OUAN603 - Evaluation

Nearly a year ago now, I had in my mind the intention to further develop the crafting of story worlds through different platforms, and essentially using what can be called the transmedia method to try to create larger scale story premises that otherwise wouldn't have been easily achievable in a small scale project. The idea developed into the early stages of a book where I could create a long, detailed over arching plot to draw from and create alternative narrative threads from this central point. The ideas that formed the foundation and the theory behind this project were heavily informed by and acted as a continuation on from the dissertation I produced on transmedia storytelling. Through this module and the practical work I produced for it, I learnt a considerable amount regarding the nature of world building, and through the production process would constantly be documenting and expanding the fictional world through character back stories, and finding new ways to explore the stories of different characters and settings within a larger narrative.

It wasn't until I had written ten thousand words of my story that I had a full plot outline that I could say had a beginning, middle and end. Meanwhile, whilst this was being developed I was allocating my time to the creation and design of characters, backgrounds and original artworks to aid in the visual development of the world, scripts, and an animation. All of this work was being informed by a story bible that was being updated every time I had an idea or developments were made regarding the plot.

The successes of the project for me were mostly encompassed in the learning experiences brought about by sampling new ways of storytelling, both separately, and in combination with one another. Furthermore, a large amount of organisation to fuel each of the different artefacts I was working on meant that I got to experience the different roles of writer, producer and director, with each role I was undertaking during the planning and creation processes playing off the other in order to be more efficient and piece together the different components.

I learnt a large amount throughout the time spent on the project, in terms of the development of the practical elements, the design of the writing and plot, aspects of the story world that were being developed, communication with external figures and building cohesive story worlds through both practical and theoretical practices and the combination of the two. One of the biggest take away experiences from the project was the breadth of visualisation I managed to create both for the purpose of the animation, and importantly, setting the tone of the story. I attempted to illustrate as much as possible the depth and thought gone into the crafting of the different stories. This was not only a prerequisite for the production of the animation, but I made sure to include preliminary artwork to allow myself a much easier entry point into my own story, through the use of visuals as an aid. The inclusion of this practice made the writing process, and the theory crafting of different stories much easier. For example, I can experiment with various characters and scenes that may result in part of a graphic novel or by sketching out certain environments I can visualise scenes more easily when writing about them in a long form or short story.

Throughout this project, one of the most important assets that was consistently in development, and would continue to be in development is the story bible. This informed each individual outlet that I was working on and aside from the practicality of maintaining it throughout the duration for the project it also encouraged a time and story management aspect that made sure no important details were excluded. Furthermore, the story bible in my opinion does become its own document and artefact that could be reshaped and passed on to audience members or fellow creators with the possibility of expansion and further development of a story world.

At the time of submission, parts of the project remain incomplete and are not up to the standard I set out to accomplish by the deadline date. With that said, part of me understands that this project was an experiment in a number of ways from being the first long story I have attempted to write, the amount of details I attempted to plan and include in the story world was also quite heavy. Furthermore, the large amount of research produced to inform both the cultural implications and visual aspects of the stories told on different media outlets, was a large undertaking.

Once finished to a high standard, the project would be marketed as a type of expansive story world with separate marketable stories emerging through different platforms. The visual material would need to be consistent and this would be documented in the form of a transmedia or story bible, so that creators can pick it up and understand the rules and engagements that exist within the fictional universe of the project. Given the time and resources segments that I would really like to see come to fruition not just with this particular story but stories that I create like it in the future, is either a feature film or an episodic series that can expand on the moving, 'brought to life', visual elements more in the long format that I attempted with part of the novel.

OUAN603 - Press Pack

Synopsis of Plot / Premise

The Children Who Dream in Cicada is a magical realism story set in Japan focused around four main characters that attend the same junior high school and their attempts to discover what happened to their missing peer, Masumi Miyamoto. The story is set over a long time period just like the life cycle of the Cicada insect, symbolic in this sense. The end of the life cycle of the Cicada, or the end of their journey as children becoming adults symbolises their growth and development as human beings. Whilst the protagonist, Takahiro, and his friends are searching for Masumi, two veteran detectives of the Tokyo Police, detective Hirota and detective Kobi are appointed to solve the puzzling investigation.

Soon after the disappearance of Masumi, Takahiro Okada begins to experience strange day dreams, most frequently when he visits a mysterious coffee house that only appears to become visible when its raining. These day dreams seem to be revealing clues to the whereabouts of the missing Masumi Miyamoto. With help from his three chance new friends; Akari Matsuo, Kazuya Kurogane and Gorō Yoshida.



One Hundred Word Bio

Telling stories is one of the most important tools we have and the ones we hear have a lot of influence over us. During the last three years I have sought to find new and innovative ways to tell stories. There are so many ways to communicate a story and as a result of this I've made it my intention to sample and experiment with a range of methods. This way of working is intended to create content that is immersive and that people can connect with.



Poster & Tagline

OUAN603 - Why Did I Want To Tell This Story?

For a long time now I've wanted to create a story different to perhaps something I would normally be drawn to myself and attempt to establish my own style or themes within a genre or narrative that I connect with without pulling in influence from particular works that I like. During the COP3 when I was looking closely at immersion, I came across the notion of magical realism, a genre very unique and very particular. I immediately became hooked on the way stories were told through the magical realism filter and hence the inspiration for the creation of this story world.

More than anything with this project I wanted it to be something I would enjoy working on and fun, both in the delivery and during the making process. Something that I thought would handle both of these requirements would be to tell a story using a 'coming of age' or bildungsroman theme. This would give way to potential humour, adventure and all of the things I love in a story myself. Aside from the themes and genre I wanted to explore, I wanted to try and explore writing more seriously and this project, given the scale, seemed like the right one to start looking into doing this. Furthermore, this story meant a lot to me from the start because I wanted it to be a successful end to the third year. With the final project being the best work I had produced to date. My intention with this project was to produce a good grounding for my portfolio leading on from this. I think with a project like this, it also means that I can continue it as a personal project post-graduation and if nothing else, use it as a basis for experimentation, visual development and storytelling all utilising the pre-existing, self initiated fictional universe.

OUAN603 - Synthesis Between COP3 & Extended Practice

I saw this project as an opportunity to continue on developing what I learnt and spent my dissertation module doing as not only did I find that way of working beneficial for my storytelling and developing different parts of the work I like doing such as writing, designing visuals and creating complex narratives with the addition of complimentary media to build up the story universe. I saw the transition from COP3 to extended practice as quite a seamless one with the intention of using what I learnt during that module to fuel a new project that would hopefully be better than my previous one. I was also able to do a lot more writing and include more details about the world because instead of creating a 'transmedia bible' which was a very visual artefact, I chose to create a story bible that has more or less the same purpose but this time is almost entirely dedicated to story with very little visuals, giving me the opportunity to develop them both separately and bring them together when I need to.

