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For my final project in the storyboarding class, I will be creating a sort of storyreel for a music video, composed of storyboards of the various shots.  My theme is “Miss Havisham, in a spacestation, is practicing being a superhero.”  So, as interesting as that may seem, I think that it will be fun to work on!  Below, I have included a backstory for the “Miss Havisham in space” character.  Enjoy!

Name: Miss Havisham
Favorite Food: Wedding Cake
Favorite Hobby: Matchmaking (and breaking!)
Biggest Fear: Fire
Favorite Place to Sleep: In her command chair
Where does she live?: Aboard the S.S. Krypton
Favorite TV show: Smallville
Favorite obnoxious sound: Laser beam
Backstory Paragraph (see vacant Planet): Miss Havisham was born on the planet Romulus, the daughter of a defected Vulcan ambassador and a Romulan intelligence officer.  Her defining moment was when her husband-to-be did not show up at their wedding, taking her fortune with him.  Dismayed, she retreated to her space-station home, where she lived alone, but she always left here wedding cake on display in the middle of her home.  Her superpowers developed gradually over the years, due to the cosmic radiation she was exposed to.  As well, her dismay gradually morphed into a quietly suppressed rage.
Dominant character trait: Brooding anger
Where they grew up: the planet Romulus
What kind of parents did they have?: Vulcan and Romulan
What’s the best thing that ever happened to them?: Landing as a child on the Earth.
The worst thing that ever happened to them: Her fiancé left her at the altar.

"Peanuts" by Charles Schulz

"Foxtrot" by Bill Amend

"Family Circus" by Bil Keane

For an assignment in storyboarding class, I chose three comic artists whose work I admired.  I really like each of these three styles because of the simplicity of the lines, the minimalistic shading, and the stark contrasts.

These images are for a storyboarding exercise that looked for “face” designs in unforeseen locations, demonstrating how little it takes to make the mind see a face.  Enjoy!

Emotion Intensity Graphs

Expression Tests

Here are a couple of expression tests that I worked through last week with my character.

Never have I seen more clearly how important it is to get connected with other professionals in my fields than this past school year.  Thanks to the contacts that God has placed in my life, I am currently working at Jellyfish Labs for a summer internship, and I am loving it!  In fact, without those contacts, I may not have had the opportunity for an internship this summer at all.

I wanted to talk briefly about the concept of building a “network" of professionals in a field.  It really bothers me to think about "making friends" for the mere purpose of favors, but that is not at all my intention, even when establishing contacts and making friendships with talented people.  Yes, it would be wonderful if opportunities would come from my friends rather than from people I did not know at all.  But more important to me than the possibility of getting an inside opportunity is the potential of building a group of trusted colleagues whom I can run ideas by.  It is similar to an experience I recently had with a professional, non-profit organization, whose meetings I had the honor of sitting in on.  This group met weekly for lunch as a gathering of friends and colleagues, but it was interesting to listen to the dinnertime conversation of professionals in totally different fields just discussing issues which affected them as people in general, regardless of their field.  But they also discussed business propositions that were on their minds, and the feedback they received from those outside their fields may perhaps be the most valuable insight they could ever hope to have received.

Since it is so important to build a professional network, I am convinced that tools such as LinkedIn are great for establishing relationships, communicating up front that the relational intention is for professional contact.  With a business context established right away, it is not nearly as difficult to maintain such a relationship in the professional arena, and it also leaves the door wide open for a more individual relationship through other venues.  Since the context of the relation is established right away, the potential opportunities for assistance and collaboration are mutually understood.

Another point to consider about networking is that it must be reciprocal.  If I, as someone else’s contact, would continuously take from our relationship, I would have failed in the endeavor of successfully networking with my colleagues.  We must make it a point to proactively assist others with our talents and our insight into opportunities, whether this comes in the form of recommendation letters or even job offers.

I am not saying that personal and professional relations need be totally separate.  On the contrary, I believe that all relations will end up crossing, and in fact, I believe that they should mingle together.  The above reflection is merely insight into honestly making professional contacts without taking advantage of the friendships involved.  When a need arises, favors will be asked.  However, the context of the asking is much more honest and co-beneficial if the context of the relationship is mutually understood beforehand.

So I watched the movie “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” the other day, not necessarily intending to watch that movie in particular, but just wanting to watch a movie in general.  However, when I saw it listed on Netflix, I realized that I had thought about watching it before.  I had wanted to see it when it first came out, but I heard shortly after it came out that it was pretty much a flop.  Still, I was curious to see what it was about.

To start off with, I just have to say that my expectations were quite off.  I really enjoyed “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,” even though it is relatively unknown and definitely its own kind of movie.  The movie is set up as a sort of retro-futuristic spy movie, complete with gadgets, giant robots, and gallantry.  The movie, while only a few years old, was produced as if it were made in the thirties, forties, or fifties, predicting the state of the world several decades into the future of that era.  As such, digital technology is nonexistent for the most part, and all of the gadgets, while advanced in concept, are still based on older concepts such as propellers on planes and ancient radio sets.  The production, also, is in the same style of years ago, using “bad” compositing techniques, somewhat gaudy traditional transitions, and messy “film” grain and damage.  But I am convinced that most, if not all, of these missteps were intentional to support the notion that this movie was really made in the forties.  Regardless of this stylistic practice, the one shortfall that I noticed most was that the acting was genuinely sub-par in execution.  But that did not subtract from the movie enough to be a huge issue.

Perhaps my favorite part of the movie was the development and insight put into the creation of the characters, gadgets, and environments.  Many of the concepts of the various environments are extremely nontraditional, lending a definite creative streak to the production.  For instance, who says that airbases were necessarily designed to support air raids?  Why not have these be the bases for naval operations?  Is this confusing enough?  Well, I am not quite sure how it was pulled off, but this discrepancy was easily handled by the storyline.

I would highly recommend “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” as a fun movie to watch.  I realize that most people will not appreciate it as much as I do, but I do believe that it is at least an interesting movie that was skillfully crafted.  I do agree that it is definitely not the “greatest movie ever made,” but I still really enjoyed the movie as a whole, especially the unique setup of many of the key concepts.