I am thinking about these posts again
I think Eddie must have wandered too far from the neighborhood or went out at night. Both have been implied not to be safe.
But Wally found him and fixed him?
Or perhaps brought him to Home to be fixed
And That just leads me to my theory that Wally MADE all of his neighbors. (He did definitely create Barnaby)
He created them because he was lonely? Because the show ended?
Wally knows how to create life and to fix them. Its possible that he created the entire world, as he knows it. (An artist to the extreme!)
or recreated it perchance, Im leaning to that possibility
So here is my Theory: Welcome Home was a normal show, but then Wally began to gain sentience. Starting to act "off-script"
This spread to the other neighbors and they started to have "forbidden knowledge" as well.
I actually think Eddie was next. I think Wally sent him out with letters to try and figure out what was beyond their world. (The letters that he restoration team had found)
And by extension, Frank must be next, merely from being so close to Eddie.
But when the producers found strange happenings, they pulled the plug. Erasing Wally's world and everything he knew and loved.
But somehow he still remains. Recreating his world, His friends, and still trying to reach YOU.
I've just got a lot of thoughts on this whole thing. And i do actually have a theory folder full of images that i am putting through filters and trying to find secrets. i am on the trail!
Ok so I decided to make a whole new post because this gets pretty long winded. (I tag this stuff with #longtextpost for blocking)
Anyways, here is my official analysis and reconstruction of
Balan Wonderworld:
(Which should be Balan Wonderland for rhyming purposes)
Oh god, this got really long, um here is a cut:
First off, allow me to say that I did love the "pop-up" feeling of the game a whole lot. I want to keep that, and the doors. Controls and some of the graphics will need to be fixed. By graphics I mean, make things a bit more stylized and not try so hard to be realistic because it did not look like it belonged in the world of whimsy. I also really loved the "stage" bits and honestly the game had a lot of VERY GOOD POTENTIAL and lovely themes, but it was just lost and muddied with the way it was executed. So I'm just going to RECONSTRUCT the entire thing!
Ok so Balan is kidnaping two children, a boy and a girl, and I want them to be both playable, kind of like being able to switch between the two characters or two players because both of their stories will be important. (I'm going to change their stories completely) Also I would keep all of the people, their stories and their bosses. (except maybe we don't show them getting resolved, but this is for later) (also those doofy dance scenes can be cut too)
This game is all about emotions and coping with three major "Bad Feelings" Anger, Sadness and Fear
And most of the "side people" can be grouped into these three worlds, but I feel like putting them in order of intensity will flow better for the story. (like showing a farmer loosing his entire crop, then showing some dude loosing chess, it pretty much makes the chess player look silly and invalidates him. but putting them in order will stress the different levels of emotion)
Before I go into these level, I must bring about a very special element to the game. Bottles. This is what Balan is going to provide to the children to defeat the bosses. In order to defeat them, they will have to fight them down and then Bottle them up!
I had a few moments where I had a bit of a hard time placing people in categories, but I chose what I chose to make it perfectly even.
3 worlds, 5 levels each
I also involved the children and changed their stories.
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Ok World 1 (Anger)
(For story elements, the main player will be Leo, and player 2 or the computer will be Emma)
- Level 1. Irritation
-This is the chess guy. He's obviously the first case. He's mad because he lost a chess game and his championship.
-Level 2. Frustration
-The boy who is trying to invent the Airplane. He keeps failing and is obviously angry and frustrated with himself.
-Level 3. Anger
- The woman who is upset about the city taking over nature, I almost placed her in sadness, but I felt like the emotion was toward the construction workers, so she got placed into anger
-Level 4. Rage
- The farmer lost all of his land and hard work. Just weeks of labor and even he may depend on that for finances. He is furious at the storm that caused it
-Level 5. Fury
- Here is where we bring in one of the main protags. The Boy; Leo
*His story is that he lost his parents in a car accident He is now in an orphanage and he is coping with his loss with anger. To the point of obsessed fury at the driver who killed his parents and ruined his life.
-The boss is on the other side of a door, symbolizing that you must initiate having to face and defeat your own emotions
-His boss is a representation of anger itself, I had pictured a very fire powered frog (fused with a car??) with perhaps a very loud sound shockwave (anger- screaming) That you would have to cover or tape his mouth in order to weaken him. (Silencing your rage, holding it in) And then of course, getting a big bottle, in order to bottle him away
This is all shown in celebration, like we did it! We beat them! We captured the bad guys!! We stopped them! :'>
--We are also going to get introduced to Lance here. An evil bad guy who tries to stop the kids from capturing the bosses and insist that they give into them, Let them take over you! So maybe a mini battle happens here, to where he escapes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So moving onto World 2: Sadness
(For story elements, the main player will be Emma, and player 2 or the computer will be Leo)
-Level 1. Somberness
-This is the old man who is sad because nobody notices his hard work and they just trash the street anyways.