Some of the biggest aspects I took away from COP3 was the idea that these story worlds are designed to be expanded and worked on by large numbers of people in order for them to flourish, and whilst I wasn't able to do this directly I did keep this in mind when developing both the project as a whole and the story specifics. I tried to include [although open for interpretation] my vision and intentions for different characters, stories and media. Such as the planned comic book series for the two detective characters in the story.

Overall I tried to use the extended practice module to build on my previous work in the area of transmedia storytelling coupled with a chance to refine and improve multiple areas of my practice work which is where I thought I needed to improve on COP3. The research into immersion came to the forefront when developing this project and considering how best to present the created work, and the large body of research that was collected over the course of the dissertation module was helpful at highlighting some of the available opportunities for this type of work.

OUAN603 - Vision for the Project & What I Wanted to Learn

The vision for this project and the objectives I had in mind when I started it was that I wanted to continue on with the idea of world building and enjoy creating a new story from scratch. The fun in the beginning is always the unknown question of what is going to be produced and which stories will come into being from the creation of the project. In this case I wanted to create a range of media that extended just simply past the animation I wanted to make and stemmed into more thorough forms of storytelling the possessed alternative qualities that can be used to compliment the animation and other produced media. As well as this, I wanted to create different characters and provide some sort of accompanying visual for them, even if they are never featured on a visual story platform. I wanted to produce a much more detailed and in depth story world than I have previously, something I was able to achieve in my opinion during the COP3 module. This led me to looking into more writing, and in particular the beginnings of a novel. To inform all of the story world and the different narratives that were being created I intended to start and maintain a detailed story bible, containing all of my written ideas ready to be pulled out and used whenever they were needed.

Something that has become quite evident from the world building element of the work I have been doing is the no end aspect to it. By this I mean that the story world is a big as you can make it, or as big as you can manage it practically. In some ways this is what encouraged me to create a longer written story, because this is something I felt was lacking in the last project I worked on and in many ways I felt I was missing out. This is partly due to the scale of the team behind the project as an individual effort, but other things too such as budget constraints and time. The way in which the world is as big as you want to make it does provide a daunting task because you want the stories you choose to write and implement to be at least some of the best you can make. These are some of the things I wanted to work on for the project from a storytelling and world building perspective. In a practical sense there was a lot of time spent devoted to the aspects of animation I enjoy a lot, such as design and the creation of art work and designs for characters, environments and some of the smaller details such as rooftops or foliage.

OUAN603 - Animation References

There were several scenes where it became necessary to produce and ultilise references in order to produce certain animated sequences. In particular, the walking scene that opens the animation as Takahiro walked into the kitchen was quite difficult to handle because this was the first sequence I was animating and I wanted to establish a good style of animation here to work off for the rest of the animation. This scene was also difficult because the characters legs, or where they would be are obstructed by the table in the foreground, so without reference it would be trying to work out where their body would be without being able to see the movement of their legs. I did consider drawing a normal walk cycle and then erase it but instead opted to film some reference material. This was perhaps necessary anyway because I wanted an exaggerated walk and not standard pace or style. I tried to keep the level of character in the movements as high as possible without being too unrealistic.

I filmed a short video of myself walking across the camera in a way that was as close to the angle of the camera in the animation as reasonably possible; I then made several attempts at different walks until I had one that replicated the type of emotion the character was feeling after just waking up and walking into the kitchen, tired, slow, low energy for example. Following on from the success of referencing the walk, I took reference footage of the next scene, which was the cutting of the tofu on the chopping board. This again proved to be hugely helpful when animating as oppose to doing it from imagination, which would have been considerable less accurate overall

This is perhaps one of the first times I have used references to produce animation and it made a huge different to both the ease of the sequence and the quality of the out come. Aside from the benefits it had within the animation, this was a useful lesson in the importance and advantages of reference material when creating animated sequences.

OUAN603 - Animating Characters

The animation process and the animating of characters in particular was one of the longer tasks that took place within the creation process of the animation. The movement was fairly minimal and 'normal' in terms of the action taking place, so there was nothing that required large amounts of planning.

I thought about several methods to animate these scenes and after considering options such as Adobe Animate CC but ultimately I chose to use a combination of Photoshop and After Effects, which are both softwares that I'm familiar with and understand the process and time involved in creating something. Furthermore, problem solving becomes easier when you understand the tools you have at your disposal. I tried to do whatever necessary using digitally drawn frame by frame animation, but there were some scenes such as the tracking shots, dust and chopping scene for example that was done using After Effects, not only for simplicity but it also produces a very good result much more efficiently with time being an important factor.

OUAN603 - Why I've Chosen These Platforms To Tell The Story

The different platforms to tell the story were chosen with the intention of being complimentary to one another but more importantly, on an individual level suitable for the stories they are telling. This can be determined quite easily after the story has been established and an appropriate platform chosen rather than the other way around. One thing I do like to do [and this is normally as much for the story as it is for myself looking at the different narrative threads] is to have one particular platform that is larger than the others but tells a lot of the story, in this case [part 1] of a novel. In COP3 the backbone of the story was the graphic novel and the other media was supplementary to this. It isn't that I want all of the other platforms and stories to be supplementary per se to one larger story it is just that I'm using this main narrative to deliver large amounts of information and set up some of the other narratives, such as introducing characters within the main narrative for a backstory to be provided in another.

The animation was always intended to provide insight into a visual story world where something like a written story would fall short in this sense. The limitations and advantages of a given platform is always crucial to consider when planning stories and how to tell them. In this case the things you can do technically with animation are almost infinite, but I wanted the story to provide a sensory look into the world through a vignette of the main story. The morning after Takahiro's dream and the interaction between him and his father before the news broadcast seemed like a good length of manageable story but also highlights a key moment in the story itself.

The graphic novel segment hasn't been produced during the production of this project, but I have decided and documented my ideas within the story bible that this would involve the two main detectives from the narrative, Hirota and Kobi, providing a back story for these characters in another possible case that they worked on together. The artwork would be in black and white, rather than the same colour that works in the other visual mediums, in order to give the 'crime' themed graphic novel and noir feel. I like the idea of exploring them through a different genre in the sense that this isn't a direct magical realism stem from the main thread but a crime/mystery, so switching up genres across the same story world could be an interesting experiment.

The design and production of artworks and other designs has been crucial at informing the different visual aspects of the story world as well as making some of the written documents easier to produce as a result. For the audience, high quality art work is always a strong entry point into a story world because they can use their own mind, feelings and emotions to draw what they like from a given image if it is left open enough.

A longer series of animation or a feature film would be an interesting way to tackle further aspects of the story world. I do feel that with the magical realism genre and the type of narratives I'm working on there is in fact very few platform options that wouldn't work very well.

OUAN603 - Shot Framing & Using a 3D Space to Create Backgrounds

The decision to create a 3D environment to set up shots and render backgrounds was possibly one of the most efficient and productive decisions I've made during the creation process of the animation. It solved a lot of problems to be able to have one fixed environment that took a fixed length to make and move the camera around in the 3D space. The consistency across the different angles would be calculated much more accurately than if I was drawing each of the backgrounds by hand. Furthermore, the time saving is enormous, and each time I take a new 2D background from the 3D space more time is saved as a result. From a time keeping standpoint, this was the best route to take. However, it could be argued and it is something I've thought about that 2D, hand painted backgrounds often have a very unique look and no doubt possess a very nice quality that could have been an alternative to the 3D method.

