(WARNING: This film includes bright colors and flashing scenes that may potentially trigger seizures for people with Epilepsy and those who struggle with bright colors.)
Logline
|
Thesis Statement
|
Thesis Proposal
|
What Is Astral Projection?Astral projection is the idea that the mind can separate from the body in a dream like state. It is also referred to as “out of body” experience. This concept has existed for generations and exists in many cultures. While there is no real scientific evidence that astral projection is inherently possible, there are many cases of people who claim to have had an experience like astral projection.
What is Astral Projection Like?No Astral experience is the same. Since there is no scientific evidence of these occasions, it is difficult to say for sure what is right or wrong experiences of Astral travel. Some people report feeling a "Very real" feeling, as well as floating and looking down from high heights. This often is referred to as a trance.
|
What Specifically Trigger Astral Projection? |
What Does Astral Projection have to do with Mental Health? |
There are many causes for astral projection, however it is mostly triggered by stress and trauma. It can also be caused by sleep deprivation and other health issues.
These issues can range from: Stress, Trauma, Fear, Migraine, Depression, Anxiety, Epilepsy, Cardiac Arrest, and many more. Some claim that if you ever have awoken by jolting back into your body, that this is the cause of your astral form returning to your physical form too quickly. History of Astral ProjectionAstral projection exists in many different cultures and dates back thousands of years. In some cultures it is even a form of a religious practice. Specifically, this is a large practice in the Christian faith, Hinduism, Ancient Egypt and more.
SourcesRaypole, C. (2019, July 30). What Really Happens During an Out-Of-Body Experience? Healthline.com. https://www.healthline.com/health/out-of-body-experience#sensation-vs-reality.
Radford, B. (2017, October 20). Astral Projection: Just a Mind Trip. LiveScience. https://www.livescience.com/27978-astral-projection.html. Neal, B., & Kahn, N. (2020, October 8). What You Should Know About Literal Out-Of-Body Experiences. Bustle. https://www.bustle.com/life/what-is-astral-projection-heres-what-to-know-about-literal-out-of-body-experiences-12253529. |
The subconscious has a way of reflecting waking life using things familiar to the person. If there are things that are currently unresolved in a person's life, it is likely to reflect in a dream like state. Astral projection on the other hand, is a more intense way of escaping the world around them and experiencing emotions. Astral projection is also generally caused by exhaustion and stress.
|
Inspiration
Personal Experience
My Sophomore year of college I had found myself working a lot. I had managed to keep a job through 18 credits of college and I was tired a lot. This was overwhelming, but manageable.
I used to take my friend Z home on certain days and we would talk while I drove. This particular day was really weird, because I was so tired that I got in the car and ended up spacing out entirely. I was quiet and honestly, I can't really remember how but somehow I got all the way from my college to Z's house. When I looked to my passenger seat, she wasn't there. I freaked out at that point and called her and said, "I JUST TOOK YOU HOME." and she and I laughed about it. The thing is, even though it was funny it was also a really scary experience to look back on because of the fact that I was so tired I wasn't paying attention or comprehending any of what was happening on the road in front of me. I don't even remember.. well, anything at all until I pulled into her driveway. I did not "Astral Project" Necessarily, but what happened to me was a real result of actual exhaustion. Once I got home, thankfully I calmed myself down and managed to sleep a little bit. But I realized that I needed to take a little bit better care of myself. I wanted to create Hayley's story to be a little similar, but ultimately be more visually appealing to catch the attention of those who may also be seeking a route of escapism. |
Character Exploration |
I wanted to focus on creating a relatable character for my target audience of 16 to 25 year old's by making her match her exhausted personality. I focused heavily on making Hayley's appearance seem like she has little time to care for herself, as her hair is messy and her clothes are dirty. She also has bags under her eyes and wears a very wired or tired expression. For Cat Hayley, I wanted to focus on appealing shape language for animation production as well as keeping her looking abstract to match the astral plane.
