Hello, hello, hello. I’ve really got to keep on top of this blogging malarky. It’s just where I have really busy – I’ve got quite a few projects on the go at the moment.

Firstly, it’s the D&AD Brief. Still haven’t got much feedback from the tutors, but their reactions all the way through have been quite intrigued and really want to see what we do with it, because it is quite a complex idea. Friday, I presented AN-Civic in front of the tutors – including design tutor and animation tutor. My animation tutor gave some very good pointers, for example, maybe have the city destroyed by people inside? Which had lead to our new synopsis:

AN-Civic – Treatment

Synopsis:

AN-Civic is an organisation that has built it’s own city which is protected from any natural disasters, wars and nuclear attacks. They believe in the quatrains of Nostradamus, who predicts World War III and inevitably, the end of the world. Only those that pass ‘The Test’ will be allowed into the city, to live with other good, decent humans and live a life free from all of the negatives that are bestowed onto our current cities, such as crime, high cost of living and traffic. This is a metropolis that will continue to live until the end of days.

AN-Civic, is promoted through its’ own website, posters, leaflets, television commercials and the two heads of the organisation – Ms. Heslop and Ms. Wen, making speeches and conferences persuading everyone to live in the city.

The new city – also called AN-Civic (civic meaning city, and AN pronounced as ‘Aeon’ – meaning ‘eternity’) – has it’s own government, law system, health system, military, and all other systems, and is out of any other city’s and country’s jurisdiction. Once civilians move into the city, there is no more contact from them, and they’re not allowed to leave the city either – but everyone from outside the city doesn’t know this – as far as they know, their friends and family just do not want to be in contact with them anymore.

However, this increasing lack of contact and little information about what actually goes on in AN-Civic has lead to a group being made, which believes that AN-Civic is hiding a lot of information. A blog / forum, called ‘Who is AN-Civic?’, under the url of: www.whoisanc.wordpress.com allows people to tell everyone their stories of who has gone missing, any conspiracy theories, and some of which take it upon themselves to research and search for any incriminating documents. They find subliminal messages in the commercials and AN-Civic website too, which they point out.

One of the main leads to AN-Civic not being what it plays itself to be, is its’ link to the Cult of Nostradamus. The CON is widely known for its controversial ideas of narrow-mindedly believing Nostradamus’ predictions, living their life according to them and their ‘any means necessary’ attitude to this.

The city is allowed to continue – whether it be from the fact that the AN-Civic Organisation has access to trillions of pounds, or corrupt officials being part of the CON and, ultimately is involved with the ‘Ultimate’ city – but no one is sure as to why it is.

However, two people have taken it upon themselves to infiltrate the city and find out what is actually going on. Having lost contact with their younger brother, they decide to film their discoveries – discoveries of firstly, the ‘Those who enter must not leave’ policy (including those who did not pass ‘The Test’), secondly recordings of Ms. Heslop and Ms. Wen in talks with several high government officials about the deterioration of the city, and finally, what they see when they finally enter the city – fires, destruction, guns being fired and the civilians running amok.

They send this video to the police – but it gets disregarded – so then post it onto the Who is AN-Civic? Blog. This causes public outrage and the police have to take action, and investigate themselves and find that the information is correct.

Sky News is the first on the scene to report the arrest of Ms. Heslop and Ms. Wen. Ms. Heslop keeps on shouting about how she tried to create a ‘perfect city’ and how human’s are ‘just sick’ and are ‘doomed to destroy themselves’. She shouts about how even the best of people, succumb to human nature – greed, wanting of knowledge etc. – and that that is what destroyed the city. Ms. Heslop is then dragged into a police car. Sky News reporter talks about what lead to the investigation – including the documentary on the blog.

Concept:

We are creating this whole story in the real world. We are promoting AN-Civic as a real organisation and city, as well as the ‘Who is AN-Civic?’ group. We will be creating the websites and content for each – including commercials, posts, the documentary, paparazzi style photographs etc. We will also be talking to the public and getting them involved by doing the speeches etc, handing out leaflets and putting up posters.

The final piece to be given to D&AD will be the Sky News report – which, if they follow the links given – i.e. to the documentary and on the blog etc. – they will actually find it there, as well as the AN-Civic website, which is making the story be as real as it can be. The Sky News report will also be uploaded onto places like YouTube, Facebook, Myspace etc. to get more people involved and make them believe that this is happening / has happened and get them involved.

The overall message to this project is to show people that it is Humans that are destroying cities and inevitably themselves.. One can group together the best of people, get rid of the bad and give them the best conditions to live, yet it is human nature to destroy itself, be it for greed, the need for learning and knowledge, or just that ‘off day’ that can lead to an argument, a fight or severe depression.

AN-Civic tried to group the best people together and give them the best conditions, but it was human nature that destroyed the city which had good intentions behind it. The story is created to immerse the viewer into the world, and hopefully make them realise to a new depth about humans as a whole.

So yeah, my tutors seem to be quite happy with the concept, just worried that it is quite ambitious. Esteban asked me if I think it fits the brief, to which I replied “Yeah! Of course!”. He just laughed about how confident I am lol… So yeah, Ni and I have lots of work to do, but I am confident that we will do it – if we work hard, then I think it will be quite a strong project.

Secondly, I have an animation brief on at the moment too – I’m not too sure when it is due in though, which I must check. It is based on memories, has to be between 30 and 45 seconds, and we have to create the sound before animating. I want to do a simple black and white drawn animation of ‘The problems with getting older”. An old woman is jumping up and down in front of a mirror which is on the wall, but because she has shrunk in her old age, she has to jump to see herself. However, as she is jumping up and down, her saggy boobs bounce up and down and eventually hit her in the face. In mid-air, she pees her self due to incontinence, and slips on it when she lands on the floor, causing her hip to break and she hits the floor. Her false teeth fall out and is left laying on the floor with two black eyes.

You may be wondering what this has got to do with memories as it hasn’t happened to me yet. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was round my gran’s and I walked into the passage and found my gran jumping up and down to see in the mirror – and when I asked her “Gran?! What the hell are you doing?!” she replied “It’s my age Tone, when you get older you shrink and all I can see is the top of my head in the mirror….”

Third, today, my MI group got given a live project by MTV to create a 20 second ident based on “Summer x1000”. It’s not a competition as such, because they just said that if our ident is good, then they will air it though out summer and include our named on it too. So I’ve just got to make it good! It’s amazing how many legalities there are though – no commercial music, no one famous, no public shots etc. etc. – all because they will get sued. You can’t even use famous landmarks or anything because of copy issues. It’s actually quite ridiculous.

Anyway, I have to have a mood board / story board / script ideas for Monday 15th February, where I will be pitching to the Director of MTV, the Art Director, two Senior Produces and the Creative Manager at the MTV studios in Camden. There are also job opportunities too for when we leave Uni if they like us enough. Which is just A-MAZE-ING. Like wow.

So I better come up with something good then eh! 🙂

Las but not least, I’m currently uploading the introduction to my new monthly blogcast that I will be doing. It’s taking ages because the internet connection is slow. It’s nothing special, and the opening credits are just there for the moment. I will post once it has uploaded. The first actual blogcast is due on the 1st of February which is this Monday – so I better get my arse into gear 🙂

Ciao for now!