Major Project

Production Dairy

Hong Yiu Sung (Sara)

up714482
up714482@myport.ac.uk

Context

18Jan, 2015
Lecturer: Eva Palacios

1. WWF Campaign Introduction

2. Idea and Audience
3. Storyboard, cinematography Narrative
4. Character Design
5. Motion research

Whales hunting has become a worldwide animal hunting activities,

6.
Background
in this
world, more than 50 countries engage in whale hunting and
this turn out the result of the number of whales in the entitle world
7.
Finalless
Animation
become
and less. According to the research from WWF,
between 1970 and 2012, the population of whales has declined
8.
References
more than 40% and now just left no more than 10000, especially
the whales in North Atlantic remain 300 less. It is significantly to
observe 50 years later, there would be remain less than 4000
species of whale. As we known, whales bodies commonly used for
perfume making, food production, industrial purpose etc. Although
many countries has already resumed the hunting activities, there
are no way to see the whales are still facing the risk of extinction in
this planet. Therefore, in this project, I would like to emphasize the

WWF Campaign

Idea
Audience

and

In this project, I prefer to use "horror" as

the genre. Fear and scary are a type of
sense that human react to something out
of understanding or unknown, in some
situation, for example after watching
horror movie, some people would have
nightmare at night this is due to the
memories of the impact from horror.
Therefore, horror is prefer to use as
making long term memory in people mind.
I would like to bring out the concept of
what if the whales act like after being
eaten or killed. Audience usually stated
their view on how the person going to eat
whales, but in this animation would be set
opposite view, how the whales eat human
horribly and bloody. This create an
opportunity for audience to think and
engaged in the narrative, in order to bring

Storyboard, Cinematography and narrative

[1] It is reading from left to right and up to bottom. In these 6

shots, camera usually following the movement of the whale
except the first 3 sequence, this is a shot trying to emphasize
the size of the whale body by placing the camera on the same
height. It is showed by a long shot of whale is swimming from
far away which represent the distance between it and camera.

[2] The scene of the whale falling down scene has been cut
into various times in order to show the high speed of fallen.
Also the background colour changed when cut into other
scene, to reveal the depth of the ocean, the darker colour
the deeper it reached. After the body died, story started
again in the whale ghost perspective, camera away from
the character and concentrate on the environment, that the
colour of the background is red.

[3]Colour is an important element in this animation.

When tons of whales ghosts become a dark and giant
whale ghost, the colour tones turn into grey and black.
Black preferred to negative emotion, this helps to
enhance the visual effect on the screen.
[4] After a cut, a sushi restaurant with warm colour is
revealed. Camera focus on the action of eating a
piece of whale sushi, and then it extreme close up to
the pupil, which narrow into a whale shadow, this
present the man feel something scare. It is common
to use this form to show the fear of people, typically

It is clear to observe the genre change in whole animation, light blue

and warm colour used at the beginning shots, of course the brisk
movement of the whale helps is indispensable. The crush of the ship
become a turning point of the narrative, colour suddenly change into
deep colour and end up in a light colour place. Refers to the image
of heaven, there was a place light and peaceful, therefore it means
the whale has already died. For the whales hunting scene, basically I
tried to mix the realistic human and drawing together, but the effect
eventually not good enough, finally I just concentrated on one type
of drawing style. To the ending, I was trying to use the technique
from the horror movie genre, the character would be takeover by
the ghost and be destroyed. This ending is applied with this concept,
destroy, people hunt whales and make destroy on their bodies and
soul in order to satisfy the sufficient needs. Therefore, oppositely
human able to suffer or lost if they destroyed something. That is the

Storyboards (Testing)
The sequence of the
beginning has been
changed, like after the
crush, just spend 1 scene to
describe it is falling. This
results in not enough time to
show the falling process, and
looks rush. I tried to add

There was completely

corrected for the ending. It
was originally the whale
shocked by the scene of
chopping whales bodies and
eat it. At the end died on the
bodies mountain with full of
blood.

Character Design
This is the final version of the
main character Whale, there are
two different version, the normal
ver. and the Dark ver. I used a
clear outline to recognize the
body structure of whale. Basically
I mixed humpback whale and orca
as references to the body outline
design. Also the fin at the back is
really tiny to see. For the black
ver. used the brush to blend out
the colour to let it to look more
This is the first character design of this
project, at the beginning, I was
wondering to design the character to a
collage style as the design concept was
the whale in dream, so thats the reason
with used flowers as the body
construction. Also, the reference was blue

Character Design Research

For the final character design
references, I used Orca and
Humpback whale to be my
light. Both whale body
structure are different,
Humpback has a long body
shape with rough skin
compare to Orca, it is round
and with wet skin. When I
was doing research, I would
like to find a whale with fast
movement but looks not
smart, therefore I mixed the
both characteristic to be my

Motion Research
I used Orca for my
motion research
target. Orca is the
fastest swimmer
within the whale
world. Compare
with Humpback,
their body
movement is
really smooth

Background

The colour of epipelagic

zone
The colour of
mesopelagic zone

[2
[4

The colour of
Ocean layers
[1
bathypelagic
zone
[ colour imagine of heaven
The

Whales bodies at pier. Reference

used by real photo.
Sushi restaurant entrance

Sushi restaurant. Reference used

by real photo.
The window in the restarurant

Final Animation Editing

Software:
Graphic and character design: Photoshop CC
Animatic: Photoshop CC and Flash Professional CC
Video complex: Premiere CC
Sound editing: Audacity and Premiere CC
Time adjustment: Flash Professional CC and Premiere CC

Weakness:
Observation among character movement is insufficiency,
especially the tail and fin movement.
Lack of sound effect in the animation
Insufficient in time management of preparation of Animatic
Limitation of colouring style

Future improvement:

Spend more time in preparation of design and research

Use more various resources for reference
Confident to present the idea to receive the advice from others
Attempt to use different brushes and style on design process
Visit the real place and record the opinion and feeling as
referencing

References

Aqua biomes. Sheri Amsel.18May, 2015. Contemporary Biology 2015.

http://blogs.mtlakes.org/contemporarybio/files/2015/05/ocean_layers.jpg

Incredible Footage of Killer Whales Playing Underwater. Smithsonian Channel.5June, 2010. (1:50- 1:54).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbtaJs8AWw

Japanese table manner. root. 26November, 2014. News 6 Paper. http://travel5s.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Arestaurant-with-both-table-and-tatami-seating.jpg

Killer Whale in a jump over water. http://namonitore.ru/uploads/catalog/whales/kasatka_v_prizhke_nad_vodi_1600.jpg

Mass of whale hunting in Faroe Island leave sea blood red. Andrija Ilic. 25November,2011. http://lh3.ggpht.com/XcdoCLlxLNU/Ts6OZNSMS2I/AAAAAAAASQ4/BzbRNmTniIw/whale-hunting-2%25255B6%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800

Orca Family Playing with Crowd. Tracy Brewer. 31July, 2008. (2:15- 2:21). https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dvWoC71Uc2o

Orca Family Playing with Crowd.Tracy Brewer. 31July, 2008. (2:08- 2.10). https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=dvWoC71Uc2o

Shamu Killer Whale Image. Tessa. 24May, 2010.

https://www.google.com.hk/url?
sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiU6J3Cg6zKAhVJRhQKHWDcD2YQjRwIB
w&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clker.com%2Fclipart63468.html&psig=AFQjCNH2d8pNdgRsRN3qRHnWvguNO7SjWQ&ust=1452942899188650

Swimming with Humpback Whales. Aggressor Fleet. 31July, 2008. (4:15). https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=LPaLN_1iOZ8