Project II Proposal - What Does Reality Mean to You?

CONCEPT - WHAT DOES REALITY MEAN TO YOU? The concept for this project stems from the information I have sorted through and collected for my thesis. This animation has to do with the information I collect from a survey I created and distributed through the internet Facebook and email lists). This method of distribution worked well last year for my pilot study, and I collected responses from 57 people. However, the web site Kwiksurveys, which hosted the survey, had a server crash and lost all of my data. Last week I sent out a new link to the new SurveyMonkey survey. Before I posted the survey, I listed a link to my video from the last project - Reality, Defined. This is intended to help get the survey-taker thinking about these subjects. The survey asks 6 questions (3 demographic, 3 philosophical open-ended essay questions): 1. Please choose your age group 2. What best describes your occupation or field of study? 3. How often do you watch movies? 4. How are some ways in which people perceive reality in the present day (This can be influenced by technology and circumstance, for example)? 5. What does reality mean to you? Define the word "reality" - what it means to you in simple terms. 6. Describe the reality you see or do not see in current films. Do you see any trends towards realism or are films moving away from it? Explain. (You can use your own definition of "reality" here or a new one). Here is a link to the survey

The questions are intentionally left ambiguous and open-ended so the survey-taker can go off on tangents about their own thoughts and opinions on the subject. The survey is well-underway and does not need IRB approval (Maria and I inquired about that). The intended audience is anyone and everyone. I think most of the responses, however, will be young people around my age who use the internet, because I used a Facebook event and sent the link out to current grad students at OSU via email as a method of distribution. The answers from last year’s survey were varied but had interesting repeating trends within the answers, so I decided that once I collect all the new data I can use the answers to create a framework and narrative for my new animation. This will be dependent on the repeating answers, as well as the interesting outliers. One unique example, for instance, consists of a user talking about how drugs influence reality in the present day, and how films such as Fight Club psychologically explore reality in a much more intriguing way than other films. These kinds of answers are great for creating a narrative piece which will then translate over to a larger thesis film for next year. I intend for this version to be an exploratory piece, and next year’s film to be lengthier and included more information. The basic concept for this research is that I want to establish a dialog about the ways in which society perceives reality, since every individual can perceive reality differently. I would also like to sprinkle in information about how films portray reality, considering technology in film has really altered perceptions of what reality looks like - and also has altered people’s expectations.

Examples/Inspiration I am enamored with the style of the animation in this soil video. It is simple, with stylized low-poly objects that create an interesting dichotomy between 3-Dimensions and 2-Dimensions. This play on dimensions feeds into my concept of various forms of reality, and might be a little easier to texture and model given the time frame we have for this project. My project will not have a character, however, because I want the viewer to be experiencing the reality I talk about firsthand. I also would like to have richer textures - maybe created with paintings I make.

Examples/Inspiration This is a still from a style test animation I created based on a painting I made as a BFA student called Untitled. It uses 3D objects composited with painted layers. I am thinking about combining hand-created textures with animation.