The Story of I

The Story of i

2011-12-18T00:08:00.000+08:00

The Story of i, 2009

2009 Student Collaborative Short Film

Concept & Execution- Stella Ng, Phang Ni Zhen, Jingky Gilbert,

Theodora hui, Rosalind Sam, Wei Lin Fang, Syarah Mahmood

Additional 3D and production support: Chris Chia

VFX Support -Pereira Emilio Mark

Music- Lim Sze Yang

No_Signal Static sequence- Attila Kozmóczki

2010-03-05T20:10:00.000+08:00

The Story of i was shortlisted for Animex International Festival of Animation & Computer Games.

http://animex.tees.ac.uk/student_awards_shortlist.cfm

2010-02-13T13:13:00.003+08:00

Best Animated Film for a Student at the Phoenix Award- Asia Film, Video and Digital Media Awards 2009.

ASIFA India 8th International Animation Day 2009

2009-10-20T00:36:00.001+08:00

The Story of i has been nominated for the Student International Short Category.
http://asifa.in/iad09/nominees.html

DIGICON 6 AWARDS/Animation Nation 09
The Story of i received a certificate of effort.

October Screenings!

2009-09-30T00:12:00.000+08:00

The Story of i will be playing at the following festivals in October:

Animation Nation 09

Saturday, October 10
4-5pm
library@esplanade
Level 3, Esplanade Theatre
8 Raffles Avenue, #03-01

Free Admission
http://www.sfs.org.sg/animation/an2009/sgshowcase.html

Purnama 2
Saturday, 17th October
7.30pm
Cathay CineLeisure

Tickets: S$10.00
http://www.smfs.sg/Purnama_2.html

Please support! :)

Singapore Short Film Festival

2009-09-03T00:17:00.003+08:00

The Story of i will be playing alongside other animated shorts at the SSFF.

Tickets at $5 / 7 Date:     Thursday, 17 September 2009
Time:     19:15 - 20:30
Location:     The Substation
Street:     45 Armenian Street, Singapore 179936

2009 Crowbar Awards!

2009-09-03T00:13:00.000+08:00

The Story of i has clinched two awards at the recent Crowbar Awards!

Gold - Film Craft (Art Direction)

Silver- Animation

NYP animation Pulcinello and Ronen also did really well at the awards!

2009-08-23T14:30:00.000+08:00

The Story of i played at the National Muesuem on the 23rd of August as part of the 6th Singapore Short Cuts, alongside other short films.

The Story of i- sneak peeks

2009-04-07T16:04:00.003+08:00

a sneak peek for the rest of the world.
we will upload the final short film soon- this depends :)

Thanks all who came to Fusion 2009, Nyp's graduation show for the School of Interactive and Digital Media Design. We hope you enjoyed our short.

Purgatory Orthographic

2009-02-20T01:09:00.002+08:00

Illustrated Poster

2009-02-14T00:41:00.000+08:00

Red and her Friends

2009-02-01T12:07:00.005+08:00

Color board

2009-01-04T20:55:00.004+08:00

Greys

2009-01-04T20:55:00.000+08:00

RED

eyes render:)

2008-12-26T15:30:00.000+08:00

the old video feel reference

inspiration for the Grey Sequence?

woooo feel.

2008-12-23T05:14:00.001+08:00

NEW RED MODEL!:D

2008-12-17T19:19:00.000+08:00

coming to you in cinemas 2009
watch this space

2008-12-14T02:44:00.002+08:00

Facial deformation test for Red.

Moodboards- The Padded Room

2008-12-12T23:13:00.004+08:00

The Padded Room, and the unveiled surprise.

Moodboards- The Bleaching Sea

2008-12-12T23:13:00.001+08:00

The Bleaching Sea where Red falls into. It leeches her color so she turns into a Grey.

Moodboards- Rubik's Walk + The Factory

2008-12-12T23:06:00.006+08:00

This is a video sequence being played on one of the tvs to Red. It's going to be in black+white old school film style complete with flicker and grain.
The Factory

Moodboards- The TV Graveyard

2008-12-12T23:06:00.002+08:00

click to full view.
concept drawing

Moodboards- The Maze

2008-12-12T22:49:00.004+08:00

Going for a foggy feel, inspired by Shaun Tan's The Arrival. Jinky did the next two images.

