Lost Site

3:18, 1280x720
Maya and After Effects, Spring 2009

An abstract meeting of two characters visually described through motion and light.

This was my senior thesis, and I created all the assets in this project (modeling, rigging, cameral layout, texturing, lighting, compositing, editing).

Concept

This was my yearlong project in my senior year of completing my BFA at Carnegie Mellon University. At the time, I had been developing some birdlike humanoid characters and human figures with birdlike masks in my drawings, and decided to bring them over into 3D media. At the onset, I knew I wanted to create a largely emotive, abstracted piece that did not rely on set narrative elements. I wanted the animation to loosely be about two characters coming across and meeting each other, and their meeting causing the destruction of their surroundings - but the focus of the animation is the purely visual elements of the piece (the motion, color, and lighting). Since the piece required a great level of control in order to convey the believable sense of atmosphere I desired, the vast majority of the piece is hand animated (the only exception being the fire and fog effects). Therefore, the lighting, color, and atmosphere are all also highly considered.

I was also interested in how gender was portrayed historically in animation. From this, I wanted to create a highly feminine, sexualized female character and have the focus be on her movements and actions rather than as a passive subject of the male gaze. In creating a female character that is visually coded as a sexually passive character, and having her empowered and defined through her actions, the character subverts and questions traditional codes of femininity as described through the history of visual culture.