Having as much time and freedom as I needed to establish the framing of shots, I did spend a lot of time considering what would be the best way to shoot each scene. Whether this is a super close up shot, or a wide shot of the whole scene. Furthermore, I tried to explore as much as the story would allow, the scene that was created, by having shots of some of the smaller details instead of just ignoring them completely from different shots. One was this was achieved was to simply have some different shots identifying the different aspects of the scene - such as a tracking shot over head or a close up of the utensils hanging from the shelves.

OUAN603 - Sound Design

Sound is very important in this animation in the way it is presented because the action is very limited in terms of what happens on screen. As well as this, the action and some of the sounds I ended up using are key themes in the story itself, so it is best to demonstrate these without anything else obscuring the sound.

I knew early on that I wanted to go the foley sound route for all of the sound. The scene will be quite delicate in terms of the on screen action and I think having the sound stripped back where possible is a must. There is however a lot of opportunity to develop different foley sounds. I used a H5 zoom microphone to record a variety of sounds that could work in the scene, from footsteps to a knife going through objects on a chopping board to the sound of a wooden chair scraping along the floor for when characters sit down at the table. Overall it was quite enjoyable to try and create different sounds using various items. For example, the sound of the tofu being cut was made using a knife passing through a banana, which gave the almost fibrous sound that I needed for this. It would have been difficult to cut actual tofu because it doesn't make a sound so this kind of problem solving was quite an interesting part of the process.

News broadcasts from a television station will be on throughout the animation at varying volumes, with them being turned up at the beginning and end so they are understood as key parts of the scene.

OUAN603 - The Choice to Base the Narrative in Japan

There were three main reasons why, for this project I chose to base the story world in a different country and one that I had never been to. [Japan] The first reason, also probably the least important was the range of varying language films shown at MAF. The different stories from France, Korea, Vietnam, Israel made me curious to see how the way different stories work well in different languages and more importantly through different cultures.

Following on from this, I was interested in the challenge of setting a story in an unfamiliar place. One day I would like to write a story on a large scale that takes place in locations I'm very familiar with, however currently the stories that I want to tell generally take place in locations that I feel suit them best. For COP3 I liked the North American setting and the possibility of an open world, with vast landscapes scattered with towns and cities. In this case, the somewhat mysterious culture of Japan took over and I thought would suit well the type of story I wanted to tell, aside from some technical elements such as Japan being a location that cicada live as well as some European places and North America.

Finally, the most important reason why I chose to work with an unfamiliar setting allowed for a less literal portrayal of the world [this could have worked with other countries too]. Having never been to Japan there was an element of only being able to use what I had seen second hand to fuel the visuals and descriptions of the location, so in this sense it was a technique for creating mystery and wonder from my own emotions towards a place I've never been.

OUAN603 - Considering Story Titles & The Importance of a Strong Title

'The Broadcast of the Disappearance of Masumi Miyamoto'

Around half way through the project I was spending time attempting to figure out what the best arrangement of media may be as a an example of how best to portray the world I was creating. The idea came to me that I had a working title for the project overall, but each outlet may benefit from having its own name and 'title' that could distinguish it from the main body of the project, rather than labelling everything under the same umbrella name and have several stories spread across different media outlets indistinguishable from one another in terms of the allocated title.

In my mind, and without spending too much time thinking about the title alone with so much to get on with I decided that there were two paths I could take. The title of the project could either be blatantly descriptive, and all encompassing or it could reference a key aspect or recurring theme of the narrative. Ultimately, I believe that based on the story I have outlined, 'The Children Who Dream of Cicada' gives insight into a key part of the recurring narrative whilst also describing the story, at least to some extent. Overall, my intention was that by observing the title the audience would somewhat be able to gauge the type of story it is that they are deciding to dive into.

Following the established project title, I wanted to follow a similar route for the sub titles allocated to the different media and stories branching off from the main narrative. The title for the short animation I'm producing more or less explicitly states the content of the piece, which I found quite interesting upon reflection. By stating the content of the piece it feels like you're almost building to a particular event that the audience is anticipating because of the information conveyed through the name of the animation. In this case, the animation attempts to reveal the scene where Takahiro finds out from the television news that his classmate, Masumi Miyamoto is missing. Hence the title of the animation - 'The Broadcast of the Disappearance of Masumi Miyamoto, which also follows a similar structure to the project title.

OUAN603 - Storyboards & Animatics

OUAN603 - Colour, Lighting & Mood [Establishing an aesthetic for the story world through the visual outlets]

Something in common with all of the visual stories I engage with and draw me in, in an immersive sense usually have 'realistic' or very 'magical' lighting. By this, I mean the setting of each scene is at specific times of day or perhaps the weather is very extreme in one way or another. So for my own animation, particularly because of the magical realism genre this is something I wanted to strive for.

The references or inspiration that was included in my preliminary and on going research included some of my favourite Japanese animation from popular studio, Studio Ghibli and director Makoto Shinkai. Furthermore, one reference that I returned to over and over for inspiration was the work produced by graduated from Gobelins school of animation. In particular titles such as Myosis and Wildfire, as well as some animations I watched at MAF such as Que Dalle. Some of the simplistic techniques that these film makers use are quite apparent when you look closely at their body of work and include shallow depth of field, reflections, lens flares, saturated colour schemes and emphasis on things like dust particles to give an element of magic to scenes - because these aren't things that are usually easily picked up on, but with the animation medium they can be utilised freely.

In the 2D visualisation work I did I tried to implement, where possible these techniques in order to establish a style that I could carry on through the rest of the visuals for this particular fictional universe. Colour was incredible important and constant tweaking of images and experimentation through the use of tools in Photoshop made this a relatively easy process.

Following on from this, I knew that I needed realistic lighting to replicate this type of authenticity within the animation, the realism that sits inside the specific styles of a studio in terms of the other areas of the animation. I simulated light when the set was build in 3D and used that as a basic to construct further lighting and put emphasis on it where I wanted to.

Below are images that exemplify the use of lens flare, volumetric fog and [ground] reflections, shallow depth of field and saturated colour schemes.

OUAN603 - Finding Voice Actors & Recording

The method for finding voice actors suitable to voice the two characters Takahiro and Hachirō in my short animation was to look through the available voice acting services online. There are a few notable organisations that market voice talent online and some in particular have voice actors from various countries.

I used two different websites after gathering several quotes based on the length and voice actor I was looking to hire. In the end, VoiceBunny and VoiceRealm were the two I used. The process was very easy with a good level of communicated between myself and the voice actors. I was able to get several takes or have something recorded again if I wanted to make a small alteration. I tried to be as thorough as possible with directions regarding tone of voice and the actions that were taking place, also indicating things like 'laughing' or 'sighs'. Furthermore, it was important that the voices matches the context of the animation. For example, the story in the animation takes place early in the morning soon after Takahiro wakes up from an exhausting dream, so the tiredness had to be audible in the voice actors voice to make this apparent and reinforce the context of the character's mood and actions.

Having the voice acting recorded professionally was important for this project because of the language used and the ages of the characters. Despite this it has reinforced what I learnt from having voices recorded for the COP3 module in that acting, voice and sound overall has a large impact on the quality of a project and story, even more so when coupled well with visuals that have a complimentary affect on each other.

OUAN603 - Translating Scripts

Once the scripts had been finalised in terms of the time I wanted to allocate to them, I needed to get them translated before they could be passed on to voice actors for a voice recording of the several voices that can be heard within the animation.

There was several factors to consider when having them translated, firstly the cost of a short translation job such as this, and ways in which money could be saved with the length of the script without it affecting the way the short excerpt of story is communicated and received through dialogue. I looked across several websites that offered translation services before looking through options on freelance service website Fiverr. There were several translators I considered for the job but chose to work with a Japanese to English translator called Shunya Ohira. He was able to offer a translation in different forms of Japanese that could be aimed at different audiences; native speakers and learners of Japanese. I chose to go with the native translation because this is the script that would be read and recorded by voice actors.

Once the scripts had been handed over it took just over a day for the finished document to be returned. The translation of different names, titles, phrases and dialogues can be seen below.

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The Children Who Dream in Ciçada

シケイダで夢を見る子供たち

Hachiro: You’re up early, Takahiro.
Takahiro: I had a bad dream, couldn't fall back asleep afterwards so I came out here.
Hachiro: [pause] Coffee?
Takahiro: Please. Breakfast is nearly ready.
Hachiro: Great, I’m hungry. Why don't you take a break from studying today. You should start making the most of your youth whilst you still can. [laughs]
Takahiro: [pause] I’ll think about it.
Hachiro: I’m going to look for a job today, and see what I can find. I think it is time to do something I enjoy.
Takahiro: I’m glad you quit your old job, it was making you unhappy.
Hachiro: Hm. We have savings so money won’t be an issue, even if it doesn’t pay as well as before.
Takahiro: That’s good.
Hachiro: Is everything okay with you, Takahiro?
Takahiro: Yeah I’m okay. I’m just tired.
Hachiro: I hope that’s all. Have a good day, I’ll see you tonight.
Takahiro: I will. See you tonight.

八郎：隆弘、今日は早いじゃないか。
隆弘：悪夢にうなされて目が覚めちゃって、そのまま、起きることにしたんだ。
八郎：…コーヒーいる？
隆弘：おねがい。朝食はもうすぐだってよ。
八郎：そうか、よし、お腹が空いたな。どうだい、今日は、学校を休むってのは。若いうちに、できることをやっておくべきじゃないか。はっはっは。
隆弘：…考えておくよ。
八郎：今日は、父さんは仕事を探す予定だ。何かいいものが見つかるかってね。そろそろ、楽しめることを始めたいと思っていてね。
隆弘：前の仕事、やめてよかったと思うよ。幸せそうじゃなかったし。
八郎：まあ、貯金もあることだし、給料はもう問題じゃない。以前ほどの稼ぎがなくたって気にしないってもんだ。
隆弘：よかった。
八郎：隆弘、いろいろと順調か？
隆弘：うん。まあ、ちょっと疲れるだけかな。
八郎：そうか。じゃあ、また夜だな。
隆弘：うん、じゃあ、また後で。


‘Despite the Tokyo rainy season not due for another two weeks there is a high chance of rain today with temperatures reaching around 20º celsius. There may also be thunderstorms in the afternoon. That’s all for the Tokyo weather this Sunday. Now for the morning reports.’

東京の梅雨幕開けまでには二週間を残すかたちとなりますが、本日は、高い確率で20℃に達する雨天となることが予想されます。午後には雷を伴う豪雨となる可能性があります。以上、日曜日の東京のお天気をお送りしました。続いて、今朝のニュースです…

'The family of a missing school boy Masumi Miyamoto have asked for anyone who may have information on his disappearance or current whereabouts to come forward and help the police with their investigation. Masumi went missing two days ago on Friday afternoon on his way home from Nakano Junior High School. Police are currently treating this as a kidnapping case and are working as hard as they can to make sure Masumi returns safely. If anyone has any information please contact Tokyo police.

失踪中の少年、宮本真澄君のご家族が、彼の失踪についての、そして、警察が行方を捜査する上で手がかりとなる情報の提供を呼びかけました。真澄君は、二日前の金曜日の午後、中野中学校からの下校途中で消息を絶ちました。警察は本件を誘拐事件とみて捜査を続けており、真澄君の安全な帰還のために最前を尽くしている模様です。本件に関連するとみられる情報をお持ちの方は、警視庁までご連絡ください。

Cicada Jazz and Coffee House
Cicada Coffee House
Cicada Coffee Room

シケイダ・ジャズ＆コーヒーハウス
シケイダ・コーヒーハウス
シケイダ・コーヒールーム

Takahiro Okada
Kazuya Kurogane
Gorō Yoshida
Akari Matsuo

岡田隆弘
黒金和也
吉田五郎
松尾朱莉

Takahiro’s Father [Hachiro Okada]
Shopkeeper [Mr. Ishida]
Kidnappers [Satoshi Mori / Rin Koizumi]
Missing boy [Masumi Miyamoto]
Police Detectives [Detective Kobi & Detective Hirota]

隆弘の父：岡田八郎
店主：石田さん
誘拐犯：森智 / 小泉凛
行方不明の少年：宮本真澄
刑事：古尾刑事、広田刑事

OUAN603 - Character Design for Animation

OUAN603 - Ten Thousand Words

At around mid April I hit the ten thousand word mark on the story aspect of my project. This was reached through a couple of concentrated efforts of converting my ideas and story notes into a steady continuation of the story. At this point I feel like I've made some steady progress, and although I haven't hit the point that I wanted to be at around this time [twenty thousand words] I still feel that I was able to overcome a difficult hurdle in the process: the beginning of the story.

Before I had started writing I was concerned I would face blocks when trying to put words on the page but I have found that as long as I set goals for each chapter in terms of what action, dialogue and development that I want to occur within the larger intention for the story, then the writing comes more easily and flows more steadily than the attempts I have made to write the story as it goes along.

It was only when I approached the ten thousand I had the entire story more or less plotted out, up until this point I was still making some quite major changes to the plot and the sequence of events that take place. One of the hardest parts was thinking about character motivations and asking the question 'why?' regarding certain events in the story. At this point I can start modifying any parts that don't comply with my overarching synopsis and this plotting out of the story has now giving me the information I need to continue writing with the knowledge whether each event, action, or piece of dialogue makes sense in the bigger story. I have also made sure to write brief summaries of characters to make sure they fill their roles within the story and made some notes about major events in the story bible I've been maintaining throughout the writing process. Interestingly, the story bible itself is around six thousand words long with notes, and my current story is ten thousand - I think that tells me that during my process I have to make notes quite consistently to be able to write a coherent story that flows without error. It also gives me piece of mind in that I have an updated guide to the plot and the story that I'm telling overall. Finally, the story bible also details different sequences in terms of the animations set within the story world, scripts and other story arcs that can be used for the graphic novel for example.