Final Character Turnarounds and Expressions
Human Hayley Turnaround
Human Hayley Expressions
Additional Overlay Colors
Cat Hayley Turnaround
Cat Hayley Expressions
The Beast
The Beast is the physical representation of the mental stresses that Hayley is experiencing so making it look very disturbing and unfriendly was a main goal for me. I wanted to give a lot of sharp edges, as well as many eyes as I know that many in my target audience have fears of holes and eyes. This decision also was based on the idea that "something is always watching" and her stress is always following Hayley, making her uncomfortable.
Environmental Exploration
Focusing on light
light/color is a really important aspect in telling Hayley's story throughout the film so doing color studies of real life lighting was a must, especially for cityscapes. For this assignment I took a little bit of a cartoon modern approach.
Reusable Cityscapes
City backgrounds are very difficult to draw so I wanted to create reusable city buildings for background sketches so that moving into the final stages of backgrounds.
Hayley's Car
I wanted Hayley's car to represent her shape language wise as well as emotionally. I used many square/rounded shapes to achieve this and gave the headlights a tired look. I also wanted to have it be green to look like her apron.
The Astral Plane
The Astral Plane was a much different but fun world to explore visually. I really wanted to give off a fantastical world for Hayley to live in the moment in, as well as a place that was bright and fun for her to finally experience another side of life.
Ideation For The Astral Plane
Animated Backgrounds
|
|
|
Colorscripting
The Process
Backgrounds
Storyboarding
This is a scene from the current pass, and an example of what was the boards of the final stage of the storyboarding process.
First Passes
CONCEPT 1: I originally had Hayley being followed around by an owl like poltergeist, but this didn't really make too much sense for the story. The overall question I kept coming back to was Who was this poltergeist, and why was it following her? Overall I wanted this story to be about her, not her and the poltergeist.
|
CONCEPT 2: This concept was a lot darker of the few. Instead of this version, Hayley had a small deer/demon companion that followed her around as she attended school. In this case, the demon was her depression. This story was a little darker than I wanted to go, and I ended up not going with it.
|
CONCEPT 3: This was the latest pass before the one I have currently. This pass featured Hayley with a cat companion, rather than her being the cat. This story was good, but it was more a story of companionship and not focusing more on Hayley's mental health.
|
Rough Animation
This stage helped me through understanding my Arcs better as well as timing, facial expressions and animating in perspective. Perspective animation is something that was a lot easier done in hand drawn than symbols, however keeping consistency was my main priority.
Symbol Animation
For this area I wanted as much movement as possible from my rigs, so I split them up in several ways from hair, legs, feet, arms and more.
Compositing
How I handled it:Compositing was a very fun but tedious part of the process. I really wanted to try to figure out in the best way that I could how to achieve the magical floaty feeling universe that I wanted for Hayley. Overall, I ended up using Adobe After Effects and using a mixture of overlays, blurs and masking to get a fun whimsical feeling.
What would I do differently?I would definitely go in and have premade the different shapes before hand and then layered over instead of moving forward with making the astral shapes in each scene. This was a very time consuming process and once I realized I could reuse and resize these shapes I was amazed at what I was able to achieve time wise.
|
The Process of Animation
Conclusion
Working on a film about Astral Projection was not necessarily what I thought I would be doing, as I've always been interested in more organic woodland themes. Picking this idea was a rewarding one in the sense that it tested my ability and gave me many new challenges to learn about and overcome. I am excited to go into the world and continue learning and growing and telling stories. I hope to continue learning and making a difference in others lives, as well as to continue exploring these abstract concepts. CIA has been an amazing opportunity for me to grow.
Thank yous!
I appreciate all of your love and support and I would not be able to do it without you!
BFA COMMITTEEE Anthony Scalmato David Schwartz Alex Marek Steven Rawley MUSIC/ SOUND DESIGN Kris "Skinny K" Morron" VOICE TALENTS Rebecca Chiara Marano THANK YOU TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY! Shayla Anderson Jenny Berry Christian Vega Zharia Rahn Janet Wychock Margot Gordon Chey Sprinkle Hannah Thompson McKenna Nalow Sierra Houser |