Here are some Test shot for the prison scene. I'm still deciding on composition and where the characters are going to be place in 3d space. I also have the ground to figure out but for now I just did a photoshop mock up on it because when I go to animate it the ground might look a bit odd.

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.