RED

2008-12-12T22:49:00.001+08:00

2008-12-04T20:01:00.005+08:00

Lambert Renders of the factory scene.

Shall be adding more elements to the bottom of the conveyor belt.

2008-12-04T20:01:00.002+08:00

Lambert Renders of the factory scene.

Shall be adding more elements to the bottom of the conveyor belt.

Video Scene

2008-12-04T20:01:00.001+08:00

The conveyor belt scene in the video sequence
a real deviation in style,it looks too gamey...

LE BALLON

2008-12-04T13:09:00.000+08:00

Le ballon
Uploaded by ddbparis

The Ring Videos -Reference for the TV Video scene

2008-12-04T10:36:00.002+08:00

The American Version

Japanese Version

Reference for the video scene in the tv graveyard. Also for the sound effects.
Please watch. You don't have to watch it at night though. :P

2008-12-03T23:48:00.006+08:00

wippies from Zhen!

Padded room w/o texture. Will try to make it more clothy and add a bit of darkness in between the pads to resemble the lines on the cube. The grey part on top is for the shimmery water texture. Not added yet.

First render of the balloon with refraction. Still tweaking the refraction.

Did a simple squash and stretch control for the balloon so it can distort whilst keeping its volume.

RED

2008-12-03T20:47:00.000+08:00

Story of I Timing Reel V.06

2008-12-03T13:46:00.001+08:00

Version 6 of the Story of I Animatic
No soundtrack

Reference- Madame Tutli Putli

2008-12-03T13:46:00.000+08:00

Mirrormask-Please Watch

2008-12-02T15:10:00.000+08:00

Mood Boards

2008-11-24T17:40:00.015+08:00

Shall be editing and putting up mood boards as I complete them.

Red Character V01

2008-11-23T18:45:00.000+08:00

Red part 1

2008-11-23T18:43:00.000+08:00

Red Part 2

2008-11-23T18:40:00.002+08:00

Red part 3

2008-11-23T18:35:00.002+08:00

Red part 4

2008-11-23T18:32:00.002+08:00

Red part 5

2008-11-23T18:29:00.000+08:00

2008-11-16T23:48:00.006+08:00

okayss. so for so long no updates and stuffs.
have issue with my scanner.lol.
some colour concepts and sketches:)

some mood boards.not done though.will finish it up soonish.
and.starting on models:)
with boots first.some screenshot of wippies:D

2008-11-14T21:08:00.004+08:00

Padded room concept.

Greys attack

Greys Design. Puppets?

Greys in different styles and concept of cubes becoming Greys. Think clay blocks.

Masks with different materials.

Wood, cloth, leather (with zip in middle), paper, metal (bolts in middle), stone, ice or some Halloween mask I googled up -_-

Style Reference

2008-11-12T05:18:00.000+08:00

Mirror Mask

Coldplay Trouble

color inspiration!

IMAGO

The Balloon

RED BALLOON

2008-11-12T05:15:00.000+08:00

RED- Character concept

2008-11-12T05:07:00.001+08:00

RED- Characer V01

2008-11-12T04:58:00.001+08:00

Panel Concepts

2008-11-12T04:49:00.000+08:00

i ran out of blue black ink.

The Maze

2008-11-12T04:42:00.000+08:00

Story of I- The Script

2008-11-12T04:11:00.001+08:00

The Story of I
version03
Oct 2008
Update: 12 Nov 08
Script: Syarah

CAPS- impt camera suggestions
Green- PROP/BACKGROUND CONCEPT to be done
Red- REFERENCE
Bold- Characters, special actions and anything impt

Scene 1 (Title and and introduction)
Down to Earth

IDEA Alt/extra intro: white balloon silhouette on black. Title appears in balloon, fade and float. Then immediate jump to Scene 2

Ref: ringling ani about girl in an accident, and a clown, balloon. Note spotlight on characters (apply to cube).

A MONOCHROMATIC RUBIK CUBE falls and crash lands in the darkness, spinning as it does so. The top of the cube spins and clicks into place.
We see now the cube has a red center on one of its faces.

A corner face flickers and shivers with TV STATIC. (ref- tv static and sound) Move closer to see something showing on the cube face…

Scene 2
When You Wake in a Dream

Ref: mirrormask world! Heavy textures intense colors. Definite Mood.
Also refer to Late of the Pier- Heart Beat video for camera moves and balloons)

Heavy mist and fog hangs, whispers of shadows traveling here and there like.

