OUAN505 - Creating a Scene, Introduction

I volunteered to create the opening scene for the animation as I had a good idea initially about how to create the scene with the Earth floating in space. There a few elements I wanted in the scene when I was trying to think about how to design it. Firstly I wanted the Earth to be relatively big in comparison to the frame, so not in the distance but close to the camera. I also wanted an area of light reflecting off the perimeter of the Earth and a shadow being cast on one side of the Earth for added realism. I knew everything except perhaps the black background would be made of paper cuts so it would have an added dimension of texture and depth that otherwise wouldn't be achievable even by trying to recreate a paper texture in Photoshop for example, so the clouds, Earth and the areas of land on the Earth as well as the area around the outside is all made from cut outs of different coloured paper. I wanted to have as much movement included in the scene as possible, to do this I had everything on a separate layer so that it can be easily moved when imported into After Effects. An addition element of movement that I wanted to include was a satellite in the foreground orbiting the Earth. I thought this would add a nice extra to the scene that would take it from a simple still image to a moving scene.

The first step in creating the scene was drawing all of the separate assets using Adobe Illustrator. I used illustrator to make sure the lines that were being drawn could be interpreted as vectors by the laser cutter and therefore cut. I used images of the Earth as reference and simplified some of the different shapes until I had a collection them resembling clouds and land that could be cut out. I also created larger circles that would act as the glow to encompass the Earth when scanned in and edited using Photoshop. After all of the assets were cut out of coloured paper, I scanned them in before reforming the original Illustrator image in Photoshop, this time with the paper cutouts. I modified the colours slightly using the tools and functions that are available in order to find a more cohesive colour scheme, rather than the contrasting and uncomplimentary colours on the paper that the shapes were originally cut out of. Following this the rest of the aspects to the scene such as the background and smaller details were added until the scene was complete. Overall I like the look the initial scene gives and I think combined with some movement and sound effects this scene could be a really nice opening to the animation.

My initial thoughts regarding sound effects for this scene is a mixture of the music that will run through the whole animation fading in and a slow rumble as if the Earth is being viewed from inside a space shuttle, and in general I think a low rumble would work with this scene. One aspect of this scene that I think worked really well was the outer rings of the Earth that were created by altering the opacity of the circles cut out of paper. This gave the scene a dramatic effect that wouldn't have been created without these elements present in the scene. I also think that the shape of the sections of the Earth have a certain look to them because their initial shapes consisted of quite a lot detail and after being cut were shrunk down. In the final image this looks quite intricate, and I don't think I would of been able to recreate this using a purely digital method so I believe it was worth the extra effort. If I could have improved this scene, I think I would have found a way to make the Earth rotate slightly during the time that this particular shot is onscreen, it would have taken the scene away from the flatness that it has and made it more dynamic as a whole. I'm pleased that this is the opening scene of the animation as it brings the audience straight into the style we're going for. Furthermore, it's quite a dramatic scene and I like the idea of showing the whole Earth before going into some of the forests and the life that inhabits it, making sure to ease the audience into the feature.