Callum Watson

The Last Journey

Bachelor of Design 3D animation Character Animation Animatic Narrative

https://callumwatsonanimaton.wordpress.com/

This creative work was out of my comfort zone as I have not attempted to create something like this before. For this reason, I knew that I would have a lot of unknown problems I would need to solve, helping me to develop my existing skills. I used 3D assets, animation, rendering techniques, and Maya Autodesk to complete the sequence. This gave me the option to save time on modeling, allowing me to focus on storytelling and character development.

Storytelling, narrative theory, and expressions are the three aspects I wanted my graduation project to focus on. I decided not to follow traditional animation, and instead explored the relationship between storytelling and narrative development within a short 3D animated sequence. The exploration aims to support the idea that a strong premise is indispensable to the character’s structure and purpose. This concept is something that has interested me from a young age as I have always enjoyed the character development in film and video games. Most of my creativity came about designing characters to represent a story and being a visual person, I would often wonder how animated films were produced. Although this project was an established exploration into great storytelling and exploring themes, I was heavily influenced by Walt Disney’s Up (2009) directed by Pete Docter and Bob Peterson. I enjoyed watching the development of Carl throughout his journey and it motivated me to create a short story using non-verbal communication to show the story of an old man coming to terms with his late wife’s death. I wanted to challenge myself to improve the quality of my animation and the principles. To do so, this exploration needed to focus on the character’s struggle which had to be derived from his inner conflict and his believability towards the audience.