OUAN603 - Synopsis of the Main Story

The Children Who Dream in Cicada

[Synopsis]
The Children Who Dream in Cicada is a magical realism novel focused around four main characters as they attempt to discover what happened to their missing peer, Masumi Miyamoto.

Takahiro Okada endures a vivid dream which leaves him thinking about it when he wakes up the following day. His father notices his strange mood over breakfast and suggest he takes a break from studying to do something else with his day. The weather forecast suggests the rainy season is coming earlier than expected, which is followed by a news report about a missing boy: Masumi Miyamoto, a classmate of Takahiro’s. Takahiro watches the full report, which states that his classmate disappeared the Friday before. 



Upon taking advice from his father, Takahiro spends the morning in Tokyo. Whilst walking through the back streets on an early Sunday morning in the rain, Takahiro comes across a cafe called The Cicada Coffee House. With Masumi Miyamoto on his mind he enters the strange cafe through a door before ordering a coffee and sitting in the corner towards the back. The cafe is quiet and empty, there are two others in the cafe which stretches back into the street. After a few moments he finds himself in an almost mediative state, thinking about the school boy on the news. An image enters his mind, a boys hand in the dirt in the midst of a forest with rain falling down. This is followed by the hand twitching before he snaps out of his meditative state. He finishes if coffee and leaves for home.



At the same time, Akari matsuo finds a bird under a tree, which speaks to her and tells her it has broken its wing. She decides to take care of it, and carried on to the shop where she was planning to shop. Once there she encounters Kazuya and they befriend each other when Kazuya asks if he can cook for her, to test his ability.



Once Takahiro gets home, he finds his father packing up some fishing equipment and goes with him fishing after being invited. Whilst coming off the fishing lake, Takahiro and his father meet two strangers, Akari and Kazuya, who are collecting insects in a jar to feed to Ren. After finding out about the bird, they reveal that they to Takahiro and Hachiro that they found a package on the way here that must have fallen off a delivery truck. Addressed to Goro Yoshida. Hachiro says he will take them all to deliver the package and when they arrive they meet Goro. Goro is the year above them in junior high and was good friends with Masumi, so much so that they only really had each other to talk to at school. [what’s in the package?] 



Hachiro begins talking to the shopkeeper about the missing Masumi and Goro, owner of the package interrupts saying how he will find him.Takahiro, Kazuya and Akari talk to Goro briefly before he takes his package and leaves.

The next morning [Monday] the missing boy report is on the news again, and at school no one is themselves, the seat where Masumi sits is empty. Takahiro decides to skip the rest of the day and head back to the cafe. When he arrives the cafe isn’t there, or at least where he thought it was. As he starts to leave confused, the rain starts to comes down and a light fades on behind him. [The coffee house only appears in the rain. It’s purpose is to connect people looking for missing people to the place where the person is] This time when inside, another image enters his mind, the feeling of being buried underground just like in his dream.



Following this, Takahiro takes the train back to Nakano and walks past Masumi’s house to see the two detectives leaving, the detectives are detective Kobi and Hirota. Two senior detectives in the Tokyo Police. He stands for a moment and as they leave they spot him, both parties hold their glance and Takahiro turns and walks away. Driven by what he saw in his dream and his encounter with Goro he decides to tell him what he knows and takes him to the spot where the cafe appears.



When inside, Goro experiences with Takahiro the same visions. Which they can only believe are about Masumi and his location. Clues give away small details such as trees, soil, certain body parts, shadows, sounds, weather.



From this point onwards, Goro, Takahiro, Akari and Kazuya combined with Ren, work together to track down the missing boy. At the same time as the police investigation is underway, at some point in the investigation their paths will cross. Eventually Masumi’s body is found through the visual clues and the deductive reasoning of the four main characters in collaboration with the detectives and Masumi is revived. 


Roles of characters

• 

Takahiro - Protagonist, has dream followed by visions of Masumi’s whereabouts.

• Hachiro - Father to Takahiro, looking for job, eventually gets one in the local grocer’s.

• Akari - First person to find Ren, usually stern, wants to help find Masumi.
• Gorō - Friends with Masumi before he disappeared.
• Kazuya - Meets Akari after she finds Ren, also wants to find Masumi.

• Masumi - Goes missing Friday after school, investigation is trying to locate him.

• Ren - Talking bird, found by Akari. Has a nest near the forest, spots Masumi the Friday before.

• 
Det. Hirota - Head of the Masumi case.


• Det. Kobi - Partners with Det. Hirota.




notes.



. Ren is a bird found by Akari that can talk to humans, she has an advantage when helping them locate Masumi because she is able to cover long distances quickly by flying [once her wing is healed, usually takes 2-4 weeks after lots of food and water]. Ren is also a very wise and knowledgeable character, and a very logical thinker. 



. Masumi goes missing on the way home from school when he goes into a forest at the side of the road near his house to think and be alone. When he is inside he falls down a hole and becomes trapped their unconscious. The cicada insects which are underground in the soil sense he is there and communicate to the characters through the coffee house his whereabouts in an attempt to save Masumi’s life. In the meantime they feed him tree sap and water to sustain him despite his unconscious state. 



OUAN603 - The Coffee House as a Plot Device

Internal thoughts and feelings are presented as concrete events, not an individuals experience.

One of the key plot points in the story, is the scene where Takahiro enters the Coffee House for the first time on a rainy day in Tokyo, and perceives the location of the missing Masumi Miyamoto in the form of a vivid day dream. This experience as a whole and the mystery surrounding the coffee house is one of the key aspects of magical realism in the story. Nothing in the story is explicitly impossible, nor is it fantasy per se, and it was important to me that all of the mysterious and vague elements of the story such as this were kept feasible in their interpretation. For example, entering a meditative state and the notion of day dreaming are both familiar and realistic concepts, but the way they are described and presented in a novel context can make them seem more magical than they perhaps are. This technique allows the story to progress through a magical and surreal manner, as long as the characters and/or the narrator accept them as ordinary and not extraordinary experiences.

The purpose of the coffee house in the story is that, although not specified is that it only appears in the rain and thus straight away has magical theme tied with it. Perhaps this is merely a characters perception of the location or their imagination running wild. This was something I felt Haruki Murakami does in his novels, where the character's mental state and internal thoughts create perceptions of things but instead of being specified as internal thoughts and feelings are presented as concrete events, not an individuals experience.

