Planner: The Layout
Finalized Idea: Ballerina (Melody) and Mannequin (Paris) guardian spirits travel at midnight until morning
With a lantern, they visit worlds and bring other toy spirits, but along the way… they encounter evil masks/shadows that want the power of life for themselves ONLY. Paris will be taken captive! And Melody must leave her love and protect the source of life while the sun rises.
- Images to Capture:
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12:00 AM clock . . . shadows/pics of the piano, ballerina (Melody), and mannequin (Paris) sitting next to one another
- Cartoon sketch (spirits) of ballerina come to life with mannequin man
- Melody carries matches while Paris carries a lit lantern… starting to travel into the darkness
- Meets the villa of fairies first and collects flowers
- Next, meets the villa of the teddy bears and dances around
- Visits a galleria of portraits and paintings
- Has fun playing around with the different paints
- Comes in contact with a mermaid in a lagoon (bathroom)
- Captures reflection and light sparkles from water
- Paris turns around to see a happy, suspicious mask and nods to him: “Hello.”
Mask, happy at first, and then grows angry and turns around to leave
- Melody and Paris read by a fireplace and bring life to the birds
- Paris stands up and checks the time on the clock, seeing that it’s 5:30 AM
- Motions for Melody to come out and start heading back home.
- Start running/traveling back
- Shadows of masks follow them
- Paris and Melody turn around and see masks
- Irritated, Paris steps in front, hands Melody the lantern and gets ready to confront, hoping to make peace
- “only one can survive to save the other”
- Second Panel: The stubborn masks still seek after the source of power
- Paris (being dragged by the shadows) screams to teary-eyed Melody to run
Can’t save him because it’s almost dawn
- Doesn’t stop running with lit lantern, shows the time ticking down
Second Panel: Zoom into the sunlight peeking through the blinds nearly catching up to her
- Melody comes back to her piano/base and poses as she was
Second Panel: Zoom into her face crying
The Photography Behind the Works
For the background imagery in my project, I used my 10-year-old SONY ALPHA DSLR-A300/A350. In Photography 1 class, I studied a lot about the different ways of lighting fixtures, setting up my camera, and capturing a variety scenery. It was very eye-opening. In the class, I honestly thought taking it would just be a waste of time and wouldn’t teach me anything, but I was wrong. To this day, I still play around with my camera, as well as adjusting the ISO and the White Balance and the Shutter Speed. For my storybook, it was a great test on setting up scenes and playing with light and shadows to help bring more mood into the 15 images. I used different objects and explored other locations and different times of the day to set up the scenes in my house. After I had finished my first set of illustrations combined with the photos, I took a break to visit my grandmother’s house. Since I didn’t think to take my SONY DSLR, I used my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone camera to capture the variety of places that I could use for the background and more antiques for the next set of illustrations. In addition, I used my printer's scanner to scan my 3D objects that were mostly masks to add a dimensional feel for the pictures. The shadows from the scan helped to add the creepiness to the masks that are supposed to represent as shadow dwellers in the story.
Photography of a few Scenes & Scans
Full light exposure of antique angel clock.
