Hi everyone! Adrián here with a new weekly recap! If I would have to define this week in one word, it would be varied, since we have had a lot of different experiences, moods and things happening. Let's go with the recap!
We began the week with some time to think about the Kick-off session. It was a lot of information to keep in mind and we have had to take some decisions about it. For example, we want to follow the advice of producing a sizzle reel of our project as part of the deliverables for the program. This links with our first meeting of the week, the session with Kara Oropallo (who, I have to say, is absolutely lovable) about scheduling. It links with it because we have had to reschedule some things to adapt the new objectives to the timeline. But it's fine, that's also part of the process.
On wednesday, we went to the Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. As we are trying to push the art direction and designs a bit further we wanted some inspiration, and sure we found it! We went with a camera and sketchbooks, so we have now a lot of material to work on the Secret Garden of Monsters. So, first, we went to see the bonsais.
Then, we went to the green house, the place that, in my oppinion, was the most interesting one:
And finally, we went outside again to see the orchard, the trees and the rest of the exterior garden:
And, of course, Pablo did some great sketches!
After that, we've continued working on the characters, designing and writing. Here are some of the new explorations we have done.
And also, this is our first draft of the characters' lineup. It's not final at all, but useful to see what we have to work on to create contrast and to make the group work together.
We have been struggling with Hugo, it's been dificult to find the right path for his design. We know it's part of the process to get stuck sometimes, so we keep iterating around him to find what we are looking. Here are some of the explorations we have made this week:
The meeting that we had with Rafi on friday was extremely useful to find some ideas, so we hope you can see soon a better version of Hugo. One think that he suggested us for developing him and his relationship with Nico was to ask some people that have a younger brother how was for them to be the older brother. I'm still on it, but I think I've already found some interesting things about the responsibility of being in charge of your brother. For example, a friend told me that she always has seen her sister as someone who is more vulnerable than herself, even now that her sister is an adult. I've also found some things that are common in most of the people I've asked. For example, the fact that most of us have taken responsibilities that were not ours (or at least, we considered it). We need someone to show us that this is not our responsibility, and I think this is an interesting thing to add to Hugo. The idea that indeed he has to take care of Nico, but he doesn't have to act like a parent.
Finally, I've also been doing some research around the music and sound. As today we have a session with Scot and we have to have one or two pages of music and sound briefing for the project, I've been listening tons of music to look for good references. I think that music and sound design are two very powerful tools to set the mood of a project very quickly, and that's why I wanted to put a lot of effort to do this right. I still have some questions about the topic, but I'm sure that Scot will help with that.
So this is the end! As you can see, we have been exploring the project in different ways, and we still have a lot to do, but we are very focused and I think that everything's working so far, so let's keep exploring. See you next week!