a new file that is on axis, get it to open properly, then group it import everything and warp the pages to match.

The mechanics are good, There are a couple places where the paper will need to bend, but nothing that would make it break. Now I have to apply it to the model...

Background

The story has changes, so I updated the "Background" section of the home page

My nieces and I have developed several characters and stories through our dialogue. I would have them give me suggestions of what we should draw, and I would deliberately steer the material into absurdity by imposing reality on the make-believe. A common theme to all the stories has been animals, trying to live in the real world and failing (often with morbid implications). Tuba-Goose has been the subject of a lot of our conversations, and he has one of the most developed personalities. I do not remember the exact details of why he has a tuba, but I remember it was related to the way cartoon animals dress up to seem more human. He has the personality of a goose, so his choice of accessories was not very practical, and his insistence to continue to carry it around embodies a defiant obstinate that is important to our relationship. It was not a conscious decision, but in reflection, I think I was foreshadowing the bittersweet reality of growing up in a way that they will not understand until it has happened.

The goose does not achieve his dream, and my nieces will have unrealistic goals that they will compromise as they mature. I don't want to discourage their dreams, but when they inevitably find their limitations, I want them to know that failure is not a flaw; it is a consequence of trying.

Pop-Up Page

The angle of the camera to the building is not perpendicular. I have tried 2 approaches to getting the pop up page to match the shot. Both have problems, but either could work.

First I manipulated the geometry, the other was more focused on the texture... (the shot does not work with a playblast.
I will probably end with a hybrid of the two techniques.

Speech Act Theory and Subjective Interpretation

Recent conclusions have undermined my initial criticism of other digital pop-up books, and the idea that J. L. Austin's performative formula might help categorize certain elements as detrimental to the narrative.

It was my perception that the interactive animations in some of the digital Pop-Up books do not do anything to further the story. I thought some of them looked tacked on, rather than integrated, and the resulting form is more of a toy than a book.

example:

Initially, I criticized the example though principals of Mise-en-scène (every element should give the audience new information, supporting the narration), and I hoped that an overarching linguistic form could clarify the function of cinematic, interactive media, and literary elements, discerning irrelevant and tangential Speech Acts.
After analyzing my own work through the theory, I cannot ignore the fact that the same justifications for my own use of interactive media in the form could be used to support the things I did not like.
The interactive animations in the above books give the reader an experience from the narration, and therefore could be viewed as an immersive narrative device.

Presentation on 09/13/16

I have been working on my presentation.
There are a scenes things I need to address, but I did not have the imagery to illustrate them. So I put together a couple rough scenes.

Goose Hero

Tuba on the Ground

Pop-Up Playblast

U have been workin on the pop-up scene... I have had some complications getting the pop-up page to match the live footage. I am not nuts about the roller-coaster camera shot, but this is the best transition I have so far.

A few quick renders (These take place after the page turn which will be the hardest part to animate)

Rough Draft of the Idea in Context

I tried to find a way to make it work from an angle that didn't involve flying around so much, but nothing really matched the shot, or would work as a pop up.

Sequence

book opens-

Tuba-Goose

Chapter One/

Probably a Goose

-page-

once upon a time

there was probably a goose/

animated illustration

-page-

there were probably lots of geese

and this goose was no exception

but he didn't know that/

animated illustration

-page-

because he was just a goose/

animated illustration

-page-

a human thing was around

and that's what he thought he would be

because there was no one who said that he couldn't/

animated illustration

-page-

so he did/

or he tried

-page-

and he left geese behind/

to show people a goose with a tuba

-page-

Chapter Two/

Of Geese and Men

-page-

pop up establishing shot

-page-

down streets

through  doors

up aisles

-parallax transition-

to places where people go

-parallax transition or page turn-

but what he expected to see is not what people do (dolly zoom)

-page-

with valves and chambers left open

which geese never thought to protect

tubas and dreams dent and ding

impractical things you'll forget/

animation

-page-

Chapter Three/

Acceptance (animation)

-page-

(missing scene)

-page-

once shiny and new becomes heavy and cold

a weight around his neck

in reflection he can see what he really must be

in life he's only a goose

-page-

with a bow that would say

he was bigger that day

when he knew how heroes lose

with relief and pain

in a quiet refrain

a tuba fell to the ground

/

with his dream in the dirt his steps were free

flapping wings he forgot were there

(over an illustration of a tuba on the ground with a flapping sound about 10 seconds into the page or ideally with eye tracking on the words)

-page-

Not a star in the sky

but untethered geese fly

to a home for a goose gosling and gander

Illocution, Perlocution, and Primitive for the Acceptance Chapter

Illocution: Tuba-Goose is not a goofy comedy or a fairy tale, it is a metaphor for the dissonance one feels when they realize their limitation through failure to attain a dream. It is a personal message to the adults to remember the moment when you realized that you could not be anything, if you try hard enough, and a foreshadowing to the child audience.

