Class Log 01-29

The weekend was a quick turnaround, but we achieved a lot in regards to nailing down the environment. I was able to produce the map and some beat boards to help communicate my plan. Being the creator of the map actually let me have a huge impact on the story, because I was tying specific moments to locations and shots that I was seeing. Many of our crew members were pulled to Writer's Block, so each member of the environments team had greater agency over how the world was built. I created many different maps to help explain things to the crew, and digi-scout said they loved having the beat boards to help with their explorations from a story perspective. 

This was the earliest version of the map. I loosely blocked in the neighborhoods, considering the layout as well as the 3d realization of what would come next. I was thinking very sculpturally and trying to wrap my head around the space. I was also considering the character's journey and how the terrain would contribute to it. Once I accomplished the major needs, there were also a few scenic shots that I thought would be beautiful, so I threw those into the journey as well. Examples of these are the artist taking a side street out of the main highway for a more private space and her journey out along the coastline, which doubled as an establish for where she was headed, the festival.

This was the refined map that I produced. I delineated the city structure and flow to help the dici-scout team start plotting out buildings. I also tagged various locations so that it was clear where our characters would interact with the other actors in the story. 

I felt it was important to help the team understand the geography from a flat layout, so I included some basic altitude tones to help them see what I was going for. I decided that it needed more than that, so I ended up doing a painting, which I have included later.

In order to communicate my thoughts to the crew quickly, I tagged locations with photo-reference of what I had in mind. As I built the map, I was referencing these photos, and I wanted them to see how I was inspired. We will all see different things in our heads, so I wanted to try and create some helpful, yet flexible boundaries for all of us to work with.

This was the first painting I did to help the crew understand the map. I wanted to show them the elevation changes and the way the city grouped. It was a very helpful thing to show in the class, and it got a great response. I approached it as a study in volume and focused on establishing the planes of buildings rather than trying to be too specific. We are going to re-work these areas to suit our specific needs later, so the main idea was most important. 

This painting developed from me originally doing a beat-board of just the fountain in the middle. I felt the need to keep establishing more, so I kept pulling the camera back in order to discover more of the world. As I did, a logic started to form about how this area could work in order to have a beautiful reveal of the town below. We discussed in class that the artist would no longer have a studio because her being at the top would make her quite rich. Instead, she would be drawing at the top of the hill in the piazza. Then, the clock would ring and remind her that the festival was about to happen.

This was the coastal shot that I had in mind for the artist. I wanted her to walk out along the coast and reveal the town, with the sounds of the festival starting to build. The paper would get blown out over the ocean a bit here while trying to chase behind her. 

 This was how I imagined the entrance to the main market, after she has looked at the dress shop. This was before we had a festival going, so there will be way more people here. I thought an arch was a fitting design for entering the big crescendo of the story. It also provides some opportunities for stronger light and shadow, where the character can be entirely in darkness would we need it. We also nixed the cafe, so this really is the main event coming up.


Sorry wise, we made many changes today. There is no longer a studio or a cafe. Instead, the artist is heading from the top piazza to the bottom piazza for a festival. We also realized that the dress shop is our critical moment of the story where the characters need to have major turning points. I am really excited for where the story is going. For next class, I plan to clarify the overall painting a bit and create some story beats if I have extra time.