Pendulum Design Principles Review and Proposal

1. The principles of design are key for any animation in order to make it more visually appealing and natural-looking. These principles include:

• Balance
• Formal balance is when the scene is almost identical on both sides. It creates a feel of stability and order for the audience.
• Informal balance is when the scene is different on each side, which creates a feel of dramatic tension and power imbalance for the audience.
• Emphasis
• This principle helps to emphasize a specific character, place, or object to the audience. 
• Framing is when some of the shot is more unfocused the further you get from the object of focus. This helps the audience discern what is important.
• Leading lines are when the lines in the scene lead into the object of focus. 
• Simplicity is when the background of the object of focus is largely uncomplicated in order to help the audience focus on what's important.
• Repetition
• This principle is the repetition of certain line shapes in the scene via objects or lighting in order to give the audience a specific impression of the scene. This can include curved lines, vertical lines, horizontal lines, and diagonal lines.
• Rhythm
• This is when your eye bounces from one like object to another.
• Proportion
• This is when some objects are made to look bigger or smaller in order to give the audience the impression that these objects are more or less important.
• Texture
• This is when the audience gets a certain impression for how an object feels based on how it looks. For example, a fuzzy blanket would look very different from a shining metal car.
• Unity
• This is when there are a lot of things that are the same, such as colors, shapes, textures, lines, forms, space, and values.
• Variety
• Variety is when some things are 'the same, but different;' a good example for this would be a bowl of MNMs.

2. I made some thumbnail sketches that I attempted to make in line with some of the principles of design:

3. I am going to use a majority of the designs in the upper left thumbnail for my final animation. First, I feel that a series of vertical lines will help the scene to feel more lofty and open as well as matching the vertical line of the doughnut tether.

Another thing I want to change that I included in the thumbnail is the walls. I feel as if I should add some in order to make the scene look more like a room in general instead of floating in an empty space with a bunch of cultists. I would like to add a sort of wall with a window or doorway through it that the cultists are looking through, so that the audience can still see their faces. I would also like to add a large floor made up of either a dark wood texture or perhaps a cobblestone texture with a rectangular hole in it. The hole is so the big monkey, In'myrr'zgg, may rise from the Abyss and consume the doughnut. (His gluttony will never be satisfied.)

Furthermore, I'd like to add a window to the left like I did in the thumbnail to supply lighting in this animation. I feel as if it is coming from a very general direction, and since I want this scene to look like a room, I'd like to add some sort of window (perhaps stained glass, which would be an example of texture, and it would contrast the dull textures in the rest of the scene! That would take a lot of time but I think it'd be worth it) that light would come through, so that the audience may view In'myrr'zgg's abhorrent face.

4. In my scene, I can think of several things I would like to change, but I listed a lot of them above.

I would like to change the perspective of the camera in order to create informal balance. I was thinking of going with a lower camera angle such as a worm's eye view in order to make the pendulum and the monkey look more intimidating. However, I also thought that doing a more bird's-eye type shot to give the audience a more lofty viewpoint and feel the horror as In'myrr'zgg rises from the shadows. This would represent how we, as an alternate universe without the creature, watch on idly from a comfortable position, because genuine concern for others is so rare these days.

For the colors in the scene, I wanted to use black and red as well as some minor tones of orange in order to create a warm lighting. I don't want to use too much lighting, though, or else it will not look ominous enough.

And last, I want to fix a light that flashed for no reason during the rendering of the animation, because it looked kind of weird, and I didn't mean to have it do that.