A path in the sky like a urban precipice. RED walks on it without aim.

Suddenly a figure/shadow movement across screen from just behind Red. She starts and turns, and falls upwards before the CAMERA swings 180° to show that she has been walking against gravity from the start.

Scene 3
The Grey Attack

CAMERA shows whole scene. It is an endless Esher/Echochrome environment REF: MC ESCHER, ECHOCHROME game. Please note floor has to be WIDER not narrow for many grey to walk)

There are GREY walking everywhere, an endless troop crawling the spaces without purpose. They just look ahead and mind their own business, no contact with any other Grey (REF: people on crowded trains avoiding contact)

Red is visibly frightened and stunned.
She walks into a Grey who explodes with a bang into a grey balloon. (sounds like a balloon pop) NOTE: slow mo then speed up?

Cut to various Greys close-ups of expression. They do not like Red because she is not the Same.

(note the Grey have no animatible expression, they stare out of button eyes and complexion of grey sickly, plastic/clayey skin. Here the silhouettes of grey have to be very graphic, maybe even extreme contrast of light and dark (see persepolis, mike mignola, fear of the dark style) maybe even graphic flash? Ink pen? Like how, in oktapodi, the fear of being octopi sashimi was done in flash style

ALSO IT’S IMPORTANT THAT THIS PART IS EXTREMELY SCARY OR UNSETTLING. GREYS ARE SCARY AND UNFRIENDLY. NOT CUDDLY. MUST SHOW THAT THEY ARE CREEPY AND DANGEROUS. REF NEIL GAIMEN’S CORALINE. Aim for animation to unsettle the audience and hopefully make them think.)

The Grey jump and attack like savages, throwing themselves at Red, and doing so bursting into a storm of Grey balloons that soar into the air. They jump from any angle, beams etc.

They form a mountain. Red struggles to get away, to the top….stepping, kicking. Suddenly a Red Balloon swims past horizontally. Red sees, and grabs, and she flies to safety, looking back and the greys who are still throwing themselves in the chaos.

Float to safety into the fog

Scene 4
The Tee Vee Graveyard

Location: TEEVEE GRAVEYARD

A hint of tall cube like structures piled haplessly and dangerously onto one another, plugs and wires hang from the infinite sky.
You cannot see the ground, nor where the graveyard ends.
Thick fog obscures.

Red floats through the mist and lands on ledge. She lets go of balloon.

The fog starts to clear and we see the whole TEEVEE GRAVEYARD.
From Red’s view.

The teevee at eye level flickers on. Static.

A BLACK AND WHITE OLD VIDEO plays (ref Michel Gondry’s work, shorts like bachelorette, Gore Verbinski’s THE RING tape sequence)

Grey with a balloon walking on a Rubik, which turns.
Static.
Greys on a conveyor belt.
Static.
Closeup of leg.
Static.
Closeup of waist.
Static.
Head shot, the greys moving by. Staring ahead.
Suddenly a desaturated Red GOES BY. CAMERA fixes on desat Red. She has button eyes. Desat Red realizes and covers eyes in shock.

Zoom out of teevee, the Real Red has hands over eyes as well. She steps back, slips and falls off the edge.

CAMERA TURN. The whole scene turns CLOCKWISE. As Red falls, flailing, the whole tee vee graveyard shifts and falls. (REF: imagine cubes in a bucket upright.. then you tip the bucket and all the cubes fall out.)

Scene 5
BLEACHING SEA

CUT to Red falling into bleaching sea, falling like a stone… grey cubes falling with splash (the teevees have been simplified in the water.)

As she falls further, she bleeds red and becomes grey. (bleached by water to Grey)
The rest of the cubes just sink.

(Design note: to keep the black border format. The cubes are ligh grey. Mood is cold and sad.)

Red falls out of screen.

Scene 6
The Padded Room

Ref: coughing, Gore Verbinski’s versh of the ring where Rachel coughs up hair)

Red falls into a room made up of white square tiles, resembling a padded room, rubik cube.
Wet coughing and sputtering. Heaving.
Eventually what looks like string is coughed up. Red pulls and tugs and out pops out the Red Balloon.

The floor and walls collapse like an unfolding box and fades away and Red and the balloon are afloat again in the mist.

Red’s expression of amazement.

Scene 7
Infinitus

Red floats awhile then lands on a ground. It is very foggy.

