zenith: the peak of one’s skills
-me
This is the final project of my years at Freestyle, but its my best work. The Zenith Project is essentially a project of our own choosing; we, the students, get to decide what we want to work on as long as it’s related to our elective.
Since my elective is film, I chose something film related. Last year, however, I was in animation, but was booted out because of last minute changes.
My Vision
My zenith project is to create a single scene that welds computer animation and video to tell a story of a fictional world. I have always enjoyed the world building in media such as the Blade Runner film, Witcher 3, and the paintings that capture Romanticism. I have always wanted to create a world that has character-like qualities like Pandora in the film Avatar where nature seems to be a character on its own. I would like to use that concept and extend it to the surroundings. I want my scene to allow the viewer to understand the history of the said “world” and be able to deduce the story from subtle details on screen. I wish to use Blender to model the sort of “personality traits” the world has and After Effects, to blend it into real life footage. Essentially, I will be making one scene with vfx with those two programs.
Blender is not a program that I have learned in class, but will be a challenge to learn. I want to focus on photo realistic 3D modeling, which takes account of nearly every aspect of 3D modeling that exists. This includes topography, sculpting, and texturing assets. For after effects, I will learn how to integrate the 3D models into a scene using the many skills I have learned from digital media. I will also have to learn a lot more about motion tracking and 3D integration. This is a challenge because it will make me step outside of what I have learned in class and push me to do projects that professionals do.
I will incorporate color grading, compositing, and composition skills I have learned from film class. I also have learned 3D modeling from previous programs such as Fusion 360 and Sketch, both of which I am proficient at. I have touched blender, but there is still a lot I need to learn about the program. Many of the terminology will come in handy as well for making the project.
Process
