101: Avatar

 

Avatar is the story of a brave new world and being exploitative of said new world. Pandora is a moon of a fictional, being very loosely based in our own solar system. It is the prospect of brave new world, an idea seen in history and in fiction, many times over. The Na’vi people are analogues of the Native Americans, where their society is incredibly attuned to  the nature of their planet, it’s animals and the plant life, even to the extent that the trees can save the consciousness of their dead.

The theme of belonging is what my FMP shares with this soon to be franchise, Rohan takes his two brothers to the future, to explore, not conquer.  The consequence for Rohan for trying to  assimilate, his brothers are caught in a political scheme of a selfish ruler. Avatar’s main character, Jake Sully, is punished for converging with the Na’vi people, when trying to mine their world’s natural resources. Avatar is a prime example of excellent world-building, a story fitted around a world so cleanly. The idea of the mies-en-scene telling the story was always an idea, but one I had been reluctant to try at first, as I wanted tottery and fit more exposition into 2 minutes. lacking a sizeable duration for my film, focussing on the world-building as the priority.

A restart to my FMP

Due to not being satified with the progress I made on my FMP, I am restarting the project, but I’m keeping the idea of using stock footage, from two of my former projects. One of those former projects is from my first year of A-levels, in which i made a film with two people having a sword fight, known as “Fictus Gladio”. the second was my previous project, known as “The Trojan”, which features the two brothers. While only one of the two characters dies in The Trojan, “Rohan” will feature the death of both, as motivation for the main character. In the concept phase for The Trojan,  the two brothers were called Artie and Barry (Bardo), which has been adopted into the main story, a larger mythos I’ve been developing.

101: Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a cult classic sci-fi franchise that has lasted approximately 50 years. It’s main character is The Doctor, a rogue member of a race of aliens called Time-Lords.  the idea of the rebel, is something people identify with because there is the constant need to escape for the viewer. This Doctor character doesn’t reveal his true name, so it almost pushes the message that you can be capable of anything, as if the Doctor represents a person’s utmost potential. He can literally be anyone, as Time-lords can switch sexes, as shown in the episode “Hell Bent”, the finale of series 9 (promo photo below). He is intelligent and capable, a technological and historical genius, making for a far more relatable hero. For how we’d be safe with the Doctor, we’d also be in great danger if we travelled with him, as his adventures often deal with some deadly alien.  As such, the Doctor too has the potential to

be as bad as anyone, making his humanity his defining feature  and a source of inspiration for the characters in my current project.

As of 5/6/17, i have opted to study the first episode of series 8 of the modern series, rather than the penultimate episode of series 9, merely for the reason I cannot access that series on Netflix, so as such need something more accessible with what I have. I will continue studying the series on a whole, but will focus on that particular episode for key instances of character development and storytelling, to see if there are any parallels between the result of my FMP and the episode in question.

 

FMP proposal

Three key words, “Broken” , “Borders” and “Belonging” are the concepts behind the Final Major Project. For this unit, I have chosen belonging as the theme. The theme has to extend to  precisely 3000 frames, which is 2 minutes long in total, no more, no less. I understand it has to be a self-contained story, so very little ambiguity and a concise narrative will be heavily considered. i have challenged myself on fleshing out a piece of fiction and condensing it into this short, 2 minute span.

The story follows a legendary  warlock, Rohan Schmidt, who is tracking down the man who had his younger brothers killed for an assassination they didn’t commit. wanting revenge for his family being used as scapegoats, he journeys to the sands of the Sin-lands, what remains of the United States of America in the 31st century. Semblance Vein, second hand to the leadership, is the culprit. Rohan will steal his throne and identity in an act of revenge.

The theme of belonging will appear in association with family, as Rohan loses his family to a man who belongs alone race, they fight for different reasons; Vein for the many, Rohan for the few.

15/3/17

Website proposal and ideas:

The website I am creating is to be an online portfolio, based on the websites I have studied. These websites are Facebook, IMDb and Wikipedia.

A Master Page; This page contains all the assets we wish to implement on the rest of website as a whole. The banner along the top of the website will be a series of knight chess piece clipart, duplicated all around the sides. The menu buttons will include, a home section with youtube videos of all my films I’ve created on the course, an “About Me” section, consisting of a personal profile and experiences and aspiration,  and finally an “Album” section,  consisting of pictures from my previous work, organised by project.

Home page; This page retains the qualities that all other pages have, the banner around the top of the page, and the menus up the top.  However the way it differentiates itself fro the other pages is by a slim, yet interesting margin. the home page will have the youtube videos of each and every film I have and will  work  on.

About Me;  This page features a picture of myself to the upper left hand side. it will  also feature a short bio about me, along with aspirations for the future.

Album; This page will log a series of photos from various former projects , such as for the music video and the silent film.

 

8/3/17

Website portfolio plan

Looking at the picture of “Black Power”,  a lot can be said about what we initially gather from the picture. We are drawn to the two men raising the black power salute, rather than white man awarded silver. In learning about the story behind the photo, we realise these three men  made a stand in the name of civil rights that day, at the cost of their careers.

Adobe Photoshop and Muse work

Adobe Photoshop:

 

Adobe Muse:

A brief summary  of my website:

In creating the A-master, there was a small icon next to the home page, in the “Plan” section of Muse. It looks like a plus sign  and created another page that I filled out as the “About Me” section. The Home page was pre-existing. The rollover (WordPress icon) was created in photoshop and had two  layers, one for when  the cursor wants hovering over it, one for when  it does. It goes from Black  and white, to blue and white, connecting to my WordPress blog, as I couldn’t get a Facebook link working. This rollover is down the bottom of the About Me page. The Home page has a video  of my first piece of media work, a music video known  as “Vampire Underground”. The menu  is dark  blue and the background is purple, and underneath the menu, there is a banner of Knight chess piece clipart, 11 in a row.