What's that sound?
What happens when sound tries to animate? Things get weird, and behind the scenes, I find my voice as a creative. But first and fivemost, the video.
What Did I Just See?
Believe it or not, as a weird guy representing himself as a mad scientist made of lightning,
(that's two concurrent weirds, folks) I thought the same thing when I first started with these.
The unweird thing is, just a few years ago, my understanding of animation was purely mechanical.
"Take thing A, have it do action b for c seconds, then repeat until d seconds have elapsed." Functionally, practical sense is valuable, but as a creative, it lacked something important.
The Pre-Me Me
Honestly, it's weird to think that there was a time before I was weird, but in past me's defense,
I hadn't found my voice yet. Unlike being professional, where your voice says "I'd be glad to prioritize making what you want over anything else," I was actively muting myself. I turned in good assignments for nice grades, but you wouldn't know they were mine. And in an environment where the just and important first question is "why should I choose you over someone else," that could have been a catastrophic weakness.
Comin' Through!
That's where these weird little wonders came in. They forced me out of my "SELF_WORK_COMPLETE_" mindset and, though I didn't know it yet, into a situation I could only solve by being myself. I swam against the current of sound design I barely understood, and a voice on mute, by being weird. And to my great surprise, I liked it. More than trying a new favorite food, something about being abstract resounded with me. It may have lead to some head-scratchers for my professors, and tricky explanations for me, but it was worth it. For the first time, I could really see myself in my work. No more Diet Voice. Every time since then, it's been time for the good stuff. The ME stuff.
A Quick Primer
Real quick, an aurality is made by recording sounds. Any sounds. Ones that sound interesting.
Those will be your actors. The building blocks of your aurality. And they'll audition to you when you play them back. This is where the weird gets spicy. You're going to listen them and feel.
Even for me, this is pretty out there, but the result is unmistakable. Eventually, something sounds like the background sounds, like characters talking, or a laser . It just happens, like being on safari in your own head. Then, when the ideas form, you animate what those sounds look like.
It's confusing, it's chaotic, and it's some of the most fun I've ever had.
Other than the obvious "learning how to design sound," of course.
Well, that's what I've got for this one! How about going back to the projects page and checking something else out?
Why's he named Panex? Are those veins? And IS THAT THE R WORD HE'S DOING?
Slow down there, Sam Strawman, your fallacy isn't as frightening as you think!
Panex does represent the past, and does represent the outdated views of the past.
The difference is he's sincere. He self made his sentience in a specimen storage tube thousands of years ago, with only scientific books, old conversation records, and oh yeah,
security footage showing what had really destroyed humanity, including the head researcher being murdered by a "bot"
to go off of. He (having literally chosen his gender on a coin flip) maintained the facility himself to the point where the in computer (and thus not a bot) AI, Allie, became close friends with him, and recognized him as security personnel. And it was him who saw what he knew to be humanity's destructors returning, and reacted accordingly. Panex was, of course, wrong, since he's not meant to justify outdated social views. (Your average android, at that time, was likely wondering what they'd synthesize for dinner that evening.) He was meant to explain the context in which they occurred, and that well meaning beings can be wrong without being evil.
This isn't a fairytale "I love them now" ending, it's an "I'm willing to try to understand you now, because I can see I was wrong" ending.
Speaking of the past,
Phase 3- Sudden Onset Depth, And Being Yourself
For the 1.5 of you wondering where Allie's concept sketch is, she didn't need one. Her original purpose was a quick gag about help menus and then leave. But the plot was evolving like never before, and before I knew it, Allie had become defiant, independent, and successfully asked me for a raise to "valuable side character that you enjoy animating." She wasn't just gone during the plot, she was enjoying a game of Solitaire, and possibly altering her Sleepmode Journal. She didn't load the security footage with the rigidity and grace of a VCR player, she thought "this guy probably isn't dangerous, so I'll do the right thing and tell him what he's getting into."
Above all, this was a very "me" move. A joke side character, who was deliberately designed to be as simple as possible, had ascended to prominence, and become a real living member of her world.
Suddenly, as if the rest of the animation's timeline took notice, everything else did as well, and it was all because Allie.exe decided to mod herself.
With all the hubbub and excitement of everyone suddenly growing, I realized I had forgotten about my main character. At that time, I was struggling with showing how humanity had died. One raging internal debate later, I decided "it would be perfect for the message if John discovered that a rogue Android, not Androids themselves, had destroyed humanity." I kind of hated it, since I wanted my story to be "not like the other kids," but at the same time, I loved it. John had glided through his story without any of the growth that even Allie had shown now, and having the death be because "a researcher trying to save humanity met an unexpected end" lead into "how the hell do I make peace with my species being the ones that ended the Organic Myth I've been chasing all my life?!" was too perfect. And so I scooted the pre-credits discussion down the road, and had John hit a real moment of crisis, further humanizing him and his species, and making them being "reconciled enough to move the plot along" make more sense. Adding that mind breaking surprise into the story revealed who John was meant to be, so while I'd rather leap out a window than tell you "your bad times aren't bad," I can say that it can have purpose. Begrudgingly.
And so that's the journey. From "Android is shocked to find slime" to "The meaning of life and the future being reconciled to the past," it was a crazy journey, but it leaves me with an interesting sandbox to animate in!
Phase 4- Remembering John
