Senior Thesis Film
In the Kitchen
Storyboarding
As part of my senior thesis, “In the Kitchen” is based on every memory I’ve made taking place in a kitchen. This is all based on a concept that we spent a lot of our time with our friends and family in a kitchen.
Script
In a place that shows pieces of the past
Of quiet footprints, memories that last
In a space so big or so small
Where time is the best ingredient of all
It’s where I grew up, in the warmth of the sun
Happy shared moments. Each little one
A dance, a song of familiar things.
Laughter soars. The new day brings
From accidents to disasters to something made new
In a place that’s a map to lead me back to you.
I wrote the poem intending to keep it generally vague but also easy to understand. Ideally, keeping everything in one line would make the VO easier to complete in a good amount of time.
Maintaining the same composition for strong unity was important for this story. Developing over 19 similar compositions would intensify the impact of the story. In order to achieve this, I played around with the scale, perspective, and camera angle of each scene.
Alternative Styles
The main inspiration for the style is a clean sleek design that still has an illustrative element. I experimented with different styles to discover which style would fit best with the tone of the story. Since I wanted something warm and empathetic, I stuck with the first experimental style.
Final Thoughts
In the future, I’m going to aim to avoid making constant changes to the design. Since the style I chose was based on Experiment 1 and the “Recipe” styleframe, I’ll simplify and finalize it earlier on.
Animation-wise, I will implement more opportunity match cuts on action for continuity.
Pacing Visual Study
Trying to hone down and develop the proper flow, I made sure that each scene highlighted an aspect of the whole (kitchen).
Refining Animation
With the compositions being static, adding motion to the scenes really brought the compositions to life.
My favorite scenes to animate were the ones where the rectangle composition was hidden in plain sight.