Voice and Digital Storytelling

Animation Project Final: Close Encounters

Group: Sara Gochenour and Katelyn Cripps

*Please visit my group partner's blog to watch the final video!

http://saragoch.blogspot.com/p/animation-project.html

It's at the bottom of the page.

Sara: (aliens, backgrounds, stars, sounds, spaceship interior, and Hawaii tablet)

Part One:

- We see an Alien spaceship flying through space and the stars

- Inside the spaceship there are little green, evil aliens.

-There is an Overlord who wants to destroy the universe.

-His minion shows his Overlord a place called, "Hawaii" as their next target.

-The Overlord is suspicious but decides to go to Hawaii for their natural resources.

-The minion processes a location, and opens a portal to Hawaii.

Katelyn: (concept map, artist statement, spaceship graphics, desk, alien guns and lasers, clouds, hamster ball and hamster, storyboard)

Part Two:

- A portal opens up and we see a volcano, a sandy beach and palm trees.

- It looks exactly like the picture the minion showed to his Overlord.

- The spaceship lands on the beach, but is "attacked" by a giant flying creature (a fly).

-The Overlord begins to battle with the fly by shooting it with his lasers.

-The fly doesn't seem affected by the lasers, and flies away.

-The volcano begins to erupt and bubble.

-Scared by it, the Overlord starts shooting the volcano too. Nothing happens, just fake lava, and smoke.

-The Overlord hears this big boom sound in the distance.

- A giant hamster and hamster ball roll onto the scene.

-Terrified again, the Overlord starts shooting but lasers are deflected back to him.

-Zoom out, and we see a desk and the word's "Jake's 5th Grade Science Fair Project"

Concept (artist) Statement:

Sara and I created our animation project with science-fi and comedy in mind as a theme for our storyline. Our animations uses elements of science fiction, and uses humor as a way of telling the story. Our main character is the 'tiny' Evil Space Overlord who is nameless but evil nevertheless. He is accompanied by his evil space minion who pilots the ship as well.

The Evil Space Overlord has been traveling across the universe looking to destroy all other life forms. His armies have defeated many realms of the universe, and taken over many planets. However, the Evil Space Overlord is not happy with his mission, and decides to take over a much bigger planet, Earth. In doing so, his minion shows him a place called, "Hawaii." They discuss traveling there. It is a beautiful island with green palm trees, and a big volcano in the middle. The Overlord is extremely excited to destroy this beautiful place, and collect it's natural resources. He uses the natural resources of other planets to sustain life, be invincible, and have ever lasting life. So the aliens begin their journey by entering a location in their advanced computer programs, and created a portal to teleport to this amazing Hawaii. Upon arrival in Hawaii, it looks just like the pictures. It has blue skies, sandy beaches, and swaying palm trees. The alien's portal opens up and they are able to land of the golden sand of Hawaii. But as fate has it, a giant flying creature shows up when they land! It is ugly, and has many eyes with big wings. It buzzes around the Overlord making him frustrated, so he begins to shoot the flying creature. The buzzing, flying creatures continues to fly around him which doesn't allow for the Overlord to get a clear shot in with his laser gun. The battle continues for sometime, until the buzzing creature flies away. Suddenly, the big rock towards the horizon begins to ooze red, hot stuff. This terrifies the aliens. In retaliation, the alien Overlord begins to shoot at the volcano. This doesn't phase the volcano, and the Overlord is shocked! His lasers aren't working he thinks. However, smoke and lava ascend to the sandy beaches when the Overlord hears this loud "BOOM!" The Overlord thinks this is not the place he though it was, and it is not easy taking over this planet. However, another "BOOM" scares the Overlord, and a giant, furry, big eyed creature in a glass ball rolls onto the beach. Overwhelmed with fear, the Overlord shoots the creature with his lasers. But the Overlord is not successful as his laser deflect off the glass ball and shoot back to him. The audience then sees the camera zoom out, and we see that the Overlord and his minions have landed on a fake volcano project. The portal made a mistake and landed on Jake's 5th grade science fair project.

The End.

Sara and I genuinely hope that this animation shines a light in comedy. We want to make sure that even through the darkest of days, and destruction, it's always good to laugh. This animation was fun to make, and we hope that it makes you smile even if it isn't funny. This was our purpose, to make it fun and enjoyable. The rationale is that every needs a smile. We used a cartoon like animation, very simple with simple shapes that way it wasn't too difficult for first time users. We are depicting a comic book style artwork with Aliens and Sci-Fi. We took a twist on a commonly used space invader concept, and applied to the real world. We wanted to mimic sci-fi fiction traits so lasers, little green men, etc.

Reflection Statement:

Our two person group worked pretty well together. Considering we had missed a couple demos, and had opposite schedules, we pulled through and came together! Neither one of us had experience using this Adobe program before so it was really difficult to get a footing. However, we were able to lean on each other for help (mostly Sara had the knowledge) and worked it out. We worked up until the last minutes basically to get this animation done. We both had different ideas of a theme, but ultimately came to a consensus that sci-fi and comedy would be a fun route to take. Sara and I are both content with the animation we created, hopefully with time we will get better, and we had fun doing it too!

Concept Map: