Fantastic Voyage | Inital Story Idea

For the story of my animation, it will depict the immune response as a specialist superhero team that each have powers that match up to what the cells they are representing can actually do.

The story will start off in the "Base" of all of the super white blood cells when an alarm is raised to warn the team that there is an invading viral attack. A 'T cell' comes rushing in as he was the one who set the alarm off, this is because the viral attack is a foreign attack. 

The team quickly rush to defend against the incoming virus, first of all the Macrophage is able to defeat some germs but must call in for backup from the T and B cells as the Macrophage becomes over run by the virus as it begins to take hold. 

The B cell starts to build up it's energy so that when it exerts it all it is able to generate plenty of antibodies that can rush towards the virus and bind to them so that the cannot replicate. But unfortunately it is unable to generate enough and therefore needs a helping hand from a helper T cell. The helper T cell connects onto the B cell and starts to send signal through it that encourage faster antibody growth. When the Antibodies attach to the virus they start sucking upon the virus much like a leech would. This drains them of their ability to replicate.

Elsewhere there is the killer T cell is killing all of the cells that have already been infected by the virus. It does this by using an attack that makes the cell shrivel up and die. When the cell dies it de- materializes into nothingness. 

After the battle has been won, a few T and B cells stay behind. They act as the detectives of the immune response as they remain and ensure that they keep an accurate memory of how the virus worked and what it looked like. This consists of the T and B cells going around and scanning for clues. 

The story ends with the detective T and B cells, seeing a wave of virus flowing into the body, that is completely foreign, bigger and scarier. Therefore the job has to happen again and the cycle will repeat. 

Fantastic Voyage | White Blood Cells and Viruses Influence Map

Fig 1. Virus Influence Map

Fig 2. White Blood Cells (Heroes)

Fantastic Voyage | Art Style Influence Map

The art style of my Fantastic Voyage animation is going to be in a pop art style where the procedure of becoming immune to an infection will be depicted as a comic book world. I would like work in the style of Roy Lichtenstein, or at least color everything in my world the same way that he colors his work,  Therefore to get to grips with how the art style will look i have researched into his work.

Fantastic Voyage | Research | How The Body Becomes Immune To An Infection

My chosen subject to explore into for Fantastic Voyage is how the body becomes immune to an infection. Therefore to get to better grips with how everything works, I have been researching into what each white blood cell does and how it helps with becoming immune to an infection. Below i have summed up what the procedure is for future use.

When a virus infects the body, the immune response would be activated. This immune response consists of different white blood cells, the first white blood cell is the Macrophage.

Fig 1. A Macrophage.

A Macrophage's job is to destroy any germs that it can locate, but will otherwise alert the other cells if the viral infection begins to take hold. These other cells are called T & B Lymphocites,

Fig 2. T Lymphocite

Fig 3. B Lymphocite

The job of a B Lymphocite is to create antibodies. Antibodies are a special protein that hooks onto the virus so that it is unable to replicate, it also will tag the virus so that other white blood cells will know how to kill them.

Then there is the T Lymphocite. This white blood cell has a variety of different jobs, it will raise an alarm if it notices viruses invading the body, it can help the B Lymphocite produce antibodies and lastly it is able to directly attack the cells that have been infected with a virus. 

After the infection has been eradicated some T and B Lymphocites will persist and keep an accurate memory of the virus so that if the same virus was to attack again, the body won't accidentally attack it's own cells by accident. 

Cutting Edge | Film Review | Psycho

Fig 1. Psycho Film Poster

Psycho (1960) is one of Hitchcock's most renowned films that shocked audiences worldwide. It can be said that it is the reason that we have been graced with the slasher horror genre, leading into other films like 'Scream', 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Nightmare on Elm Street'.

The film Psycho is also known as one of Hitchcock's best films because of his spectacular use of camera, a defining soundtrack and the fact that he chose not to film the movie in colour as it the film being in black and white would make for a memorable and better horror experience.

Hitchcock deliberately manipulates the viewers’ sympathies. There are numerous

red herrings: the initial tryst, the stolen money, the traffic cop’ (Total Film 1998) He manages to do this with his camera work, throughout the film he purposely points the camera at what the character is looking at and flicks back to convey the emotion of the character. This is so that Hitchcock doesn't need to worry about dialogue to properly tell a story.

Psycho is a film that first introduces us to the female character that is called Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) who steals $40,000 and attempts to escape from the man she stole it from. The man she stole it from entrusted her to place it into a bank. After a paranoid journey she finally arrives at the motel, this motel is what can be said to be the main setting of the whole film. This motel is where we meet Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), Norman is a self-proclaimed taxidermist, whose favourite thing to taxidermy is birds. At first Norman comes across as a young man who hasn't really seen many people as "it appears, he has a mother—a cantakerous old woman—concealed." (Crowther 1960) who he is always caring for his mum and attending to her needs. But things become more sinister as Marion goes to prepare for the shower and Norman has a peephole in his wall, which he looks through to spy on Marion as she washes. This is of course why he wanted her to stay in that room.

