Tension Chart

Tension I made for My first animatic

The Soliloquist by Ma Kuang Pei

Updated Production Schedule

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asp8xaM-XvjNdDd1SzZDS0RoUGRGYUdOMzI3ZGMtVEE

Vietnamerica by GB Tran

Today I made great discovery after I got a haircut and walked into the comic shop nearby. I found this graphic novel called Vietnamerica by GB Tran and bought it without question. I'm excited to read it and listen to his family story.

Why Am I making this Film?

All the skills that I acquired during my studies in the animation program at Emily Carr would be put to the test in creating this piece. When I graduate I would have something to show for and that this student film would reflect everything I’ve learned and put to use in this very last year. Most importantly in making this film, I’ve learned there are times where there are a lot of uncertainty and there are a lot of things I have to search for and discover along the way. Animation is my chosen medium and in making this film I’ve set out to learn different techniques; different ways to approach this film. For me the most exciting part is finding a technique that works, executing it and learning from it. It is what pushes me forward. The hardest part for me is coming up with an idea and expanding that idea further which leads me to discuss the thesis of my film.

There is a saying that if you were to write that best place to start is to write from yourself because you know yourself best. I have never given much thought to it before but lately I’ve been thinking about my background, my family whom raised me, their morals, values and expectations. Living in Vancouver, being a multiethnic city as it is I realized there are a lot of families like mine whose parents don’t know a word of English and go through many struggles and hardships. I’ve been thinking about the background of where my parents are from and what it means to me. I wanted to share something personal, something that doesn’t come up regularly in a day to day conversation but I thought it would be appropriate to show in a film. Because I think this is the best way to express whatever it is I have to say.

In short, my film would be about my father’s struggle and hardship in escaping his home country, Vietnam, to come to Canada to give his family a better life. I carry this story throughout my childhood and it is very much a part of me. My parent’s language, culture, and values makes up my identity and it shapes the way I saw things, express things, and made sense of the world. My greatest difficulties are these questions that I ask myself, how do I want to tell this story? What does it mean to me? Even when pitching the idea to my class and to my teachers, it is very difficult for me to find the right words to fully express it. Usually my emotions would surface and I find myself struggling to get the point across. I’d rather show people what I mean rather than to tell it but I think the process of talking about my idea has a lot of value in itself. The more I talk about it, the clearer it is even though it has been hard.

Portfolio- Demo Reel

Here is a Demo reel of the work that I had done while studying in the Animation program at Emily Carr University Of Art & Design located in Vancouver British Columbia. The Demo Reel Shows my interests within animation in the media that had been explored and I like to further explore more into different animation techniques and ways to tell stories. I was glad that I had a chance to collaborate with my fellow animation students on The Canada Line Project and Canadian Mental Health PSA.



Also here is a link to my Vimeo where you can find more of my work.

vimeo

"Tam" Project Proposal

Summary

The working title for my grad project is called, “Tam.” My goal is to produce a 5-6 minute animated short about a father’s story of endless hardship and survival of growing up in Vietnam after the war to when he immigrated to Canada to start a better life.

Synopsis

My film is about a boy attempting to shorten the distance between him and his father by trying to understand his father’s past life in Vietnam during communist persecution.

Description

The project is intended to be a heartfelt and emotional piece as one boy feels that his relationship with his father has been distant throughout their lives. The boy tires to understand his father, attempting to shorten the distant between them. Intrigued by his father’s past life, Boy begins to look back on all the stories of hardship and survival he’s been told since childhood. Throughout the film, questions are asked about the father’s past life and the boy tries to make meaning out of the answers he is given. The film is intended to tell a heartfelt narrative while at the same time remind and educate people about what Vietnamese refugees went through during the eighties.

Visual Treatment

The medium of animation that I’ll be using is of a mixed media digital cutout puppet animation. I’ll be collecting and hand painting textures to use as assets for the film. The backgrounds and puppets are going to be hand painted, scanned and compiled into Photoshop, assembled and animated on After Effects.

Samples:

Visual Prototype

Boat People from Toan Nguyen on Vimeo.

Puppet Test:

Assembled and rotated:

360 Cutout Puppet Rotation Test! from Toan Nguyen on Vimeo.

Sound Treatment

I’ll be using narration for the most part of my film accompanied by sound effects and a score. I recently interviewed my father and have recorded our conversation. There will be voice over from the boy as he communicates his internal thoughts to the audience, asking questions about his father’s past.


Production Schedule, copy and paste into new window

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asp8xaM-XvjNdC1VbUk1S3hzU2V1T0o5LU9xS292TUE&hl=en_US

Budget, copy and paste into new window

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Asp8xaM-XvjNdHBEZHA5MnRJUDdQMjlFS3oxTTlRRlE&hl=en_US

Puppet Test

This Friday I'm going to book out a sound booth from FVIM area so I can record a conversation with my Father. Hopefully, I'll be able to push forward into figuring out how I should tell His story trough this interview. But until then I got to get to some testing with the technique I'm using which is paper puppet animation. This Friday is also pitch night so I got to produce some concept images before then!

This first test I began by crafting some body parts. I hand painted the character with acrylic paints on water colour paper then scanned them into the computer. Overall I like the way it turned out and I prefer painting with physical paints rather than colouring it digitally.

Anddd this is what it looks like put together and rotated! The head is missing, I'll put that on later. I just want to see how the body rotates.

The 34th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon… and how little I know about Vietnam history.

The 34th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon… and how little I know about Vietnam history.

I found an article that relates to my project. This person that posted this blog is sort of sitting in a similar seat that I am sitting in. He wants to know more about his family history and as a kid his parents share their experiences in Vietnam but being a child all of that goes in one ear and out the other.

A blog showing images of modern Vietnamese people.

Fall of Saigon 1975.

Hardship after Fall of Saigon.

Vietnamese Immigration.

Playing with the idea of Animated Documentary/Reverse Documentary

Development is hard because most of the time you have no idea where this project will lead you. It's really daunting making my very first film but I'm more confident now that I have a direction to follow. When pitching my idea I brought up to Marilyn and Darren the two instructors that was reviewing me at my grad panel, that the subject matter of my piece would be my biggest challenge. And that developing a narrative around this idea would include extensive amount of research. I'll be researching into the historical, political, and social context around this and also some personal research as I'll be finding out a little bit more about my family and about myself. I expressed it would be difficult to tackle on this idea but at the same time I'm willing and ready!

Marilyn Cherenko recommended me a film that would help me in developing my film. She and Darren brought up the idea of the reverse documentary.

The film "Silence" Directed by Orly Yadin and Sylvie Bringas,
Tells a story about a little girl who is a survivor of the holocaust. She has kept silent about what has happened to her throughout her life and now her story is finally told in this 11 minute animated film. This film draws from the personal story of the narrator and her lived experiences.

Animation Prototype

Here is an animation test for my senior project.

Concept Artwork For My Senior Project

Here is a very inspiring Quote

"In some aspect I am a Vietnamese boat person. Now maybe I haven't spent 7 days or 8 nights out at sea hiding from Tai pirates or surviving off of food rations. But in some essence I continue to embody myself as a boat person. Plunged, thrust, and seasick by the oscling wave of hardships. I always continue to anchor my determination of coming out of that storm of life alive..."

A quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xxBPZBeC5M

- life is always going to be lived through hardship. I want to use my parents history as a metaphor, and not necessarily something that "hardship" is measured to.

Its about time I articulate my thoughts for the Senior Project Proposal In writing.

I never gave much thought as to where I came from. Living in Canada for most of my life I was never attached to my cultural background, instead I mainly focus on who I am growing up here. As I search for ideas for my grad project I begin to ask myself questions like:

What do I want to say?
What comment can I make about the world around me?
What is my understanding of the world? (not much)

I'll start off with something simple like "who am I?" I think this has been used a hundred times and is a bit of a cliche topic but whatever... I have to start somewhere. I begin to draw upon my background for ideas and inspiration for stories I might want to share:

As a child the stories that my parents would share with me are their lived experiences in Vietnam. They would tell me stories of hardship and poverty growing up in their home country. Stories of life on the farm and hardship they would go through when they were my age. They would share the traumas that they went through during the Communist rule, the struggle, and the obstacle they had to face when they escaped their country in search for a better life. Often times I found these stories to be quite depressing as a child and wondered why they would tell me these things, nonetheless these stories would stick with me even if I did not give much thought to it. I understood these stories to be a reoccurring moral that my parents want me to carry throughout my life for example, "To appreciate what I have, and work hard to become something."

What does this mean to my gradproject? I've started researching into the history of the Vietnamese boat people because that's what my parents were. A lot of the information that I found were personal stories that other people shared having been apart of the history. The stories that I've read brought tears to me and they were more horrible and sad than what my parents told me.

Here is the site that I've visited: http://www.vietka.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xxBPZBeC5M


These stories touched me on a personal and emotional level even though my connection with this culture is faint and distant. It wasn't until recently that I looked back to what my parents told me, having to visualize these stories when I was a child and how I perceive these stories back then compared to now. For my grad project I would like to explore more into these personal stories. I'll start from the memories of my parents and also research into the history around it. My goal would be to construct a narrative and have a central protagonist inspired by these personal stories that function as morals. I aim to communicate a moral in my piece and explore a question as to why we tell our children stories similar to what my parents shared with me.