Lets go of balloon. Watch as it soars off into the sky.

Red starts to walk and all is peaceful for awhile, till Grey cubes rain down from the sky and smash into floor.

The cubes morph into Greys and they start walking.

Zoom out to show the echochrome location once again. (maybe red’s expression.)

(DESIGN NOTE: cube falls nly from where Red perceives gravity. When zooming out show there are other greys already walking on other planes.)

END

Simple Credits ROLL
Text on a black background.
Some people are dizzy when watching that flipping thing with name.

101108-is there anyway to cut/ simplify story shorter. Cut scene 8. Cut the falling off the echochrome part? SIMPLIFY THE ECHOCHROME BG. Cut the cube-morph to grey part, grey just enter scene, or can be seen when zooming out.

121108- REMOVE FACE OFF BALLOON? THOSE NOT SEEM TO SUIT THE STYLE AT ALL? BALLOON HAS TO BE MACARBRE! SEE HOW? SKIP THE SMASHING INTRO, GO STRAIGHT INTO SCENE 2

Scene 8
Looped hole

ONLY IF THERE’S TIME can finish off with the complete ending that runs after credits.

Pair of hands with red long sleeves can be seen trying to solve a monochromatic cube with one red square. Gives up in frustration and throws the cube.

Cut to Cube, spins and falls (exactly the same as the intro except) and the spotlight goes out to black.

Perhaps if this part is done, it could be in a different style, rotoscoped or flash. (cause get bored of 3d? haha.)

2008-10-25T21:28:00.000+08:00

(EDITED: put in another mood board of the TV scene)

TV background concept

Anyway, here's our FYPJ schedule before Syarah and NZ fly off to France.

Have to keep to it or else we're doomed.

24th-27th October => Moodboards and Storyboards

7th November => NZ die die must get the storyboards for timing reel. Stella die die must get character to model

9th Nov => Post up storyboards for us to view and comment

11th November => Meet for timing reel and edits/comments.

14th November => NZ die die must get the model to rig

23rd November => NZ try to finish rig before bye bye at the airport.

So yeah, this is pretty much the main stuff before FYPJ starts. Have to stick to it.

Stella has a rough schedule for during FYPJ period, subject to changes.

2008-10-24T23:56:00.000+08:00

Video Time!

2008-10-15T02:03:00.000+08:00

10/10

Sketch from Last meeting. Escher and Echochrome-ish style of environment.

2008-10-09T10:12:00.000+08:00

heelo.

some buildings i tot was cool.

for the one below(nice yummy colours)

i thought mayb the tv grave yard can use like this kinda colour but more desaturate?

this cool:D

this for fun.haha.starbucks crazee:)

Late Of The Pier - Heartbeat

2008-10-04T15:11:00.000+08:00

music for the brain. watch them fall, turn and explode!

Buildings Layout

2008-10-03T01:08:00.000+08:00

Echochrome - Different layouts at different perspectives. An impossible path to complete the level, but turn it a different way and you see that you are able to reach it. All you need is a different take/look at it.

Buildings layout with reference to the game echochrome wip.
Greys walking around. Girl flys off with the balloon and she sees the complex layout.

New Story Ideas (OMG, no!!)

2008-09-30T01:18:00.000+08:00

So we met on Sunday the 28th to discuss the fate of Red. New throwups!

CAMERA TURN, SEA & PLAIN CUBES
1) Rember the initial idea to link the rubik rotation with the camera moves (flipping and turning the camera 180/ 360 degrees etc). Instead of just having it at the part where she grabs onto the red balloon, the 2nd camera move could occur at the TV scene

- she watches the montage of herself and INSTEAD of tv shaking and she fall
- a tv floats horizontally, surreally.. and then more and more
- camera tilts 270 and we realize the tvs are falling!
- red falls with along with them

2) Instead of falling into a tv bleaching tank, red falls into a bleaching sea (along with the rest of the tvs)

3) tvs corrode and devolves into a simplified tv.... a plain cube of various shades

4) red falls into that room. the plain cubes have become 9x9 squares. story is the same from here on as prev mentioned...

