Things we got, thing's we've not

Got:

• Stop Motion Camera (2 - Emily and Jonathan)
• Green Screen Room (KI Dept)
• Wood Shop (2 - Sculpture and Daigle)
• Metal Shop (Sculpture)
• Sound Recording Room (KI)
• Animation Studio (VisArt Center)
• Sewing machine (2 - Ha, Emily, and we can probs borrow 2 more - Mama Herr, Leah)
• Industrial Sewing Machine (Sculpture)

Not (yet!):

• Instruments for theme and topical music!
• Quality video camera - hound MK, KI, etc. 

The Worlds in Imaginauts

Because the Imaginauts are traveling inside and interacting with paintings, we need to make sets for where they travel (obv). The ImagiNATION is a place where paintings and artists can interact with each other and the scenery blends multiple artistic styles together. The paintings and artists are ghettoized, so paintings by one artist are generally found near or around each other, and paintings and artists with similar styles tend to be geographically located near to one another as well.

There are certain hot spots that are popular for characters from paintings to hang out. Famous paintings are celebrities and hot spots within the ImagiNATION. Think of the Mona Lisa as someone who would be like Madonna in pop culture.

To make each world a little distinct, we should use specific colors to differentiate them. I bet Rococo would be pink and pastel green! Also, how the world is depicted depends on the style of the paintings that exist in it.

The Imaginauts Aesthetic

1. Simple
2. Flat colors, with simple textures (possibly created by stamps!)
3. Bright colors (usually) with white for contrast and minimal black
4. Obviously handmade, we are not machines!

Characters of the ImagiNATION

So our show has two main characters, a boy and girl duo, as of yet unnamed. We've decided that the girl should specialize in history and the boy in art. Within the show, their physical form changes, but their 3D puppets are their "true" selves. If they are in a certain painting, the aesthetics of the painting world they enter alters their physical appearance, but they still retain some obvious physical features that distinguish them as our beloved main characters. <3

There will be several other characters in the show too, like the artists they talk to, the characters in the paintings, and the individuals having creativity issues. Alongside them are other characters (imaginauts??) that help out our duo. 

One possible character:

Name: General Aesthetics

Age: 50s - 60s

Bio: Civil war general with an eye for visual cohesiveness! Mustache! White horse!

Imaginauts Manifesto

We are a group of people underneath the name of the Imaginauts, attempting to produce a show that we hope will influence our viewers in a positive way. But what does that mean? If someone looked at our About Us page, what would it say?

If we want to be successful in our mission, we should probably organize our goals and beliefs around some central themes, so that we're sure our show becomes what we want it to be.

Winnie the Pooh

Forget the Disney version--I'm talking about the original text by A. A. Milne and the illustrations by Ernest H. Shepherd. I recently found a copy of the complete stories in my house, and I think that it's a great resource for us.

More Excellent Color

Rice Boy by Evan Dahm is an epic webcomic, as is Tiny Kitten Teeth by Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson. Both use bright colors really well, particularly to emphasize the different moods of different locations/events/characters. (In Tiny Kitten teeth, I'm talking more about the storyline pages than the random single-panel paintings of Tigabuttah & co. You'll see what I mean if you follow the link :)

Examples after the jump.

Yo Gabba Gabba

So, until about three minutes ago, I had never seen Yo Gabba Gabba and only knew about it from you guys talking about it (so I guess everyone else has seen it, right?) From what I just looked at it is obviously really excellent, and there's some things they did that I think we could learn from. (You who know more about it could probably add to this list)

-Seamless incorporation of live video and animation (and several different kinds of animation at that)

-Simple but fun/colorful sets (looks just like what I was picturing when I commented on Ha's color post - our style could (should?) be simple, bright shapes made more interesting by adding texture, in our case via stamps.) http://yogabbagabba.com/#/come-out-and-play

-Having an online presence - okay so our whole thing is that we're gonna post these one youtube/vimeo, but we should make Imaginauts accounts on all those sites (facebook? vimeo? myspace? classmates.com?) if not an actual website (errrr too hard?) and design an Imaginauts logo / title that pops up at the beginning of the show (you know what I mean.)

-Maybe this is beyond our means, but should we have songs IN the show? maybe one song (besides opening/closing themes) per show about whatever that show's theme is? I think a lot of kids shows have that...

I love the way William Kentridge describes "finding" images in the studio. This is sort of an overview of his work, if you have an hour to kill.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/specials/anythingispossible/watch-now/

theme song brainstorming!

apparently you cant upload mp3 files to blogspot? so go to this link and download!

http://www.mediafire.com/?6mxrvmhxzqxufc9

So I wrote this the other night when a tune popped in my head, the lyrics are simple and generic because we don't know the specifics yet.

I daydream every day
Cuz pictures always have something to say
We're travelling far away
And all things change as time goes by
Let's open up our eyes
Imaginauts!

So this is just and idea. What do you think for the actual theme song? Lyrics or no lyrics? Should we wait until we can write more specific lyrics? Were you thinking a different kind of style/sound? Instruments?? Can you find theme songs from other tv shows that you like?