These are the goals for this 5th week! We can't believe it's been already a month!

In this order:

1. Do the second structure
2. Fill the Pitch deck
3. Research symptoms
4. Plan the VFX: drawings based on the structure for David’s mentorship
5. Start working on the structure video timeline If we have the time:
6. Polish Scott’s music bible
7. Continuity of the thread
8. Quickly polish the details of the structures / write it
9. Start working on a storyboard

Let's go!

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Hey! If you saw the video of Paula's Workspace you already know she was impatiently waiting for her PC to arrive from Spain to Paris, in order to be able to work better. Well, good news! It arrived safe and sound and now we can work on Carmela's project more easily! Yay! :D

I probably went a little too far on the illustrations with this animatic, however, I've set the scene of my characters environment, motivations and onsequences of failure. Doing the voiceovers as a placeholder for the real voiceover artists to come and do their thing has also taught me a lot. This is now an old version and I have already moved onto a newer version of this which serves the character, plot and humour a lot better. I've had the chance to think more about the philosophical viewpoint of my topic matter as well. Looking forward to presenting this version to my mentors. 

This week we accomplished something amazing and very necessary to get all the rest of the process done: we finnished a structure! It’s not a definitive one, but at least it’s the first full one.

Kris’s mentorship on Tuesday was filled with the usual and wonderful “aha moments”, as Susana Piegas likes to call them. Clara couldn’t attend but she was still oddly present because Paula and Kris talked a lot about her. They discussed their different points of view and other possible versions of the structure combining the sister’s and the mum's point of view.

He also gave us some good tips we think you might get some use out of: 

You have to prove if the thread of your story/structure/script holds.
Find a person who doesn’t know a thing about it and see if they get it.
If they are confused, be aware! It means you should clarify your story.
And finally, whatever choice you make in the writing, make sure it’s an emotional one.

Our homework for Kris is to translate the structure into an edited timeline to allow us to see the material we have; and to do a new structure with some of the points Paula and him discussed during the session.

Vani’s session was a wake-up call for us because we were so focused on the structure and the details that we almost had forgotten about our goal for the end of STL and the mentorships, which is to have a pitch deck and a teaser to search for funding and producers. So thank you Vani for being our lighthouse. We tend to get a bit lost in the forest and forget our long term objectives sometimes… 

Our homework for Vani is to start filling the pitch deck. It doesn’t need to be perfect or beautiful, we just need to start writing it down to be able to edit it later. 

And of course… start working on that teaser!

The highlight of the week, and a beautiful present in the shape of a quote from Kris Pearn is this:

"There are no good ideas or bad ideas. There is only ideas that are right for now and some that might be right later on"

...make with this what you will. For us, it's been a huge relief!

We can’t believe we are already in week six! Things are ramping up quickly with the soft deadline Elizabeth and I made for ourselves approaching in less than a month. For this week specifically we want to write up the master list of final art, create a game document that defines the loop and starts to gather specific mechanics of the game, and finalize the overview of what our final pitch will look like.

Elizabeth will be focusing on finishing key character art along with some of the pieces (Mosi’s gadget) we have added throughout the last couple weeks. After week five and talking to our mentors we have solidified the aspects of the game we were unsure about. For week six we want to break the game down step by step in a PDF to explain the format and mechanics the game will possess. Our final goal will be piecing together what will be included in the final pitch presentation including artwork, story and game loop, and the purpose behind the show. We can’t wait to get to work!

Tyler The Creator just released an Album with Louise Vuitton, Scoring Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton Fashion Show, and it makes me want to CRY! I love the amount of eclectic creativity poured into this instrumental. This is the type of progression I pray for on my own musical journey. It may take me a while, but I' determined enough to get there. So unpredictable in his direction. 2nd to none with his element of surprise. This in the most inspiring music I've heard this year. I cant wait for the next season of his Cartoon Series, The Jellies too! GO TYLER!

Some pretty exciting news came our way in week four! Elizabeth got a call to foster a baby boy that has brought us nothing but joy. We have been doing our work in between baby cuddles :)

Well, well, well... Taking into account that Clara flew to Mexico and Paula had a crazy week at work traveling also (to Belgium), it seems like we were a bit too optimistic with our goals for week 3. So we are still dragging some old known goals but we will try to be more realistic and keep the list shorter for this week. Here it goes:

1. Finish the structure of the script
2. Choose the tone of the documentary
3. Look for visual stylistic references
4. Research in-depth info about Prosopagnosia
5. Schedule a meeting with Dr. Aldrey
6. Check with Chrisna to see how the music is going
7. Week end > research the symptoms and schedule the meeting with Aldrey!

Where to start with all the information our brains have been absorbing for the past 2 weeks? The mentorships were no more about “general theory” and tips but completely focused on our project and current needs. However, we think sharing our process may actually be useful for someone out there who's also working on a personal project, so let’s see if we can summarize it for you. 

What's really cool about this program and the mentors we have is that we're focusing on very specific things with each one of them, which allows us to move forward without losing sight of any front, as we probably would if we were alone.

In our meeting with Vani, we talked about the importance of setting up the tone and style of the documentary and also remembered that we should always take into account the audience and what we want them to feel / to convey. Our homework after this mentorship was for both of us to individually write the character profile of the other one (since we decided the POV of the documentary would be the sister’s POV) and reading about color scripts and different documentary types: cinema vérité, expository, participatory, reflexive, impressionistic, experimental, poetic…

With Kris Pearn, we started looking at the script like we had never before. He started talking about the film using this metaphor where we were in a cab in NY and we had to build the map of the city (the structure of the film), so every turn and every corner would be the emotions of the film, which is the most important part. He said to ask ourselves: what emotion am I following until the next turn (a shift in the script)?
He gave us a million ideas on how to tell the story, which was very freeing in the way that we can make of it anything that we want (it's also terrifying...) It helped a lot to keep listening to him going on about the "versions" of the documentary that he was imagining (he'd keep repeating things like: "there's a version where...")

