Two Is Company
Bailey Kalesti
I've got some cool news this week. A new artist has joined the Hunted project! He's going to be helping out with character concepts, and I couldn't be more excited! As soon as we have something ready to show, I'll be posting it here.
Characters are definitely not my forte, so I'm pretty pumped to have a seasoned character designer lending a hand on this. :D
In other news, I wrapped up version 2.1 of the animatic this week. I made quite a few changes in light of the feedback I got. I tweaked camera angles, screen direction issues, many of the cuts, as well as some important story beats. The whole second half of scene 7 had to be reevaluated. People just weren't clear on what was going on, and I had a time discrepancy to resolve. It's still not perfect, but it's closer now.
One thing I've been learning more about is how to navigate in and out of screen direction. Namely, how one goes about bridging scenes where screen direction has to change. For most of the film, characters travel from left to right. However, there are moments when I need to film on the other side of things. Most of my set building revolves around this function of the camera. How interiors are arranged, for instance, is largely dictated by camera needs. But what about when I have a cool design for a shot composition, but it goes against the 180 rule? Bridging these moments was tricky. Maybe I'm overthinking this? Maybe all that matters is that the audience understands the set, and never feel irked by a cut. I'm learning, though!
I also had fun doing a little world building and reference gathering. In order to get new artists up to speed, I finalized a visual guide and finished a character design document. I also spent some time pouring over reference photos for character inspiration. Reference gathering always gets me excited!
One of the many reference photos I gathered. This one is for Chloe. I like the intensity of it. Kudos if you know what film this is from.
Bailey