Thesis proposal

Inspiration and reference

My final project, which describes a story about death and love. It’s a first-person animated experience that tells a special story about love and freedom through the eyes of a cat. The core issue I needed to think about this time was how to use UE5’s lighting and camera movements to tell an emotional story. How to effectively use these tools to transform inanimate pixels and polygons into an emotionally moving medium. The sheer power of the technology can sometimes overshadow the artistic intent, leaving the audience with a visually stunning but emotionally hollow experience.

Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly uses an extremely subjective perspective to explore emotion. The film’s distorted, fish-eye-like shots express the protagonist’s physical confinement and cognitive impairment. It uses unsettling visuals to convey inner turmoil, creating a stark contrast with the protagonist’s calm or even painful inner monologue (Schnabel, 2007). This unique method of transmitting emotion through visual “limitation” and “distortion” offers a new perspective for CG creators, proving that emotional expression can be achieved not only through grand scenes but also through specific visual treatments.

In this session, the speaker demonstrated how to create a more atmospheric look in images, which was very helpful for me.

Regarding the story itself, I was deeply moved by this short film. It’s very simple, with no complex scenes or special effects; it’s just a person giving a speech, and the true meaning of the story is revealed only in the last few seconds.

Concep of the final project

We’ve focused on creating stunning visuals with beautiful lighting and sound, rather than complex character movements. At first, you’ll feel like you’re watching a human’s daily life at home, with the main character seeming like a responsible family member. But as the story unfolds, some strange feelings and odd sounds will slowly creep in, making you wonder if something isn’t quite right.

Eventually, you’ll realize you’ve been seeing the world through the eyes of an incredibly smart and caring orange cat. The film builds to a dramatic moment when the cat’s quest for freedom leads to an accident. Yet, it’s not the end. The short takes an emotional turn, showing its consciousness move beyond its body, as it offers a final, loving goodbye to its human family.

This project aims to show that true wisdom, love, and the desire for freedom can exist in ways we often overlook, inviting you to reflect on the deep connections and inherent value of all lives.

Critical Reflection

My final project is a short CG story, created in Unreal Engine 5, that tells a narrative of death and freedom from a pet’s perspective. The core aim of this work is to explore animal emotions and their perception of mortality. In the initial stage of story development, I spent a significant amount of time considering how to portray these complex feelings. It was a major challenge to build an emotional story from a cat’s viewpoint, a task far more difficult than a human-centric narrative. 

I studied numerous films and games with a first-person animal perspective. While most of these works use traditional methods of expression, such as extensive hand or scene animations to keep the frame engaging and lively, this approach presents a significant hurdle for me due to my lack of expertise in animation. I had to find a way to circumvent this technical limitation. This seemed like a daunting task until I discovered the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The film’s use of visual distortion to create an immersive first-person perspective, with a beautiful yet painful underlying tone, was a perfect match for what I wanted to achieve. This discovery provided a viable solution to my creative dilemma. 

Moving forward, my next step is to begin building the scenes and bringing my ideas to life. I will use the principles I’ve learned to validate the feasibility of this unique method of emotional expression. This project is not just a technical exercise; it’s a personal journey to prove that emotional storytelling can be achieved through innovative visual techniques, even without relying on traditional animation methods.