I'm back on this blog and hopefully going to do a much better job of keeping it up now that we're really starting to get into pre-production mode for my thesis! Yay!
Let me explain why I stopped posting for like, a quarter of a year: unfortunately after spring break school really kicked my butt and I was sick for a month and still trying to work as hard as a bumble bee. So basically, by the end of the second semester, I pretty much felt like this:
Needless to say, I barely had the time to catch my breath let alone update this poor neglected blog. Not fun.
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But now that it's summer, I've been traveling a lot, meeting up with lots of friends, taking on a side internship with Sabeel Media, designing a friend's album cover, and reworking and reworking my thesis.
Lately I've been finalizing Noemi's look so that I can start getting her and Milo modeled and rigged. My goal is to have Noemi and Milo fully modeled and rigged, in addition to a bomb animatic before school starts so I can get the ball rolling immediately.
Here's a snapshot of my progress that some of you may have already seen on my Facebook:
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| p.s. okay so I realized that my "shock" face isn't a shock face anymore- it' supposed to be suspicious but I forgot to change the caption. Oops! |
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(For those of you who don't know, my film is about a lonely little girl (Noemi), who hopes for a happier neighborhood. Upon magically meeting a tree monster (Milo), she learns to be bold with her compassion and together they brighten up the town.)
Recently though, I've been looking through google for reference images for my sad little town and started out with images from the Great Depression (1930's), Hooverville, and deforestation, etc.:
Which led me to start looking up images that hit closer to home- skid row in Los Angeles:
The more I look through these images and compare them to my animatic, the more I realize how much Noemi and Milo's story is really a visual depiction of my own desire to see hope, love, and redemption blossom in broken communities–and not just poor communities; the rich also experience a different sort of brokenness and poverty.
As a USC student involved in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, living in south central LA for three years made me realize that we often overlook the immense poverty, pain, and emptiness that surrounds this golden city. This isn't word for word, but Pastor Tim Chaddick from Reality LA once said that "Los Angeles is an incredibly lonely city". Traveling abroad and visiting different cities has taught me that this can generally be said of almost anywhere in the world- especially in large urban areas where lost voices are so easily drowned out by the buzz of everyday city life.
Towards the end of my story, Noemi realizes that her art alone is not enough to change an entire community, nor can she do it by herself. Instead, she learns from Milo that what her neighborhood needs is love and people who are willing to care. (Cliche, I know, but true.) Basically, Noemi and Milo is essentially my dream to contribute my God-given talents to heal a very broken world, one heart at a time.
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That turned out to be a lot more preachy than I intended. Heehee.
On a last note, I watched Despicable Me 2 about a week ago and it is SUCH a cute movie! I don't think I've laughed that hard in a movie for a long time, and Agnes/the minions are as adorable as ever. Props to illumination for a super heartwarming story, amazing visuals, and a stellar sequel :D
Love,
Keek
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