Thesis... the dream project: a back story to Career Day

When thesis finally come into my life, it was difficult to think of a final project to end my close to four years off with a bang. It was extra hard considering the lack of portfolio pieces I have barely made through my time in the design and technology (DT) department. I knew at least that my thesis will be time-based media and mainly created through using After Effects.

I'm a child at heart and an artist by trade, so I went down the route of an animation to showcase not only the ability to create a time-based piece but also my style of creating life with lines, my cartoon like drawing style. Now the problem was what would be the story to drive this piece. I have a tendency to bite off more then I can chew when I let my imagination run my art work. Back story, conflicts, plot twists, character development, and point of view are all things I play with when trying to create a perplexing story to get my viewer's attention. First off creating a story based around the "Bystander's Effect" where through out a subway ride, how little events in one's daily life can have a huge effort on how that person is feeling towards helping others in immediate need. With a small conflict occurring between stops on a subway car, my piece would go through why the conflict happened, how are public viewers handling the conflict happening in front of them, and the different points of view of how this looks either as nothing to consider or as a huge problem. The story was good, the research and message upon how strong the bystander's effect is on the public was satisfying for both a DT thesis and a huge project for my own liking.

The only huge problem was condensing this huge story that would go through several character's point of view about the same event for a final product that had to be under 4 minutes was impossible. I was concerned about staying within that time limit not only for departmental reasons but also the fact that during the thesis show at the end of the year, no one will stay with my piece for the whole 4 minutes. I needed a piece that would look great no matter then the viewer started to watch at the beginning, middle, or end of it. After all my research into this piece and with great interest about it's message, it was hard to think of a simple tale that would allow me to just display my time-based skills and imagination.

I went through an other story line for about 2 months after that about a comic book artist who is trapped in his own head through having dissociative identity disorder, or what is known as a split personality. I enjoyed the story, it was far fetched compared to the first story and a had a darker mood. Never the less, this story won't be a great thesis piece for the simple fact that in under 4 minutes, I had to put so much back story about the main character and his condition that there was barely any room left over the the actual story. With about 3 months in the first semester of thesis, I was thesis-less. I thank my lucky stars that I was also in an animation production studio course to aid my process of thesis. I finally came up with a simple enough storyline that would look great in my drawing style and allows me to showboat After Effect ability and great imagination. A story line about me as a child attending Career Day at my public elementary school and how dark and wild my imagination would take simple things like being a firefighter, and transform them into a demon hunter with great skill. The story seemed to fit in with what I wanted from my thesis, my dream project to exit this school and into the real world. That and my thesis professor said that if I changed my thesis one more time I'll fail the class...