6 Weeks.... GO!

Okay, so now we're back from Bangkok, and we've been to Ffresh, it's time to get down to the business of this final project before we get sent on comany placements.

How it was meant to work, was that we'd each come back from Thailand with an idea for a project, then pitch it to some people from the companies associated with Cyfle; out of the ideas, they would pick two, and we'd be split into two teams of three to work together on each idea.
It didn't quite go to plan.
Whilst in Bangkok, Kei, inspired by the flight to Thailand, had drawn a cartoon air hostess character; Mike and I saw it and the three of us began discussing an kind of animated musical dance sequence featuring this character. By the end of the trip, we had fleshed out quite a solid idea, and so decided to pitch this as a group when we got back to Cyfle.
Our thinking was that it would be 2D flash animation inserted into a CG environment created in Maya.
In any case, ours was one of the two ideas selected, and in the last couple of days we've been planning a production schedule, doing rough storyboards and character designs and - most importantly - finding the right music. At the moment we're timing out the stuff we've 'boarded out to the music, to create an animatic.

Back From Bangkok

Wow. What a month. The whole Bangkok trip was an amazing experience. The food... the sights... the people... everything was brilliant! Well, not everything - the weather was blisteringly hot, but the air conditioning inside nearly every building and taxi made up for it!

Have a look at this video of a tuktuk ride - these things are fun, if a little dangerous...



Ride on a Tuk Tuk from wesleyriot on Vimeo.


The Imagimax studio was awesome, and the stadd were all great to us. They even provided us with lunch, which kind of softened the blow of working from 10am till 7pm! We learned a bunch of stuff, software wise, as well; personally I managed to sharpen my Maya skills a little, as well as learning the ways of the vector mask in Photoshop.

What else can I say? The shopping was good. The cinemas were good. The temples were good. The bars? Oh yes, they were good. Oh yeah, and the Oakwood residence, at which Cyfle were kind enough to house us for the month, was wonderful, and made the trip that much more comfortable.

I might as well point out that this trip was the first time I had ever flown, an experience dulled only by the fact that the airport lost my luggage on the way over, and then mutilated my suitcase on the way back. Cardiff Airport and KLM airlines - a losing combination.

Whilst out there, I recorded some of my experiences on Tumblr, as well as uploading a vast amount of photos to Flickr. We also managed to complete two podcasts on the trip, which can be seen on the Cyfle page on Youtube.

Despite all this, it's good to get back to Wales!