Last but not least, we had the first meeting with David Prescott, which we were extremely excited about. We talked a lot about how we view the different symptoms that we want to depict with VFX and how to try and find the way to give it cohesion with the rest of the film. He gave us a couple of amazing ideas that we need to explore, like starting to make the VFX more and more confusing or disturbing as the time goes by, to depict the worsening of the symptoms.
He also gave us a great tip: DRAW how we picture the individual scenes and think with images.

As you see, it's been a pretty crazy first couple of weeks. We can't wait to keep going and let you know how it goes!

PS: Fun fact, this week had an additional difficulty, which was that Clara was in Mexico, so working with a 7 hour time difference was something else...

Alongside my animatic, I have all mood boards clearly mapped out for each background and also for 3D Edward. This week is about now placing these backgrounds into an animatic, so everyone can see what the trailer is supposed to look like, as a first prototype. Also getting started on modeling 3D Edward for the blockchain scenes. It's a must that this voiceover/soundtrack I've recently recorded is cut down to 3 minutes. Was fun doing all those voices myself :)

I researched 17 trailers over the last week and studied the heck out of them. Been working really hard on my animatic this last week as a result. I did my first draft of voiceovers for timing purposes. I got the timing of my trailer to 4 minutes. Now I need to get it down to 3 minutes.

This was super fun to do, as it really placed me inside the mindset of my characters for the first time.

Now I need to finish the rough storyboard for the visuals. Looking forward to finishing off this 2nd draft of my animatic and onboarding my voiceover artists for the next draft.

My goals for this week are a lot clearer after getting this first draft of my animatic out the way.

On thursday we finally got to start talking about what keeps Paula the most excited... VFX! And we started talking about the VFX of our own project. An we started talking about the VFX of our own project with David Prescott. However, of course, excitement without critical thought and hard work is not enough to build a project, sooo we started working on our homework for the next David Prescott's mentorship: trying to draw what we want in each scene. How do we imagine it, even if it's just doodles understandable only to ourselves. So there you can see our first doodles...

We are very different and at the same time we complement each other very well when we work as a team, but... do you want to know when it all really started? Once upon a time...

Today we want to share here with you the video we did to quickly present the project in our social media platforms (mainly Instagram, Facebook and Youtube). We did it during the holidays to ask our friends and followers to vote for the project and...it worked! Fun fact: the first version that Clara uploaded to her personal Instagram got over 30k visualizations! 

Still not following us on Instagram? Say no more, here you have all the links so that you don't miss a thing. And don't worry, we always try to post everything in English, Spanish, French and Galician. So chances are you will understand it!

The project:
Carmela, a life of freedom

Us:
Paula Bonaval
Clara Vior

We decided to have the neighbor kids join in on the action so we present you with "Our Workspace" - Directed by the 8 year old that lives above us, along with comentary by the 4, 6, and 8 year old that lives next to us.

For week five we have added a new addition to team Knowherian! During the middle of week four Elizabeth got the call to foster a baby boy. Since then we have been adjusting  and working to get back on track with our new little friend. Our goals from last week have transfered over to week five but with a more secure view on what our end goal is going to be. 

After talking with Kevin he solidified our idea to cut the animatic and focus on completing an interactive PDF file, which is basically taking our show deck and, minimally, getting a sense of the interplay between the show and the game by making it engageable. This way we are able to make sure both the show and the game are getting equal attention. 

Some other goals we are trying to achieve for week five include the Knowhere map and talking through the updated game loops with Sally and Shuhei.

We can't wait to get started!

Lots of work to do this week! Here is our goals list!

-Finish deciding on the prototype (yep, we’re still draguing this one)
-Prepare David’s First Mentorship
-Think about a “cohesion” element for the VFX and the rest of the film
-Prepare a document with more references for the VFX
-Research in-depth information about ONE PCA's symptom
-Check with Dr. Aldrey if the info is ok
-Keep working on the script structure until we find THE structure
-Start writing a new version of the script (?)
-Polish our music/sound design
-Start working on the Visual and Sound Pitch Bible (yep, this one too)

LET'S GO!

Following the pivot of my projects' direction, I'm now super focused on creating an animatic and solid concept art, which will allow me to direct my team a lot faster. Deciding on what's going to be said and seen in the trailer and also what the music is going to sound like (music is also super important)! I've also realized that the "show don't tell" principle can help me save a lot of time when it comes to voiceovers and animation for this trailer. Super excited to have come this far. Looking forward to sharing plenty of visuals with you soon :)

Plans have now changed from producing a cold opening to creating a trailer for the entire first season of the show. Mainly to conjure up more excitement of the Family Britannia story arc and showcase more of Edwards world. After a few logline exercises, I've revisited the reasons I'm telling this story, realising that the lens through which Edward views business and family, allows me some true conviction when it comes to expressing my outlook of these worlds. I learnt so much doing that. Extra Moodboarding has also got me to the point where I'm clearer on how the backgrounds and environment will be constructed. I'd like the general aesthetic of the cartoon, to be my own interpretation of the Gumbal aesthetic (I'm such a Cartoon Network fanboy, I know) so I cant wait to realise this challenge through concept art and some animation tests. My goals for this week are a lot clearer now. 

I dont mean to sound over the top, but this is quite possbly the most exciting experience in my life so far. Im really enjoying and growing through it :)