Re-imagining Narrative - The Bogeyman

Inrtroduction

The challenge of this brief is using only words to recreate the story of a mythical creature, Bogeyman. As in many cultures, it always used by adults to frighten the children into good behaviour. Therefore, the story is set up from a kid's point of view.

The story begins in the middle of the night. An opening door sound awakened the kid. He stayed under his blanket to keep out of harm while watching his parents were killed and dragged by the bogeyman into his room. He pretended to sleep, but he can't because he knew it was under his bed and waiting to strike.

The brief is to create a narrative that references fairy tales, myths, fables or legends (either ancient or modern) or urban myths, and to present them a new and innovative way.

As a designer, the rule of the brief is to use words only and explore the use of kinetic typography to present the story, as animation. I found an audio video on the youtube that inspire me to make the following scripts.

I heard the door open
like the terrified child i was
I peeked from under my blankets to see what was going on
I could see something dragging my dead parents into the room
he scribbled a message onto the wall and then positioned itself under my bed waiting to strike
I don’t want to look at it because it’s terrifying to think about
but i feel i need to see before i’m killed
I peek in the creatures masterpiece and it says
I know you are awake.

Therefore, I use a mythical creature, Bogeyman in many cultures used by adults to frighten children into good behaviour. I really think the bogeyman is a good idea to start with because it doesn’t have any specific appearance in the mind of an adult or child.

Research

When I have come up with an idea with the story of the bogeyman, I do some research on how I can approach this project with using the only type. I begin to look at artofthetitle.com where feature plenty of innovative and professional title sequence. From there, I discover a minimal title sequence for Spain's Typomad 2014 conference directed by Jeroen Krielaars from design studio Calango. He was interviewed, and he talks about the original concept behind the animation and how he developed the visual puzzle ideas. I was fascinated by his ways to distort, hide and reveal typography. It inspirated me to use toys as the object to approach on this project as it is generally a horror story for the kid. And the scripts are based on the childhood's precespective, so it might be a fun way to tell the narrative.

I also looked at some wooden toys for toddlers, some antique toys from 80s to 90s. I also found out the typeface used in ouji box are quite unique and it got its mystery taste on both graphics and typeface.

Sketch

I illustrate some toys to generate how I can use them as a communication tool to reveal the word. First of all, I think of some wooden alphabet blocks, lego, UNO cards, Rubik's cube, letters box and puzzle. Imagine those props are accidentally dropped from the shelf in the middle of a silents night, it will create a scary and spooky atmosphere in the whole scene.

Process

I use I.F.C. LOS BANDITOS BOLD FONT on illustrator and composition them into a sentence.

Then I transform them into an outline and import them to cinema 4D for building up some letters for those toys. I put some grain effects on lighting and shadow which present some spooky feeling. When I had built up all the asset for the animation in Cinema 4D, I tried to animate them using dynamic. I found out it is tough to control where the objects drop in the order. For the first part of the animation, it seems natural for the prop fall on the group, but when it contains dynamic in there, it will affect the others props position. I tried and rotated those blocks at the start point of falling and then put an invisible box for each word to place them into order. 

I end up making two part of the animation in Cinema 4D and then create genetic type in After Effects. I add a liquid effect, displacement map, chalk writing to make it look creepy. I like the ending scene with that fleshy type floating from the meat or brain. I know it is gosh, that's the reason why I put it at the end.

Evaluation

After this project, it makes me realised it takes a lot of time while using Cinema 4D to create animation. Even though it is enjoyable to modelling and experiment, it becomes harder when it comes to animation part, and indeed it takes longer to render video on a laptop. Nevertheless, I have learnt more shortcut and commend on this project in a way to faster my workflow.