During my research on the human consciousness, I came across the term "dualism". Expanding this term beyond the field of philosophy, to encapsulate dual aspects and conflicting sides of the self, I found myself pondering the seemingly opposing views on human consciousness. Are we simply "bowls of sugar" (Anthony Cashmore), or does our consciousness manifest into what we feel as our soul?
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PROCESS | Engrams
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Concept Sketches
After researching on the topic of engrams, I began to picture how I wanted the animation to look like. Concept sketches allowed me to translate the images in my head into visible illustrations, and also organize and elucidate the story I wanted to tell.
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Script
I organized research information into a narrative that will go along with the visual aspect of the animation. Knowing that my target audience would have some knowledge of neuroscience, I was able to use terms such as "long-term potentiation" with some explanation.
During this stage, iterations were driven by flow of spoken narration, and feedback on word use from my content advisor.
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Storyboard
The storyboard combines narration with film direction and visuals. This is the stage where I began tackling the problem of depicting objects that are in very different scales.
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Animatic
The animatic adds the element of time. In this stage I began analyzing the pacing and transitions of scenes to ensure clarity in the storytelling.
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3D Production
3D elements in this project were created in Autodesk Maya.
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2D Production
A major problem I encountered in the 2D animation production process was finding a style and mode of depiction that will be coherent with the 3D portions of the animation. I solved this problem by using the same colour scheme as the later composited 3D scenes.
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Compositing
During the compositing stage, I was able to combine scenes in a cohesive way, focusing on unifying the colour scheme, using transitions, timing of scenes, and use of text and symbols to better convey the message.
Neuronal Environment Production Reel
This video below shows a thread of production process in its entirety, from conceptualization to final product, of the opening neuronal environment scene.