As well as being a tool for generating mystery and surrealism, the coffee house acts as a device that allows Takahiro to generate visual clues in his mind on the whereabouts of Masumi Miyamoto. In his view, the coffee house only appears when it is raining. Throughout the rain is a key theme and [in chapter 3] there is an announcement of the coming of the rainy season, he takes these opportunities to get to enter the coffee house and it to find out more about Masumi and further his investigation. The story somewhat implies that the atmosphere inside the coffee shop and the conditions of the lighting, sounds and overall comfort inside is what allows him to relax and concentrate his thoughts or pass into a mindfull state, so the actual functioning magical elements are left option to interpretation rather than being portrayed as concrete to the audience.

OUAN603 - Graphic Novel Progress

This was an opportunity to vary the genres across the different assets and blur the lines even further between the reality of the stories and the implications of magical realism dotted around them.

The graphic novel is an asset to the project that provides good insight into the relationship and lives of the two detectives in the story: detective Hirota and detective Kobi. This story detaches more or less completely from the magical realism feeling of the main story arc and turns instead into a police/crime story entirely. This was an opportunity to vary the genres across the different assets and blur the lines even further between the reality of the stories and the implications of magical realism dotted around them.

The intention with this entry into the story world is to give some context to who the characters really are outside of the investigation that takes place within the main story. Specifically, to detail a previous case that they two detectives worked on together and show their relationship. This provides back story on two main characters that otherwise wouldn't have been shown. Furthermore, I think that this attempt at creating more context for the characters is an opportunity to show more of their personal lives, which isn't really feasible given the format of the main story [shown mostly from the perspective of the protagonist]. The importance of the graphic novel amongst the other assets is that it works alone but is a strong supplementary piece to the overall story world and the different platforms that provide entry points into it.

The motivations behind creating a graphic novel based around these characters is that in my opinion, successful transmedia projects branch out and explore varying storylines within the world. Originally, I considered that the story contained within the graphic novel could expand on the adventures and experiences the four main protagonists or friends [Takahiro, Goro, Kazuya and Akari] could have together. But on reflection, this wasn't pushing the possibilities of the characters and the content as far as it could go, so alternatively I the possibility of developing the detective characters and in turn creating a much different story to the main arc, whilst retaining the connection to the world through det. Hirota and Kobi seemed like a better prospect for the project as a whole.

OUAN603 - Research into Stories and Varying My Choice of Books [Inspiration]

'Writing doesn't have to follow a specific formula as long as what you're doing is innovative, thought provoking and engaging'

I wanted this project and the story element of it to be an opportunity to read some different stories in preparation and during the project itself. Thinking this could possibly lead to a constant source of inspiration whilst retaining the frame of mind necessary to be constantly developing my own story. There were several genres and authors I was interested in and wanted to read so this was my chance. Before the project and then during I had started reading different books by Haruki Murakami. When I first began reading his work it didn't occur to me that some of the themes and descriptions throughout his books may have some cross over with the story I am writing. One of the recurring characters in his work is the isolated, male character who appears awkward. This is often shown through experiences and thoughts of the character, which was relevant because my main protagonist happened to be male also. There is then the use of magical realism in his work, I knew before I started my own story that this was the genre I was basing my work around so I think the different levels of fantasy and realism across his work was a good gateway into that genre, with 'Norwegian Wood' being more or less a realistic story from beginning to end and 'The Wind Up Bird Chronicles' [the first book I read by him] being much more magical realism and border line fantasy.

China Miéville's work is much more in the genre of fantasy than I was planning to write, but I decided to read one of his short story collections titled: 'Looking For Jake & Other Stories' because I remembered from the last time I read it than it contained a range of different stories that I could perhaps use to recognise consciously how he tells his short stories. Furthermore, some are much more mild in terms of how fantastical they are and the majority set in a realistic world - the same as what I was intending to do with my own story.

Finally, in the middle of the project I was introduced to the author; Italo Calvino. Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels, and after finding out about him I was intrigued about his unique approach to writing. The same week I went and purchased two of his books, 'Invisible Cities' and 'If on a winter's night a traveler'. The unusual style of writing and approach he took inspired me further and made me think more about the way in which writing doesn't have to follow a specific formula as long as what you're doing is innovative, thought provoking and engaging - so I took this approach with my own writing and tried to ignore any popular tropes that I could of found myself using for the simple reason that they're continually used. I began with 'If on a winter's night a traveller: which follows a very unusual but gripping format :

'The postmodernist narrative, in the form of a frame story, is about the reader trying to read a book called If on a winter's night a traveler. Each chapter is divided into two sections. The first section of each chapter is in second person, and describes the process the reader goes through to attempt to read the next chapter of the book he is reading. The second half is the first part of a new book that the reader ("you") finds. The second half is always about something different from the previous ones and the ending is never explained.'

OUAN603 - Background Design / Method

To create the shots of the backgrounds for each scene there was a process I went through with each rendered background in order to make them fit the style I wanted to achieve. First, the kitchen environment was modelled in 3D. A tool within Blender called 'archimesh' made creating the room very simple. It allows you too add walls and windows automatically and adjust their lengths to whatever size is necessary. You can also add windows, certain pieces of furniture and a floor and ceiling. I used a range of reference images sourced online, specifically an interior design website called 'Houzz' which returned a lot of Japanese style kitchens when I searched for them, and meant I could work directly from good references rather than imagination. In order to save time some of the more complex objects such as the utensils with mesh were sourced online and imported into the scene. This meant I didn't have to model every detail myself, but by using unrestricted objects I could fill up the scene without having to worry so much about time.

Once the modelling was completed and the objects were in place I began adding textures and colour to the scene. This was done primarily through the node editor and I took the majority of textures from 'poliigon.com' a site that provides textures for texturing in 3D software. I was mostly searching for woods, tiles and certain ceramic materials to apply. The texturing was done by applying various texture maps to objects, so as an example the tiles were applied to a plane and normal, displacement and reflection maps were then applied to make the light interact in a more realistic way with the object - otherwise it would have looked like a 2D image on a flat surface.

After this stage was completed I was unhappy with the clean, 3D look that the scene had and knew I had to somehow 'break' the 3D look so that I could start applying paint to the image in photoshop and begin the animation process. To do this I used a tool called 'snap art 4' which took the 3D render and applied an oil paint filter to it using the various settings I chose, such as brush stroke size and level of realism. This took the once clinical looking 3D scene and gave it the painterly feel that meant I could paint over the top with ease and without the worry of it looking jarring or out of place. From here I added various details such as the buildings outside and adjusted the colour settings by increasing the shadows and saturation of the image.

I plan to add some additional details in the post production stage, but I am relatively happy with the results of the process and how the backgrounds turned out ready to begin the animation process.

OUAN603 - Time Management Difficulties & Safeguards

With a project like this where I am working on several different elements at any given time I am well aware of time and the way it can easily get out of hand. In a way I feel more comfortable if I need to scale something back because I know that other areas of the project are there to back up to project if they need to. There have been different safeguards employed throughout the project, some of which I learnt to use through the dissertation module, that help to make sure deadlines are met as closely as possible. There is also a range of techniques that I used to cut back on time I needed to develop different things [such as creating backgrounds in 3D].

