"I like it when you are painting," Winnie says.
"Why?"
"You seem more relaxed... happier"
"Well painting's fun"
"You should continue painting"
"I need to finish my short film"
"Why"
I stare blankly at her for bit. "I want to tell my story"
"Why don't you tell it through a picture book?"
"Because... "
"You animate all day at work in front of the computer. You want to go home and do the same thing?"
"But..."
"When you paint you're moving around"
"Well..."
"There are no technical or creative hurdles to worry about when painting"
"aahhhhh..."
"Man you are so lucky you married me," I told my Winnie.
"What?"
"If you didn't marry me who would you say these smart things to?"
Basically I will not be making a short film for my MFA thesis. Instead a picture book. I will be telling the same story through painted images -think of a comic book filled with paintings.
Here is one of the characters from a film that could have been. I used Photoshop, Mudbox and Maya to model and texture.
Rough Sketch of my next painting.
A wise wife is a treasure... :-D. Winnie's also right in terms of what's going on in your brain. When computer animating, you're using both your right and left sides because of all the task/technical manipulations of getting the computer to do what you want it to do. When you're painting or just drawing, you pretty much are just free zoning in your right hemisphere. I notice a difference when I'm "drawing" in Illustrator versus hand drawing or painting. The process is entirely different. And you never know, you're likely to spawn some new ideas from just purely drawing/painting or storyboarding your original script. A flip book of a particular scene would be cool idea too! Wow, look forward to seeing your finished thesis. Doesn't mean you can't go back and turn your picture book into an animated film later... like for publishing/film festival. and you never know, the latter may evolve into something "better" from going through picture book process.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think I’ll keep Winnie around :)
ReplyDeleteYou are right there is a big difference between drawing on the computer and drawing on paper. I feel freer on paper even without the undo button.
Short film or not -the idea of telling this story without having to learn another software is pretty liberating.