Primitive: I want the story to transition from a tongue and cheek story about a goofy character into an embarrassing failure in the real world. The primitive I want to incorporate is the uneasy feeling the audience feels watching someone bomb on a stage, evoking the embarrassment someone feels watching a performer try to do something that they are unwilling to accept that they do not have a skill for.

Something Big from Found Footage Festival on Vimeo.

Perlocution: The audience's embarrassment turns to sympathy and a recognition of the humanity of the goose when he that he has failed (i. e. identification with the protagonist).

I planned to shoot ComFest, and local shows for looking for footage of an uncomfortably bad public performance in which to add the Goose. I have some performances that are pretty awkward and mortifying, but what I have needs audio to work, and I can't think of a way to integrate it into the form.

New Animatics for Pages 5 and 6

The timing is more than a little rough, but it seems to work.
The first pair could loop, and though I had not done it when I made this animatic, I could have the camera and the text "to show people" start following the "tuba" and track into a repeating loopable backdrop.

Shots from the Missing Climax/Resolution

The Key Points of Speech Act Theory

I found one of the best summaries of the points of Speech Act Theory in The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language.
visible off campus here.
Devitt, Michael, and Richard Hanley. The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Pub, 2006. Internet resource.


It also mentions P.F. Strawson who I was excited to learn thought "most illocutionary acts involve not an intention to conform to an institutional convention but an intention to communicate something to an audience". Unfortunately, after further investigation , it appears his research was not going into a direction that would be useful in the creation of a logical structure based on linguistics. 

"there is no requirement to map ordinary language onto artificial logical structures, nor does that capture ordinary meaning anyway. "  
-Strawson (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/strawson/#Lan)
"his slogan that ordinary language has no precise logic". 
-Strawson  (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/strawson/#Lan)

Prototype for Pages 1 to 4

Foliage Text and Animated Illustration for the First Page.

Approaches to the Animated Vine Text from Curves

The animated vine text is created by attaching an FX brush stroke to a curve in Maya.
Each stroke had to be adjusted to grow, and fill individually for each letter, but I am duplicating the letters with only minor alterations to each incidence, so the process gets faster as I build the alphabet.

I started using the node editor to duplicate the strokes onto the new letters. I named the strokes and curves for each letter by placement and function. 

Most stems, arms, and typographic structures share a number quantized by strokes, but there are a few exceptions (see the image below). (e.g. the highlighted is LowRCurveOut1; Low= lower case, R = letter "R", Curve = as opposed to stoke, Out = left shape boarder for the most part each stroke of a letter stroke also has an In, a fill, and some have a foot), 1 the typographic components are numbered from left to right (the letter "r" has 2 strokes "m" has 3).

I made exceptions to my organizational structure for aesthetic reasons. The pages with the vine text are describing the goose in his natural environment so I wanted the growth of the foliage to have fluidity; the highlighted curves from letters "g" and "w" would have been made with 2 quill strokes, but the Roman alphabet I am using (a mix of Champ Fleury developed in 1529 by Geofroy Tory (Tory web) and Romain du Roi by Louis Simonneau (Simonneau, web)

I have all the letters animated for the first page "Once upon a time there was probably a goose".

I started running into problems rendering with mental ray a couple days ago.

I thought I had done something wrong in the Node Editor, but mental Ray does not seem to be working with the version of Maya 2016 I am using. The above image is a simple torus and plane with 2 different shaders and multiple light sources.

The the letters are working with Mental Rayin 2014, but the file with all the letters together will not load (it is a Maya ASCII, so it should). 2016 has been very problematic, especially in the lab. I often find that the selection tools will suddenly stop working, and the text will be a different size when I transfer the files into 2015 or 2014.

