The final act of the course is here and the Major project has began, another 15-week project with a self-initiated open brief, with huge importance. I haven't given my major project much thought over the last couple of months with my focus being on completing my minor project and that lengthy dissertation, however over the last week I have been trying to pinpoint what exactly I want to focus on. My initial thought is to focus on compositing and rendering a 3D short environment, with the focus being on how to present it, using not only Maya but also After Effects and some match-moving. Since the end of the minor project, I've been delving deeper into After Effects and Auto-desk Match Mover along with experimenting with 'Mocha' a plugin for AE which allows a different method of tracking. This is something I'd like to include in this current project, not necessarily as the lead method, but definitely something to consider.

My first reaction to the project is to create an another environment piece, similar to the last project, using the environment as a character itself, with it's own movements and features as animation (e.g Cloth, dust, lighting effects) but for a different purpose. As this is my final CG Arts project I want the topic to be something I enjoy and have interest in, which should also benefit the morale through the next weeks (As if working towards graduation isnt enough...)

I want to work on a historical piece, of which I'm not yet certain. The brief I want to create for myself is to artistically envision a past place, building or area based on historical accounts and art and link it to the modern day. I've been worried that this might seem a bit convoluted, hard to follow, but the target audience of the brief should be a good point to work to, knowing what sort of audience I am aiming the animation at. I think this idea would give me a good range of pipeline - from the research, to the style and concept through to quite a technical production stage and  in-depth post-production.

The closest examples of what I imagine are below. Firstly, something everyone is familiar with, the technical, education-based animated features which tend to be included in every history documentary and TV feature. These tend to focus on perceiving the locations in a very engineered and stream-lined way, giving the viewer a overview of how a place was built or how a battle was fought. An example is the one below, used for a History Channel documentary on Osama Bin Laden