One of the biggest over arching constraints and somewhat unavoidable problems throughout the project was that the narrative itself [the foundation for the entire project] was constantly in develop, and quite complex in itself. So instead of having a relatively simplistic short story that I needed to create an animation from I was having to constantly make decisions so that the other outlets could actually be made. In other words, it had to be cohesive and consistent across all platforms but to do this the story had to be final before anything was made or the different pieces of the story puzzle wouldn't fit together like they should. This was the most difficult part of the project to deal with and to deal with this I attempted to base the media I created on the most concrete parts of the story, i.e the finalised sections that wouldn't be changed. Or alternatively, if it was something like a piece of art work, I could be a little more abstract and in that case if something small changed it wouldn't be too much of an issue or detrimental to the smaller piece itself.

Some other safeguards I used to make sure I was progressing at a steady rate were to plan what I would do each day as precisely as possible to be as efficient with how I spent my time. The days that were spent simply thinking about the story and trying to write it but not getting many words on the page were difficult because they felt like a waste but overall it was still progress in some form or another. Furthermore, I attempted to make sure I was writing the story whenever I had a spare fifteen minutes and even if I only managed to write a couple of sentences it was still progress towards furthering the story and the ability to write wherever whenever was a good advantage of this outlet within the project, compared to the others which needed specific conditions and software to work under. Fortunately, all of the people I collaborated with, both the voice actors and the translator were quick in their delivery of work so there was no drawbacks or time lost in those areas.

Overall, I used a combination of setting realistic goals with effective planning of time and a relative distribution of time to the different outlets to ensure that they are worked on in a fair way. For example, giving less time to artwork and giving more time to the development of the narrative and the animation work as it does take longer to create. This coupled with deadlines made it easier to gauge my progress and realise how much I could do in the given timeframe.

OUAN603 - Learning Blender 3D & Why I Chose 3D Backgrounds

The crafting of the animation and the approach I took to making it was quite carefully planning for this project because I wanted to be able to create a high quality animation [or best I could] whilst also distributing my time across several other segments of the project to tell the story. This meant saving time where I could, or being as efficient as possible but achieving the best results.

Working alone I knew that I would have a lot of work to do, perhaps more than I could do given the timescale, if I had to create every single background as well as animating on top and additional lighting retouching at the end. To save time in this respect I took a small risk and chose to develop a 3D space where I could set the camera wherever I wanted, change the focal length for depth of field and basically create backgrounds as I needed them. I would need to make some small adjustments but once the background was completed but it would save time in the long run as I could derive all the shots I needed from that scene. This worked for the reason that the whole animation is set in the same kitchen with some other spaced around the apartment implied but not shown specifically. As long as I created a scene with enough attention to detail and visual interest it should be a good method to creating the environment for the animation.

Once I decided to pursue this I needed it so succeed otherwise it would have been a large waste of time and resources learning or revisiting software and attempting to create something that didn't work. After coming across Blender 3D - a free, open source 3D software and viewing several videos on the results you can get with it, I decided I would use that. Some of the appeal of Blender stemmed from the relatively simplistic built in material options as well as the lighting options and the node editor that can be used to develop surfaces, textures and colour within objects. This coupled with the online resources available that led to the discovery of the software for me, confirmed my choice. I started by creating a simple scene to get used to the tools. Again, the dedication to picking up a new piece of software felt like a risk and I was constantly thinking about the time I was dedicating to it but it felt necessary in order to make a somewhat polished animation.

The simple test scene I created allowed me to tap into the program's lighting options, texturing, use of the node editor, modelling and compositional features. Basically everything I needed that would allow me to create my environments in 3D.

OUAN603 - Delivering the Story

The format I am using for this project is a central narrative delivered through the short written story, with everything else acting a supplementary piece to that main narrative.

As a project, the story is divided into several different outlets to be effective in its delivery to the audience without containing the story world to a single story. This is of course fine and a single window into a story world can be great. However, with this project I wanted to create a detailed narrative through the use of a long form written story but also bring in a back story of two characters and something that is quite important to me, depict the world in terms of its aesthetic and give the audience some visuals to work with. It isn't that I think it is necessary to give the audience visuals from the world, and in most if not all cases they can derive there own visuals from a piece of written story. However, I wanted to reinforce some specifics through art work and animation so that I could reinforce and demonstrate a few examples of descriptions from the book and bring them to life in this way.

To understanding the story the book is all that is needed to obtain a thorough understanding of the story. Essentially this is the centrepiece in terms of the importance of the different platforms I am delivering the story through. A broad range of media is often a good way to tap into different senses and interpretations that can be derived from each one.

Each of the supplementary and main platforms not only allows for a different entry point into the story and working together but also operate in different ways when they are received by the audience. For example, the written story gives a lot of detail but with no visuals, forcing the audience to envision the things described in their own way. Specifically with the magical realism centre this gives way to authorial reticence when any unusual or uncanny events take place - making it so the audience has to on some level accept what is happening in the story. Once they do this they have the possibility to become immersed in the story world through the use of their own acceptance and acknowledgement of the rules of the story world. In contrast to this, the animation, artwork and graphic segments leave less to the imagination visually and provide clues into the aesthetic of the story world. Specifically, lighting and atmosphere can be used as vital tools to create a certain accompanying feeling or response to the audience which is what I am going to focus on most with them. Creating atmospheric work is something I have been working on for a while, so hopefully I can use what I've learnt to push this within this project.

OUAN503 - Story Development, Narrative

Since the beginning of the project I've been working on a document that gives details of as much of the story as possible. It has turned into a type of feed that displays ideas as they have changed and developed whilst I continue to change and further the story. The beginning shows the initial ideas I had and how they expanded into a longer narrative with additional characters. This thread of ideas has been beneficial to maintain because I can keep track of the different narrative threads, return to previous ideas and essentially make sure that the story world is consistent and that all of my ideas are kept in the same place. I've treated this like a bible I can return to and work on when necessary and making sure it is kept updated has meant that my ideas weren't forgotten along the way.

I've found it difficult to develop a full plot from beginning to end, so to be more efficient the approach I took was to simply start writing and see where the writing takes me. It felt a lot more intuitive and creative than simply plotting out every action or scenario that takes place, and reading back some of the work I've written up to now, hardly any of the finer details are in my plan. This demonstrates to me that it is important to have a good mix of both planning and intuitive writing when crafting stories especially in long form like I am attempting. A difficulty I did encounter was that sometimes I would hit a point in the story where I hadn't fully realised what was going to happen at a certain point, and this is the point where I would go back to my notes and make a decision on where the story should head next, once the idea is set to work towards for a certain stage in the story it is simple to write up to that point, it is just a case of setting a certain goal for a scene or chapter.