Rendered with Maya Software's render engine

Works Cited

 Tory, Geoffroy. Champ Fleury. Paris - Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Coll. Div., 1529. print/web. The diagrams I used are photographs of the book pages 34 to 140, available online (pages 23 to 76) through rarebookroom.org  http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/trychf/index.html

 Simonneau, Louis. Médailles sur les principaux événements du règne de Louis le Grand, the book is not in english, and I am still researching this source, unknown page, the diagram is from an image on the  web. more info https://archive.org/details/medaillessurlesp00acad

Rough Draft of the Animations for Pages 1 to 4

Page 1

Ivy text growing on the opposite page reads:

Once upon a time 

there was probably a goose

The user would turn the page with a swiping motion  to advance from the last frame to the next page.
***

Page 2

Ivy text growing on the opposite page reads:

There were probably lots of geese, 

and this goose was no exception

The user would turn the page with a swiping motion  to advance from the last frame to the next page.
***

Page 3

(this page will be hand drawn, the Photoshop image is just a prototype).

Ivy text growing on the opposite page reads:

But he didn't know that

because he was just a goose

The user would turn the page with a swiping motion  to advance from the last frame to the next page.
***

Page 4

Animated hand drawn typography (with a compass) on the opposite page reads:

A human thing was around

and that is what he thought he would be

The user would turn the page with a swiping motion  to advance from the last frame to the next page.

Madeleine L’Engle and Children's Capacity to Handle "Darker Matters"

Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time shares many of my views on the value of unsettling elements in children's literature.

Notes

 "fear of trampling on someone else’s toes, that was, alas, the way of the world"
-Madeleine L’Engle

"point of this parable" (Illocution)
"We find what we are looking for. If we are looking for life and love and openness and growth, we are likely to find them. If we are looking for witchcraft and evil, we’ll likely find them, and we may get taken over by them."
-Madeleine L’Engle

A good quote on censorship vs. discernment:
"The exercise of personal taste is not the same thing as imposing personal opinion."
-Madeleine L’Engle

"Fortunately, nobody ever told me that stories were untrue, or should be outgrown, and then as now they nourished me and kept me willing to ask the unanswerable questions."
-Madeleine L’Engle


Popova, Maria. "Dare to Disturb the Universe: Madeleine L’Engle on Creativity, Censorship, Writing, and the Duty of Children’s Books" Brain Pickings. n.p., Brain Pickings. n.p., Web. 19 Oct 2015. Web. 08 Aug 2016. https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/04/10/dare-to-be-creative-madeleine-l-engle/
(The Publication date is unlisted, but the web address suggests either April the 10th 2014 or October the 4th 2014)

Playblast for the exposition

I have some dents to bang out, but this is my latest approach to the 2nd scene of the exposition

The orange is going to be the face of a brick building, the red is a door, and the green is a dumpster. I still have a lot of work to do in the timing, but it has the potential to read at a much faster pace than the other prototype.

Anton Ego Montage from Ratatouille and the Acceptance Sequence

I am having trouble getting what I want from the climax/resolution sequence.

A sequence with a similar interaction is the Anton Ego paradigm shift from Ratatouille.

The audience's perception of the character changes completely, in line with the characters paradigm shift.

Locution: Anton's eyes open wide, pupils enlarge; Dolly-zoom; Montage of Anton as a child, comforted by mother, eating ratatouille; Dolly zoom, cut to a shot of Anton dropping pen; close up of the pen; reaction shot of Anton in awe

Illocution: Anton is in awe of how powerfully the tasting experience reminds him of the comfort he got from his mother through her ratatouille, 

Perlocution: The audience identifies with the Antagonist, the power of the shift in perceptions is equated to the power of the emotional impact of the dish being served

Primitive: Build the character up as a villain then show him as vulnerable

page 1 layout prototype

First page

I had to put together a rough draft of the first line to make some judgments about how to organize the text and where to put the page turns

 Enlarging the text makes the foliage stand out, but it breaks up the 2nd line.

I do not expect to lose as much detail shrinking the animated typography on this page because the lines are clear.

Stop Motion Blend

Stabilized and color matched

It is a little fast, but this is the animation to accompany the Vine-Text

"Once upon a time there was probably a goose

there were probably a lot of geese

and this goose was no exception

but he didn't know that

because he was just a goose"