As A group we had a meeting on Thursday the 26th, In this meeting, we would all come to discuss what kind of idea we have for our project. Before going to the meeting I had done a bit of research on the topic that we are doing and see if I could come up with a story for our animated movie. During the meeting we decided what our story would be and structure a timeline of a broad overview of the idea and who gets which roles.
Roles/tasks
- Lee – Storyboard, 2D animator
- Fan – Character model, Color correct/texture
- Eddie – Environment, 3D props, Compositing
- Masi – Character animation, 3D props
- Phoebe – Character concept art, 2D animator
- Roos – Environment, 3D props, Texture, FX
- Jesse – Environment, Texture, Color correction
We went with the small story/idea that I put together for the meeting. for this I did research on the topic that we would enhance, you can see this research down below.
Research:
Cyberpunk is a futuristic subgenre that focuses on high-tech technology and low lives. For my idea in this part, I thought a little about what Jesse said about ayahuasca and how it is shown as quite an opposite of cyberpunk. Ayahuasca is a plant-based psychedelic that alters all the senses of a human, such as thinking, time, and emotion. They can also cause a person to hallucinate by seeing or hearing things that do not exist or are distorted.
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a “combination of lowlife and high tech“,[1] featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.
The Japanese cyberpunk subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of Katsuhiro Otomo‘s manga series Akira, with its 1988 anime film adaptation (also directed by Otomo) later popularizing the subgenre.
Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, a ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body.
Cyberpunk plots often center on conflict among AI, hackers, and megacorporations, and tend to be set in a near-future Earth. The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors (“the street finds its uses for things”).
Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca is a plant-based psychedelic that alters all the senses of a human, such as thinking, time, and emotion. They can also cause a person to hallucinate by seeing or hearing things that do not exist or are distorted.
Ayahuasca is culturally used as a traditional brew used for spiritual and healing purposes. For cultural purposes, it can be seen as vegetalismo which is a religion that says they receive their knowledge and power to heal from their special relationship with the spirits of the rainforest.
Not going too deep into that subject matter it is quite an opposite of the cyberpunk scenery. For a story, I think it is good to match these two together. Not ayahuasca as a direct form of the idea but more in a way where as humans we tend to go back to the forest and to our nature. Since if u think about it we as humans aren’t meant to live in such a society that is why we can relate to birds in the city, we feel bad for these birds because it is not their living environment. In this futuristic cyberpunk world, there will still be people that search for this natural nature world. But as they live in the city they won’t be able to find this natural place these ‘low lives’ are searching for. So for my Idea I think of a character living in the cyberpunk city live that feels sad/out of place. While walking around in hit cyber aesthetic he finds a hidden place of the city. In this place he finds a weird different kind of aura coming from (for example) an alleyway. Here he finds this small selective area where there grows one flower (the lotus flower)
Reference:
Lotus Flower
Lotus flower have different meanings across cultures, in general the lotus flower is commonly used as a sacred for purity, rebirth and strength. Because lotuses rise from the mud without stains, they are often viewed as a symbol of purity. As seen this meaning of the lotus connects with the cyberpunk [man] trying to go back and be reborn but one other meaning of the lotus is transcending; to rise above or go beyond the limits of. Which may be linked back to how far we go in this futuristic view of the cyberpunk world and aesthetic and go beyond this.
Summary story:
While living a low life in a futuristic cyberpunk environment thinking about what this high-tech world has to offer to someone that can not afford anything. Slanting through the streets of the enclosed built-in city that you live in throughout your whole living days. I stumbled upon A street I have never seen. Forcing me to change direction from my usual path, following a glow out of this world. In front of me is something that went extinct a while ago, a flower, but not any flower, a flower that will give rebirth to our society.