The speed that I am writing at has varied greatly up until the point. Currently I have about eight thousand words written of the main story with another five or six thousand in notes. My time has of course been divided between this and developing a final animation a long with artworks and the planning of a graphic novel so some days will contain no writing at all whereas on others I could perhaps write several thousand words with everything else in between on other days. I have tried to use what I've learnt in my efforts to develop original IPs to date and make sure each of the story platforms is used to its fullest potential and the segments of the story world that each displays is the best for that platform. There is other considerations such as the feasibility of what can be included in the animation for example based on my own ability and the time I have to create it so there is some constraints in place but this can be worked with to still create engaging and successful content. The novel will encompass an entire narrative from start to finish, the graphic novel depict some back story of two detectives from the main narrative and the animation giving a small window into the life of the main character extracted from the main narrative, so there is some overlap and some highlighting of key scenes amongst the different story outlets. The main narrative is still in development at this point and I am constantly working on different sections that have already been written. I think it will still be being developed until the deadline purely to ensure it is as good as it could be.

OUAN603 - The Nuance of Magical Realism

Over the past few months I have been reading and trying to immerse myself in as many different takes on magical realism as I could, from the novels by Haruki Murakami to films such as Amelie. I think the reason I like magical realism so much as a genre is the subtleties it presents to the audience but in turn make the whole piece feel so much deeper as if there is a hidden layer of story that is often interpreted in so many different ways due to its complexity and abstract nature. In a way writing a piece that fits into this genre has provided me with a welcome challenge, and a way for me to attempt to further the stories that I create, hopefully improving as I go. I specific challenges that I've been faced with so far is trying to write in a way that fits into a realistic world but strays away from fantasy. Although I like fantasy, the real world plausibility of magical realism is appealing in that it plays on the in story characters' mentality and emotions whilst leaving the audience to decipher certain scenes. For example, some of the scenes in Murakami's work are incredibly surreal and boarder line fantasy, however the context the scenes are in can simply amount to a characters mental state and feelings - dreams or hallucinations, meditation etc. This use of emotion and feeling combined with the descriptions create very interesting imagery and varied responses from the audience, this is one of the aspects that drew me to the genre and the narrative complexities that it can provide a story.

When I was trying to come up with a concept for my own story there will several things I tried to keep in mind that would help me somewhat grounded whilst still trying to write a story I liked. Firstly, there had to be a real world setting. I ended up choosing Japan because I like the variety of forest, mountains and city all in close proximity and thought that suited the type of story I intended to create. Next, I tried to come up with some subtle fantasy elements, not necessarily things that wouldn't exist in real life but very peculiar events that are totally feasible within themselves. I also want to employ the technique of 'authorial reticence' which I discovered during my context of practice module which includes the deliberate withholding of information in order to allow the audience to learn about the world through interpretation.

OUAN603 - Further Development of Story & Characters

I have finalised the overall themes at this point in the project as being a bildungsroman, coming of age, magical realism, mystery, with drama. It is hard to put a genre on something but I these are the best words to describe what the overall intention is with the project and how the story will feel to the audience. The story itself is essentially aimed at all ages, which is something I had decided I wanted from the very start of the project in that I wanted to stay away from dark stories that aren't necessarily accessible or appreciated by all ages and different audience members. However, some themes and the nature of coming of age stories means that more adult themes may be included, not too much to alienate an audience and the story will certainly have a charm that can be appreciated by all ages.

Rough Synopsis of the Plot So Far

The idea I have currently is that the animation segment of the project starts in a dream shared by the four main characters. They are on a bus approaching a forest for a camping trip. During the camping trip they come across a cave and venture inside, whilst they are inside they are swarmed by cicada. The characters are unaware they have shared the same strange dream until the following day. Upon discovery that they all had the same dream on the same night, they decide that they have to work out what it means, and are consequently led down a rabbit hole of events spanning most of their adolescent lives. They decide that they must find out what it means and by try to discover the meaning, but by doing so they are lead down a rabbit hole of events that span most of their adolescent lives. The Children Who Dream About Cicada is a coming of age, magical realism story set in the suburbs and forests of Tokyo, Japan. The story follows four friends; Takahiro Okada, Kazuya Kurogane, Akari Matsuo, Gorō Yoshida.

The questions that remain at this point is 'Why did this happen to them and what is the point?' and 'What does it mean in terms of the story and what is the ultimate resolution?'

The story is full of strange occurrences and events that happen in a variety of mysterious ways, anonymous notes or phone calls, dreams, surrealism, Hallucination, Weather, Lighting-flickering of lamps, lights, bulbs etc, People/Messengers.

Boys : Takahiro Okada / Kazuya Kurogane / Goro Yoshida
Girls : Akari Matsuo

Takahiro Okada - Normal size, intelligent, longer hair, quiet, average appearance 岡田孝宏

Kazuya Kurogane - Large, friendly, short hair, tall 黒金和也

Gorō Yoshida - Intelligent, normal size, stern 吉田五郎

Akari Matsuo - More serious, skeptical, short hair 松尾あかり

OUAN603 - Creating World Maps

An aspect of the project I want to develop once the story is fully developed is the creation of a map. The map will perhaps show the area that the story takes place and highlight on the map where certain events take place or where the characters like to go or the places they speak about in conversations within the story. This reinforces the story world aspect of the project and plays into the nature of a transmedia project because it is expanding the information the audience has to decipher and immerse themselves in. This idea stems from other successful transmedia projects that are based around their detailed world maps such as The Lord of the Rings.

Maps can be useful and interesting for the audience for a range of reasons and can be done in different ways. For example, since the characters in the story are school children, there can be an element of that within the map in terms of what they call certain places and the nicknames they have for certain locations. In this sense, perhaps two versions of the same map can be created - one accurate one and another that looks at the characters' perceptions of the world or the place that they live. Having this visualisation of the environment also gives way to other stories that could be written about the locations on the map, and encourage the expansion of the fictional world.

OUAN603 - Establishing an Aesthetic

One of the most difficult parts of a project for me is taking all the different ways to create an 'aesthetic' for an animation or graphic novel for example and pinning one down in particular. This is made more difficult during the visual research stage when I am exposed to a range of different aesthetics. Another consideration that is made at this stage is the feasibility of creating something hyper detailed in the given time. I think the constraint of working alone of a project like this is that there is never enough time and the quality does have to be compromised in order to finish the project before the deadline opposed to if there was 3 or 4 people working on it for example.

The aesthetic I've tried to establish is a mix of medium level detail coupled with a strong colour palette and some other simple environmental details. In essence I went for medium levels of detail as I didn't want to go too simple and sacrifice the look and feel of the content but also didn't want to spend hours on each individual drawing I was doing, again since I'm undertaking every element of the project I think it is wise to tone down the level of detail in some way. I also feel like the type of story and the themes involved contributed to selecting and developing an appropriate style for the project as a whole. Some tools that helped me achieve this were Pinterest, and watching back films and works that compliment the type of work I'm doing - the work of Makoto Shinkai and some of the other bildungsroman titles that I included in my rationale have all played a part in the way I thought about the project and in turn how it has been developed up until this point.

OUAN603 - Environment Illustration

OUAN603 - Environmental Props

OUAN603 - Character Design / Style