Fig 2. Image of Norman 

Moments after One of the most iconic scene in a horror film happens, the shower scene where Marion is brutally murdered. It's in this scene where we are thrown into the action with Hitchcock's infamous montage editing, where the camera would bounce between Marion and the murderer. "Unlike modern horror films , "Psycho" never shows the knife striking flesh. There are no wounds. There is blood, but not gallons of it." (Ebert 1998) . This scene is also one of the most controversial as it seemed that Hitchcock had killed off the main character half way through the film.

Fig 3. Marion screaming in shower and murderer with knife

After Marion's Death, a private investigator called Arbogast (Martin Balsam) heads up to the motel to uncover some things but ends up with the same fate as Marion, although this time the murder has happened in the house atop the hill. The murderer also appears to be the mother of Norman. Time passes as Sam and Lila grow ever weary that something truly terrible has happened. They decide to go to the motel as well, but soon after checking in they head straight up to the strange house. They head straight down into the basement to discover that Norman's mother has in fact been dead the whole time and Norman had been treating her with chemicals in an attempt to preserve her. At this moment Norman flies out dressed as his mother and swiftly gets taken down and handed into the police.

Overall it can definitely be said that Psycho will never be forgotten and will always be hailed as a horror great. After all no film gets two re-makes unless it was something truly special. Although the original is still by far the better of the three.



Bibliography

Ebert, Roger. (1998) 'Psycho' Available at: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-psycho-1960 [Accessed 21/2/2016]

Total Film (1998) 'Psycho Review' Available at: http://www.gamesradar.com/psycho-review/
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173DE273BC4F52DFB066838B679EDE
Accessed 21/2/2016

Crowther, Bosley. (1960) 'Psycho Review' Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173DE273BC4F52DFB066838B679EDE

 Accessed 21/2/2016

Image Sources

Fig 1. Psycho Film Poster [Film Poster] 1960 At: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film) Accessed 21/2/2016

Fig 2.  Image of Norman [Film Still] 1960 At: http://athenacinema.com/psycho/ Accessed 21/2/2016

Fig 3. Image of Marion screaming in shower and murderer with knife [Film Still] 1960 At: http://moviemadnessvideo.com/museum/psycho/ Accessed 21/2/2016 

From Script to Screen | Final Crit

From Script to Screen | Art Of

From Script to Screen | Final Animatic from Samuel Johnson on Vimeo.

From Script to Screen | Art Of

From Script to Screen | Art Of

From Script to Screen | Final Animatic

From Script to Screen | Final Animatic from Samuel Johnson on Vimeo.

Maya Tutorial | Squash & Stretch: Jumping

Maya Tutorial | Secondary Action & Overlap : Hanging Chain

Maya Tutorial | Settle & Rest : Pendulum

Maya Tutorial | The Bouncing Ball Pt 1 : On The Spot

From Script to Screen | The Green Fingered Granny | Final Script

The Green Fingered Granny Script

From Script to Screen | Storyboard

Animation | Maniacal Pedal Bin In a Kitchen

From Script to Screen | Good and Evil Granny Designs | Illustrator

Above is images for both the evil and good grannies, i have taken my designs into illustrator to make them cleaner and refined. The left (evil) Granny could probably do with some elongation to make the body look more evil. I'll have to go into illustrator again to uses the shape making facilities to try come up with a better body design. But for now here are some crisper grannies! ****Also tail or no tail?***

Photoshop | Master Study | Environment and Portrait

Maya Tutorial | Creating a scene for Pre-Viz

In todays lesson the aim was to create a film 'noir' style detective room. The whole idea was to introduce us to how blocking out some models in maya will help us and how to make simplistic objects with a low poly count. I added about 3 lights to the scene to add to the effect.




My Scene Without Lighting

My Scene With Lighting added

From Script to Screen | Experimental Thumbnails | Good & Evil Grannies

Good Grannies 1-2

Good Grannies 3-4

Good Grannies 5-9

Evil Grannies 1-10

Evil Grannies 11-18

After receiving feedback in my OGR i knew i needed to go back and look at the shapes and how to experiment with them. I have gone through and created some rounded shapes for the 'good grannies' to imply happiness, innocence to show they're not threatening in the slightest. Whereas with the 'evil grannies' i have tried to incorporate pointed and more triangular shapes, by doing this i think it certainly makes the grannies look more sinister and evil. 

With the thumbnails above i have explored slightly into how the body will look but i aim to explore further into elongated and pointier body shapes to convey evilness in the evil grannies. 

From Script to Screen | OGR 2

From Script to Screen | OGR 2

Maya Tutorial | Intro to Character Animation | Mechanics - Walk Cycle

Maya Tutorial | Intro to Character Animation | Arm - Anticipation and Follow Through

Character Design | Environment Design | Arabian Nights Detective Agency

From Script To Screen | Photoshopped Designs | Good and Evil Grannies and Props

Good Grannies

Evil Grannies

Props