Just a boring nitpick to begin with: your OGR has lots of spelling mistakes and typos in it. You just have to remember that when you're publishing on here, you're publishing to the world. Nothing should go up and on here if it's not been proof-read. It gives a poor impression and invites people to make the wrong judgements about you - this is particularly important when it comes to any documentation you put before a client. If you know that spelling etc is a weakness, then you need to find extra time for proof-reading and spell-checking - the extra effort will be worth it when people take you more seriously and don't feel distracted by the typos.
Okay - so onto the idea then; I do think an aquatic theme is suitable, but you do need to be careful that audiences don't accept the metaphor (sea biology) as content - so they think they're watching a story about sea creatures, or cell division in sea creatures. You need to be sure that you're not tying the two ideas together in a way that could be deemed confusing by your audience. In practical terms too, you're showing me images of quite complex assets with multiple tentacles etc - which in Maya terms may mean a high-level of technical commitment. The more organic things become, the more expertise and experience you may need technically in software to replicate the effects you want.
I assume - in order to tell the story about cancer, you'll first need to tell audiences about the cell-cycle, because cancer is a malfunctioning cell that is somehow allowed to continue to divide. I'm not sure from your concept here how you intend to give that information away as part of your underwater idea. Personally, I'd suggest you abstract things a little further, so we're not looking at actual sea creatures or an actual coral reef, but rather organic shapes and structures that are both 'underwater' and 'human body' - this is relatively easy, after all:
It might be that you look to using the idea of the 'coral reef' as the visual metaphor for a healthy body (complex, but made up of tiny elements (or cells) and then show how a single 'rogue' organism can destroy that complexity - there is, in fact, an actual parallel in the natural world - the crown of thorns starfish:
I think the other responsibility you may have if you're dealing with cancer (and young people as your audience) is to ensure you tell the end of the story wherein cancer can be treated with chemotherapy or similar, otherwise you leave audiences with this idea of the 'waste ground' and everything is destroyed. Chances are your audience will be comprised of people who know someone with cancer or know someone who will get cancer, so should you also be talking about what happens to the cancer cells during treatment - indeed, how the 'coral reef' can be given the chance to recover and come back to life?
So - short version, I think there is a justification for your underwater metaphor, if you establish the idea of the coral reef as being a flourishing 'healthy' community of working parts and processes (as the human body might be described) and if you visually link the human body with the organic forms of your environment. Do this, and you can show how one element of this system becomes dominant (breeds) and overpowers the main organism (the reef/the human body). You'll need to think about how you're going to explain the cell-cycle itself in this sense, and also think about what 'hope' or alternative you may offer audiences after you've shown the terrible effects of cancer. You also need to think sensibly about your 'character' design - my advice is to go simpler and more stylised, so less 'real' as implied by some of your first thumbnails, and more 'for animation' - like these examples by artist Angie Lewin:
OGR 16/03/17
ReplyDeleteHi Jess,
Just a boring nitpick to begin with: your OGR has lots of spelling mistakes and typos in it. You just have to remember that when you're publishing on here, you're publishing to the world. Nothing should go up and on here if it's not been proof-read. It gives a poor impression and invites people to make the wrong judgements about you - this is particularly important when it comes to any documentation you put before a client. If you know that spelling etc is a weakness, then you need to find extra time for proof-reading and spell-checking - the extra effort will be worth it when people take you more seriously and don't feel distracted by the typos.
Okay - so onto the idea then; I do think an aquatic theme is suitable, but you do need to be careful that audiences don't accept the metaphor (sea biology) as content - so they think they're watching a story about sea creatures, or cell division in sea creatures. You need to be sure that you're not tying the two ideas together in a way that could be deemed confusing by your audience. In practical terms too, you're showing me images of quite complex assets with multiple tentacles etc - which in Maya terms may mean a high-level of technical commitment. The more organic things become, the more expertise and experience you may need technically in software to replicate the effects you want.
I assume - in order to tell the story about cancer, you'll first need to tell audiences about the cell-cycle, because cancer is a malfunctioning cell that is somehow allowed to continue to divide. I'm not sure from your concept here how you intend to give that information away as part of your underwater idea. Personally, I'd suggest you abstract things a little further, so we're not looking at actual sea creatures or an actual coral reef, but rather organic shapes and structures that are both 'underwater' and 'human body' - this is relatively easy, after all:
Brain coral: https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/04/47/63/1d/smith-s-reef.jpg
It might be that you look to using the idea of the 'coral reef' as the visual metaphor for a healthy body (complex, but made up of tiny elements (or cells) and then show how a single 'rogue' organism can destroy that complexity - there is, in fact, an actual parallel in the natural world - the crown of thorns starfish:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown-of-thorns_starfish
http://www.picionline.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/COToncoral-P1050803.jpg
It's a pretty nasty-looking thing and they destroy coral reefs when they breed in huge numbers.
I think the other responsibility you may have if you're dealing with cancer (and young people as your audience) is to ensure you tell the end of the story wherein cancer can be treated with chemotherapy or similar, otherwise you leave audiences with this idea of the 'waste ground' and everything is destroyed. Chances are your audience will be comprised of people who know someone with cancer or know someone who will get cancer, so should you also be talking about what happens to the cancer cells during treatment - indeed, how the 'coral reef' can be given the chance to recover and come back to life?
ReplyDeleteSo - short version, I think there is a justification for your underwater metaphor, if you establish the idea of the coral reef as being a flourishing 'healthy' community of working parts and processes (as the human body might be described) and if you visually link the human body with the organic forms of your environment. Do this, and you can show how one element of this system becomes dominant (breeds) and overpowers the main organism (the reef/the human body). You'll need to think about how you're going to explain the cell-cycle itself in this sense, and also think about what 'hope' or alternative you may offer audiences after you've shown the terrible effects of cancer. You also need to think sensibly about your 'character' design - my advice is to go simpler and more stylised, so less 'real' as implied by some of your first thumbnails, and more 'for animation' - like these examples by artist Angie Lewin:
http://www.chrisdaunt.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/engraving_lewin_winterspey.jpg
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0203/9210/products/Alliums_and_Fennel.jpg?v=1384451661
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0203/9210/products/Loch_with_Dandelions.jpg?v=1384451682
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0203/9210/products/Dandelion_I_1024x1024.jpg