Logo Progress

  This morning I spent a little time investigating font styles for the studio's logo. It would be nice to make this shiny and embossed, like something made out of cast iron. But before we get to that phase we first need to work out the font we are using.

  The one thing we could agree on was our O would be a diamond with a furnace or fire in the middle. This served as the basis of what fonts would suit our style as the various fonts would have to compliment the shape.

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  I have investigated various thicknesses and degrees of condensing, as well as looking to see if our style suits a thick heavy blocky font or something more carved and refined. The last two I experimented with the diamond being larger than the font to see if it could fit. 

Storyboard Refinement: Two Fish Version Two

  After consulting with the group on the last version of the storyboard, we felt that the fish was too clumsy and the first one's story was a long adventure of him haplessly crashing into things. I looked back on what I had done and decided to rework the second half was well as move around some of the cuts of when the two narratives would switch.

  The sequence in the middle where both fish struggle to shake off the stuff that sticks on them. Is it good or bad that they are the same? Is it too repetitive or does it hint that both fish are heading down the same disastrous path?

Fish and Environment Thumbnails

    Not the cleanest things but I drew some thumbnails today to get an idea for the narrative. As a bright and colourful world it might be best for the characters themselves to be just as expressive. They can be colourful, but also being expressive would be very useful.

    It's not just the colours or the fish though, patterns could also be useful to portray the world. And even if we kept these minimal there are the patterns like the circles blowfish make to attract mates. Patterms could therefore be an important factor in the creation of the world.

Group project: story ideas

The idea we wanted to focus on is for a puffer fish that creates beautiful patterns at the bottom of the sea. The idea is borrowed from the actual mating behavior of puffer fish in nature:

In this underwater world everything will be covered with beautiful patterns, tiles and mosaics.

The main character (a puffer fish) will be unable to create patterns in the sand and is being laughed at by all the other male fish who follow the rules, and are able to do what is expected of them.

Shortly after that he realizes that when he is angry, or overwhelmed by strong emotions he puffs up and beautiful patterns appear on his body. Every male fish is making fun of him and shortly after that the beauty in the world around him drains away, colours desaturate and patterns disappear. 

One day, he dares to be different and eventually succeeds in being creatively free and himself, he puffs up and creates patterns on his body. When his talent is revealed for everyone to see, the colour and patterns return to his world indicating that the inner peace he achieved is reflected with his surroundings. Male fish do not make fun of him anymore and he gets a lot of admirers.

 

As a supporting character we are discussing a cleaner shrimp, who adopts the behavior in the cockroach in "Wall-e" - being a friend with the main character and directing the attention of the viewer towards specific details in the scene:

Since we are using the crosscutting method of editing we will incorporate a scene where the main character remembers his forgotten talent of creating patterns on his body. The freedom in this story is more of a creative freedom than a physical one.

Logo Design Progress

    Currently development is underway of the group's logo. However today, while we have made some progress into what it looks like, there is currently disagreement, currently revolving around how to use the diamond and bar underneath the logo.

    Vlad's original idea was to replace the 'O' of 'Forge with a brazier. I opted to make a more streamlined redesign. 

    The redesign I made had the O with what was supposed to be a furnace inside.

    A second idea was thicker letters to relate to how forges tend to be have big thick walls to contain the heat inside of them. When presented, it was suggested that something could be done about the line underneath.

    Vlad presented another suggestion, where the diamond was a circle and the line struck through the word.

    Another revision. This time the word was set on the line with the diamond. However there was concern that this design was too busy.

A design that explored the diamond being absent. When presented there was the question of if the line was needed or if it cluttered up the logo, as the diamond was intended to represent the four of us. However, it is possible that the O draws attention to the homophone "four" within the name.

An underline-less version of the logo. However without the diamond it is possible this logo may not be eye-catching enough save for the furnace in the centre. Although because of the colour palette (based on thumbnails) there is question about whether this actually looks like a sunset. Although in some respects the Sun is a furnace 1 million kilometres in diameter.

Briefing Day And Initial Ideas

    The brief has been set and a long journey has begun. For our project our narrative will contain the elements of being set in (or perhaps around or reflecting) the bottom of the sea, it will be a parallel narrative and the theme we will be exploring is freedom.

    Some initial ideas have been tossed around, initially we might keep away form the obvious confinement metaphors such as cages or containers, but lack of freedom isn't just physical confinement. We considered what sorts of non-physical freedom we can have and also talked about the idea that too much freedom (or perhaps certain forms of it) could be dangerous for the individual. We also talked about if it would be worth keeping the story open. As to what happens in our story though we are still working on that. But while initially we talked mermaids and The Little Mermaid, we might move away from that as the project progresses. Instead of mermaids we could look at fish for our underwater characters, as animating a mermaid involves rigging up a tail and fins as well as a human torso.