The Result of My Creative Exploration

This is the result of my creative exploration. It is composed of the much different experimentation that I have been doing throughout the beginning of this course starting from the particle test to the noise test. I really wanted to play with cell paintings so I did some background animation on cell. Part of this was because I was really inspired by Yuri Norstein’s work and how he made his puppet on cell and this has got me interested in making my puppets on cells. I was also inspired by Theodore Ushev’s technique of painting on paper which brought me to work with paint in animation for the first time. In my experimentation I was hoping to develop an interesting technique, or try out techniques that has been done before and put my own take into it. There have been some interesting results, the noise as an overlay seems to be working in a very interesting way and it contributes to the atmosphere that I was sort of going for. I am unsure if I want to incorporate the technique of painting in my grad project. The idea of incorporating “noise” as a stylistic element to my piece seems interesting and I would consider it for future use. 

What I wasn’t happy with are the character animation and the structure of my story. All these elements should be the top of my list and I feel with this piece that they were not really defined in some areas. Some of the scenes could use more character animation to show the intent of the spirit and its importance and the importance of the sleeping robot. The features of the creative exploration project I would like to continue with is cutout animation and compositing done on after effects. I would want to research Narrative structures that are found within cutout animation, researching more films that use the medium quite well such as works from Yuri Norstein and Anita Killi’s Shinna Mann. Right now I’m looking into narrative and character animation using the cutout technique. I want to find a design that would complement the limitation that is found within cutout animation. In my research I think I would start by reading short stories and see how these stories are structured. In reading these stories I would hope to develop what I want to say in my film. Because right now I have no Idea what I want to say yet. I still want to develop an aesthetic, this would include and drawing, or hand painting some textures that I could scan into the computer and use as a texture.

Acetate Painting Test

I decided to experiment with painting on acetate. I wanted to see how the background painted noise would look in a scene. The leaves on the branches of the trees does not look like leaves at all but rather boiling paint dabs. I scanned the layers of acetate together to make the final composited Image. The top images is what it looks like sequenced together while the bottom image is a single frame composited image. I think I should take a different approach, however I do like the textures.

note to self: Make more textures, go texture hunting.

My Influences!

 

                                                     

Listed from beginning Image to end

1. Theodore Ushev- Tower Bawher http://www.nfb.ca/film/tower_bawher/
2. Theodore Ushev- Lipsett Diaries
3. Cordell Barker- The Cat Came Back http://www.nfb.ca/film/the-cat-came-back/
4. Cordell Barker- Runaway http://www.nfb.ca/film/runaway/
5. Koji Yamamura- Country Doctor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XpvlrOcEcM
6. Lauis Zoller- Great is The Mystery of Godliness http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnhaRb939M8
7. Yuri Norstein- Hedgehog In The Fog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRsXU4Q6a0Q

There are many other films that I like but these are the films that stand out to me in terms of visual style and and Narrative. Where Theodore Ushev's Tower Bawher is a great example of using non representational, using movement, colour and music gave great impact to the overall piece. Cordell Barker's The Cat Came Back and Runaway has humor and great use of character animation, timing and pacing.

Yuri Norstein's Hedgehog in The Fog, Koji Yamamura's Country Doctor, and Theodore Ushev's Lipsett Diaries are works of great artistry and poetry. I find the visual styles and techniques in these films to be very interesting.   

Noise Test

For the longest time I wanted to use traditional medium in my work as appose to doing everything digital. I think there is more energy and expression in something that is created by the hand rather than computer generated.

Here is an experiment with painting on paper. The compression quality on blogger is horrible but the effect I was trying to achieve was a painted Noise. At this point I don't really know where to go with this, I'm hoping I can incorporate hand painted elements in my work. By doing this test I discovered that I really like Noise and Randomness! The computer can generate Randomness using Fractal but this is one thing that the computer cannot generate.

Edited Sound and Particle Test

For this creative exploration I have edited together sound and did a little bit of particle animation on Maya and composited it on After Effects. I was trying to make glowing balls of light. For this project one of my character emits light. I'm deciding on whether I should approach this using software or experiment with something else to make the glowing ball of light effect. Its quite easy to generate a ball of light using CG but if it isn't tweaked well to fit the entire project it might end up looking like a cheap effect.

Thought: I could also approach this stylistically and "invent" my own light using traditional medium.

Visual Brainstorming

A little visual brainstorming playing around with colour and composition. I struggled to come up with some sort of narrative at first and it took awhile to come up with a idea and an aesthetic. After sitting around doodling, experimenting with colour on photoshop I finally begin to visualize my characters and environment. Everything is still rough at this point as I am begining to develop the character designs and concept.

The Setting

This is a working design of one of my characters. I thought of putting more of a human face on him. 

 

First Post

Hi everyone I just made this blog and this is my first post. I'll be posting some content on this blog as I get into my 4th year grad film production. Come back and check out the things I'll be doing have a great year!