CALDERA

SYNOPSIS

Through the eyes of a young girl suffering from mental illness, CALDERA glimpses into a world of psychosis and explores a world of ambiguous reality and the nature of life and death. Done by Animation filmmaker and composer Even Viera. For more info see the About section on Youtube. 

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

CALDERA is inspired by my father's struggle with schizoaffective disorder. In states of delusion, my father has danced on the rings of Saturn, spoken with angels, and fled from his demons. He has lived both a fantastical and haunting life, but one that's invisible to the most of us. In our differing understanding of reality, we blindly mandate his medication, assimilate him to our marginalizing culture, and entirely misinterpret him for all he is worth. CALDERA aims to not only venerate my father, but all brilliant minds forged in the haunted depths of psychosis.



I was drawn to this short because of the thumbnail and I'm very glad I watched it. It's breathtaking and captivating. Though nothing is shoved into your face, the scenes, music, and overall designs definitely lead the viewer into knowing that this is a story of anxiety. The characters emote very well and the conflict is subtle but dangerous. You feel for the character and her struggles and the beautifully sad ending leaves you feeling satisfied and touched. This is the type of animation I am interested in. Creating visually compelling scenes with colors and characters. Having dynamic shots and symbolic images that makes the viewer think harder. Using music and sound to convey the raw emotion or danger or sadness or anxiety that you want the viewer to feel in the pit of their stomachs. 

Character Final Designs

Naomi

Connor

Recognizable Silhouettes...yes?

Talking about recognizable silhouettes in class so I made some for my characters 

Naomi

RWBY

I'm pretty sure we've talked about this in class but my memory sucks so I'll post this. My friend recently told me about this web animation called RWBY by Rooster Teeth.

Now the only thing I've seen by Rooster Teeth is Red vs. Blue (which is freakin hilarious so if you haven't seen it you should). However, once I watched this, I watched all of the 13 episodes they have. The episodes are fairly short like less than ten minutes. It's also a very entertaining animation.The characters are all lovable and realtable. The action scenes are excellent. They resemble the camera shots and fighting movements of actual fighting games. The storyline and plot are interesting and the design of the monsters, weapons, and characters are phenomenal. 

One reason I posted this is because recently Michael has been recently talking about recognizable silhouettes. This show does one thing that another show I've watched called Soul Eater does and that's everything that's not an important character is a silhouette. But they even took that into consideration and made each silhouette different and recognizable even though it's but a background character. One might have a cowlick or one might have pigtails, bunny ears, long nose, etc. The main characters also have very recognizable silhouettes. In the ending cards they show silhouettes of different characters each episode, even if teachers you've only seem once. But you instantly recognize that character based on their design though they had short screen time.

I would say watch at least a few episodes of this show. If you're not sure about it you can watch the trailers they made.

Red Trailer

White Trailer

Black Trailer

Yellow Trailer

If you are sure the first episode can be viewed here. Like I said I'm pretty sure we talked about this show in passing so if you know about my bad. But this show is too awesome to not talk about.

Also if you're looking for other things to watch the animation is very similar to Iron Man: Armored Adventures

so if you like it that's also a show that very well done with characters and story. Also the plot and design show a lot of resemblance to an anime called Soul Eater.

It is an excellent anime. It is dubbed (in case you're not the subtitle kind of person) and is on Netflix right now if you have it. If not:

Dubbed can be viewed here.

Subbed can be viewed here. 

And this is a link to Iron Man: Armored Adventures. I think it might have been on Netflix at one point but they've taken stuff off recently so I'm gonna just give you a link for it/ 

Puma Running

Concepts for Animation Pieces

I've been thinking about some pieces I want to do for either my 2D classes or my BFA piece. I've had two ideas that I've created for one class that have been collecting dust in my repertoire of unfinished ideas.

Nina Flame

Nina Flame  is a story that is based off the concept of Fantasia. It is a story of a flame, multiple flames lit for a romantic evening. Once lit, the flame women take up unlit matches and begin a sensual dance to attract the oxygen in them room. Nina, however, finds the dance unnerving and is unwilling to participate. Danger strikes when a window is cracked and the wind goblins enter, bent on blowing out the flames! Those who have found their oxygen mates are protected against he fiends however Nina is left to the mercy of the wind. 

