Introduction:
In this week’s blog post, I’ll be talking about the usual method I discovered when it came to storing research sources, highlighting why it was beneficial. Secondly, I’ll be speaking about my thought process when it came to starting my write-up on Liminal Space. I’ll then be explaining how I managed to come up with the narrative of my final animation, outlining why brainstorming small points was beneficial for me. Afterward, I’ll be talking you through how I went about creating my storyboard animatic, touching on the software and devices I used. Lastly, I’ll be listing down the personal objectives I’ve set myself to complete by the end of next week.
This Week’s Task:
Starting My Bibliography and Reference List:
As I began researching Liminal Space, a friend of mine introduced me to the RefWorks website. RefWorks helped me to reformat my research sources so that they appeared in the Harvard Reference format, which is the required reference format for my university. Furthermore, after I’ve finished my entire thesis, RefWorks would automatically create my bibliography, making sure everything is in the Harvard Reference format and in alphabetical order. This was beneficial as it saved me time from reformating my references manually.
Researching & Writing about Liminal Space:
Before I began writing, I built up a rough bibliography, strictly for Liminal Space, for the potential sources I may use in my write-up. I wanted to do more reading, but have quick access to these sources before I began writing. I used a mixture of sources ranging from books, web articles, and videos. I used Google Scholar and SAGE Journals to browse for books online. I found the web articles and Youtube videos most helpful in terms of understanding what Liminal Space is, as they broke the information down quite easily for someone who’s just recently heard of the term.
Whilst researching, many resources referred to a specific environment known as the Backrooms, consisting of many extraordinary theories behind it. They referred to this environment as a prime example of Liminal Space. This type of environment was able to convey all sorts of senses, ranging from anxiety to fear, even though there wasn’t anything scary within the environment. After hours of researching the Backrooms, I decided that I wanted to include this sort of environment in my final animation.
When writing about Liminal Space, I really wanted to make sure it flowed right and not jump back and forth from point to point. So I further broke down this sub-section, making sure each paragraph referred to a specific point.
Paragraph 1 – Explain the general term of Liminal Space and where it came from.
Paragraph 2 – Speak specifically about the physical aspect of Liminal Space and the feelings it could possibly convey.
Paragraph 3 – Discuss the relationship between physical Liminal Space and the Horror genre, and talk about how the horror genre exploits this concept to convey emotions to its audience.
Paragraphs 4 & 5 – Using examples from a movie and video game, talk about how Liminal space was used, and how I could apply it to my final animation.
Narrative Brainstorm:
To create my narrative brainstorm, I used an application called Diagrams.net, which I was able to access through Google Chrome. At this point, I had a good idea of what I wanted my narrative to be, based on the little research I’d done already. However, I’ll always be open to tweaking it as I continue researching Lighting and Sound. Noting small points down for the beginning, middle, and end of the story helped me storyboard my vision.
Environment Moodboard:
To get a visual idea of what my environment may look like, I mocked up a quick environment mood board to get an overall feel of the design and see if it consisted of that horrifying atmosphere. All these images display liminal space and are located within the backrooms.
Storyboard Animatic:
To create my storyboard Animatic, I used Photoshop’s Timeline to draw multiple frames, lasting a duration of two seconds each. For my drawings, I used my personal XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro graphic tablet. Depending on if I tweak my narrative, I may have to come back and revisit my storyboard.
Objectives For Next Week:
- Model The Backrooms exterior environment.
- Model The Backrooms interior environment.