HOW THE GREYS CAME ABOUT
1) another answer to the whole "WTH did the greys come from?" mystery

- towards the end as red lands onto the street... cubes fall from the sky. ( the same cubes from the sea.. get it :) ?)
- the cubes morph into greys.. then we see the whole army of 'em walking just like in the beginning

ALTERNATE ENDING (that links to the beginning)
- show sequence where red is trying to solve a rubik
- she gives up and throws cube in frustration
- cube is seen spinning and falling
- lands... just like the intro. ( can show or dun show with just sound of it crashing?)

shall post more tmr for the research and stuffs... work hard guys. :)

2008-09-28T15:30:00.000+08:00

Here's a quick sketch of the TV graveyard scene I've been yammering about. Forgive the roughness.

Edit: Another quick sketch. Greys attacking Red in the tidal wave fashion.

2008-09-23T20:41:00.000+08:00

Saw this video on Youtube.

2008-09-21T22:38:00.000+08:00

Summary for the discussion on 22 Sep

Opening:

Cube falls in one of the faces flickers with static. The story starts.

Story:

Red walks down the street against the flow of Greys. So knocks into one of them. The mask on the Grey drops and breaks. Grey's 'face' is actually an empty space in its head. Grey bloats up and transforms into a Grey balloon.

The other Greys stop to look at Red. They attack her. But when they touch her, they all explode into grey balloons. Red runs away. Amidst the confusion, a red balloon warps through the Greys. Red grabs it and floats away through the grey balloons.

Red finds herself in a TV graveyard. TVs begin to flicker on and off. She lands on one and views the nearest TV beside her. She watches, mesmerized, and lets go of the balloon. Suddenly, the TV below her shakes and she falls down.

Red splashes into a TV screen. She enters a pool of colored water. Slowly, the color fades into a dull grey, so does she.

She drops out of the pool, and into a padded white room like the one in an asylum. She catches her breath. But the gasping soon turns into coughing. She coughs out a piece of string. She grabs it and pulls it out.

Pop! Out comes the red balloon. Red's color reappears. Slowly, the balloon floats up, carrying Red with it. The world transforms into a street. Red lands on the ground and releases the balloon. There are Greys approaching her.

Concepts:

Buildings will be twisted and distorted. Sort of Escherish. Perspective is there but it's not exactly right.

That's all for now. If I missed out anything feel free to add on. Or if I made a mistake somewhere, edit it.

2008-09-21T21:48:00.001+08:00

animation references:
look under films in the site
God on our side
Bek
i couldn't find the downloads..
for the tevee scene, I tot we could render the tevees to look like paper.
with brush strokes for lines. something like the animations above. the bgs could have a cumpled paper effect for the sky..
like in some parts of this video. i know it looks emo-fied.
but i tot it looks really cool.

well because i think the tv scene is a place where it is halfway between reality and unreal. Its where RED could become GREY if she is not careful.
and i tot maybe we could inject some of escher's drawings into the BG.

2008-09-21T19:55:00.000+08:00

Nizhen here. Some old concepts.

2008-09-21T18:55:00.001+08:00

whoops sorry.
ros here

I thought the warped perspective thingie could bring some unreality into it. But i was unable to render what i felt.

Its unfinished. For red, i think we could use cloth texture for her clothes, and make her look as real as possible. and the greys could look like crumpled paper. well it could be too much since tevee scene i also want to paperfy.

2008-09-21T16:21:00.000+08:00

GAHH.
some paintings for the attacking scene and when she drop into padded room.
hmm.apparently more practice is needed.
haha.
+[stella:D aka thegildsquaredpatch]+

Concepts

2008-09-20T16:18:00.000+08:00

Timing Reels

2008-09-20T02:07:00.001+08:00

At the moment there are 4 timing reels. The chosen song is "Over my Shoulder" by Mika.

Storyboard Artists: Syarah and Rosalind

Storyboard Cleanup: Theodora

Flash Animator: Stella

Editor: Ni Zhen

First reel. Done in February 2008.

Second Reel. Done in May 2008.

Same as the second reel but song used is "Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven.

Third reel. No music this time. Done in June 2008.

Fourth and latest reel. No music as well. Done in July 2008.

After thinking it through, we've decided to cut the entire animation down to 2 minutes. Currently, we're redoing the boards, working on layout, colors and character designs. We'll post any updates.

2008-09-18T00:24:00.000+08:00

"Story of I"

Our Final Year Project (FYP)

Concepts and progress will be posted up here. Feel free to comment and critic.

Team members are: Syarah Mahmood, Stella Ng, Rosalind Sam, Phang Ni Zhen and Theodora Hui.