I wanted it to have a theme that different actions are attractive to different people. In the end, Nina uses her unlit matches not for a dance but as weapons as she fights the wind goblins away. The fight itself attracts her oxygen mate and they together fight the goblins until the window is closed. 

The piece will be silent with music with a classical feel. I was thinking of using an actual classical piece and animating around it or pooling my resources since I have many conductor friends. 

Teddy Bear

EXT.  PLAYGROUND - DAY

CONNOR LOVELL sits on the swing alone. He is an 9 year old boy dressed in a large hoodie and jeans. His thick-rimmed glasses slide down his face and he quickly pushes them up.

He is staring at a YOUNG GIRL. She is around 10/11 and is sitting beneath a tree playing with a beaten up teddy bear. Her hair is pulled back by a bright yellow headband that matches her sundress.

Teddy Bear is a short screenplay I created as practice for writing, characters, and storytelling. It is a short feel good piece about a young shy boy who admires a young girl his age but is too afraid to approach her, even going as far as moving away when he notices her approaching him. He sees her playing with a worn teddy bear before walking away to play with other kids. When he looks up again the teddy bear is gone and she is crying in her mother arms. He takes the initiative to find the teddy bear himself, searching all of the park and town. Just as he gives up hope and luck strikes and he returns her teddy bear to her, receiving a small kiss in thanks. 

This piece will also be silent with music. Both pieces will be traditionally drawn mostly like hand drawn and fine tuned into Toon Boom. But it's hard to decide which one I want to focus on.

The Dance

This is a short film I made learning how to create concepts. We couldn't use sound and I thought it would be a great idea where sound would be the focus almost like it was necessary but yet the piece works without it. Starring my sister Kellee' Fuller who is now in New York City to become a Broadway star!

Argle Bargle's Fantastical Circus!

So this piece transformed into something I couldn't have imagined.

I wanted it to have like a coloring book look to it. I was pressed for time due to procrastination so a lot of it was very stiff and had a lot of editing issues. But I liked the idea. So when we had to do a final piece I created a story for it and added the main character Mindy Bargle. This was the original sketch I had for her.

She started out as a country bumpkin in a 1930's-1940's circus. Finally old enough to participate in her fathers circus she tries to put on a show, but due to the Depression the circus didn't have enough money. I really liked the story but the style could be fixed. I didn't want that coloring book look anymore. So I started thinking about the sort of retro futuristic style like the Jetsons and began looking up some references. I also looked at some old circus posters from that time and began to study the color scheme. 

I took that style and the muted and limited color palette of the posters to make this new concept drawing of Mindy, which was a success.

Afterwords I began redesigning all the characters in the same style. 

Lion tamer and Lion

Clown siblings Martha and Marcus

Elephants (Rory, Rosie, and Jack) and the acrobats became the Elephant Showgirls (Elle. Stelle, and Beth)

And the Ringmaster Mr. Argle Bargle and his daughter Mindy. Finally I completed my concept, did a storyboard, and kicked out an animation to be proud of.

Pepe le Mime and Ellie the Elephant

The first time using After Effects as an animation tool

Paint Sample Stop Motion

A stop motion piece I created

Music is Theme for Harold var 2 by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Ball Bouncing Exercise

Practice focusing on timing and spacing by bouncing a ball. Drawn by hand an edited and refined in Toom Boom Animation Pro. 

Character Designs

This was our first character design exercise today. Our teacher drew an adjective, a verb, and a noun and we got to draw in Photoshop whatever came to our wonderful and inventive imaginations in a little over ten minutes.

Happily Sweating Moon

Enthusiastic Screaming Hell

The Garden of Words

Kotonoha no niwa

Garden of Words

This is such a beautiful film. It's produced by CoMix Wave Films and Directed by Makoto Shinkai. It's very breath-taking and the animation is simply phenomenal. You can tell how much thought was put into every single scene. The color, lighting, and story and blend together in this plethora of emotion that left me in tears once I finished. 

The Japanese subbed version can be viewed here.

The English dubbed version can be viewed here. 

Just a tip on the Japanese version. For some reason even on the dvd's, the last part after the credits isn't translated so no one really knows exactly what he's saying. However this is what he says in the english dub so I would just apply that:

"I realize now, I was learning to walk as well. I haven't mastered the steps. I fall too. But I'm on my path. My path. And one day that path will take me to her."

More Walking Exercises