koolness: the process book

Senior Project by Xavier Ruffin 2010

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Problem Statement.04Research.08

Bibliography.12Process.14

Execution.36Summary.42

Disk.43

There are many figures in our community who inad-vertently and/or purposefully act as negative influ-ences to city youth.

THE PROBLEM

MY INITIAL SOLUTION

Raise awareness of the current situation through a song and a visual narrative showing both youth

and adults the responsibility of being a role model.

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INVESTIGATIONMYWith this project I was really hoping to explore the visual interpretation of music and vocals through animation and kinetic 3-D typography to convey a message. With this project, I was really hoping to push my limits and explore uncharted territory as fair as my abilities and skill sets. This project was just as much an investigation of myself as it was the visual interpretation of lyrics and song. I originally decided to create a music video that marries motion graphics, narrative animation, and type design. However due to time constraints my senior show became more informational piece about the song Koolness and the video I originally wanted to create.

MY INITIAL SOLUTION

COMMUNICATIONGOALS

•Increase Awareness of the Frankie Flowers Brand and the song Koolness•Create a buzz about the up coming music video, create an interest and demand for it.•Show people that being a thug or ignorant is not “cool” and that there are more options available to them.•Show the power of influence and role models in the lives of urban youth.

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AUDIENCE: Hip-Hop “Heads”: Are cultural purest who tend to be more interested in the meaning and mes-sage of a song than the packaging it comes in.

Average age range: 24-45

Hypebeasts – Urban Youth •Street fashion & culture enthusiasts•Trend informers•Very aesthetically driven and interested in new or innovative things.

Average age range: 14-30

GOALS

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This is a collection of screen captures that were a part of my original mood board for this project. I found alot of inspiration for my characters in the short film Sigg Jones and the illustrations of Justin Bua.

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Learn Character Animation Using Blender Creature Factory

These books and videos became my most important sources of information for learning how to use Blender to model, rig, and animate my own characters.Some would argue that I should have used Cinema 4d or Maya because of their heavy use in the animation industry. However, I feel like blender was the best fit for me and my project because of its open source nature. I was able to install the program on what ever computer I wanted for free and with out needing additional licenses. This Allowed me to work on multiple machines between my school and my home.

William Reynish Andy Goralczyk

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Introducing Character Animation With Blender

Man Candy FAQ Venom’s LabBassam Kurdali Pablo Vazquez

Tony Mullen

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DEVELOPING MY CHARACTERS

Was the most time consuming task of my project. I completely underestimated the time it would take to concept a 3-D character and build it in blender. I worked on them for 112 hours over the week of spring break and still did not get them all fully built and rigged.

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Raw Footage Alpha Footage

Background replacement Motion Type application

ORIGINALSPACE REQUEST

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ORIGINAL

ACTUALSPACE GIVEN

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ACTUAL

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3-D type treatment used to label each set of headphones and display what was being listened to the views

IN SUMMARYSweet and simple: did I reach my original goal of producing a Full length 3-D animated music video with a corresponding documentary, No. Did I take a chance and learn about my self, my abilities, my crazy ambition, my limits, and what direction I want to be headed in, yes.I consider my thesis a success despite my failure to produce the content I sought out to create because I was able to take a risk and learn something new. I was in a some what unique position approaching my thesis because I already had a pretty good job offer on the table. This meant that my project did not need to be a showcase of what I know I am proficient in just to impress potential employers. I could take a risk and try to learn something new and see if my talents would transcend mediums.

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2010