-Level 2. Melancholy
-This is the artist who fell into an art run and just cant seem to find the inspiration she needs to make art :'(
-Level 3. Sadness
-The girl who was almost accidentally killed by her dolphin friend. She is really upset about this, Almost like being betrayed by a dear friend
-Level 4. Grief
-This is the girl who lost her cat. Not only that, but she feels as if it is her fault that her pet got hit by a car :'(
-Level 5.
-Now this is the other main protag, the Girl; Emma.
*Her story is that she grew up with her grandmother. What happened to her parents is unknown, but her Grandmother is all she had in the world. She lost her to sickness, as we see her being taken from the hospital to go live in the orphanage (Yup, the same one, you may realize where I'm going with this already. )
-The boss is on the other side of a door, symbolizing that you must initiate having to face and defeat your own emotions
-Her boss is some sort of creature (I couldn't decide, but perhaps fused with doctor equipment like IVs) That cant stop crying, and uses lots of water attacks. You defeat it with a special sleeping potion that makes it fall asleep and allows you to weaken it
(Ignoring or using substances to dull your sadness)
Now comes World 3: Fear
--Once again we are met with Lance who tells us that we are fools and that we are only prolonging our doom, that it will get worse, ect...
and again he has a little mini battle and escaping again
-The bug girl is a little paranoid that nobody likes her and that nobody will like her because of her 'strange' interest.
-Level 2. Anxiety
-This is the clown boy who is simply too nervous to confess his love to the girl at the amusement park.
-Level 3. Fear
-The fireman has to go into the fire and is experiencing genuine fear. Maybe he will die, maybe he wont be able to save the victims. That's very scary to have to literally jump into fire!
-Level 4. Dread
- This is the woman who lost her parents and shut herself away from her lover. Far too afraid to let herself love again, even though her fiancé is trying to be there for her
Now here is where things get interesting, who's world is this? Well as you get closer to this final boss. The final door. Balan starts to drop his act. He starts acting really nervous.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But then Lance appears. This time he seems determined more than ever. He tried to warn them.. Suddenly the bottles that hold Leo's and Emma's monsters break and they come out looking meaner and bigger and badder than before! He tried to tell you that you couldn't bottle them, they only get stronger... but Balan knew this... didn't he?
Balan is looking really nervous right about now and he should be because Lance is going to reveal his little secret. This world is Balan's world. The Monster behind the door is his. He tried to bottle it many times but it grew too powerful, so he sealed it away behind the door. Not only that but he spied upon helpless human beings trying to pick out the most miserable of them all to train them to fight and capture monsters in hopes that they would fight his battles for him.
But that doesn't work, that never works!
Lance goes on to say the only way is to let them in, to take over, to control you, to possess you.. just as he has done...
Here, he absorbs both of the monsters from the children and here he becomes the Big Boss
-To defeat him, you must separate his components away from him. Once you separate the components. You can't attack them or they will just keep going. In the battle, you just have to endure long enough for them to wear themselves out. To get it all out.
Once you defeat Anger, Leo will hug it and it will turn docile
Once you defeat Sadness, Emma will hug it and it will turn docile
But you will not be able to defeat Lance. Leo and Emma will be defeated.
Balan will have been cowering the entire time but there will be a button saying "Don't Give Up" and you will have to push it several times in a dramatic fashion in order to unlock playing as Balan!
Balan will have powers of light and you will have to strike your light onto Lance as quickly and often as you can!
When you defeat Lance, Balan looks at Leo and Emma and their tamed monsters, There are two doors that look ready to be open. Then he picks Lance up and hugs him
This triggers a huge Flashback!
The Flashback shows them as silhouettes in photos, like a scrapbook. They appear to be growing up together, Brothers..
And then you see an image of Balan laying flowers on a bridge,
Him sitting with his back against his front door,
Vines grow around his house signifying that he never left his home ever again
He goes as far to board up his front door
but then he starts to build.. He starts remaking changes to his door, science and magic are not even at question in this point
Time is going by, pages fall from the calendar, the vines engulf the house
The door is complete....
The Flashback ends and there stand Balan and Lance. But Lance's form has now changed, he looks human!
Lance explains through vague dialogue. "I'm sorry .. I left.. but It was because I let the monster consume me... I..." He points at the doors. "The children are ready to go back... but you must open your own door, nobody can open it but you"
Balan looks at his door, but it hasn't changed, Its big and its dark and its looming. He reaches a hand but there is something thrashing and banging against the door trying to get out! Balan is shaking, you can hear his heart racing in his chest. The door is deafening and is starting to crack. Lance tries to be at Balan's side, but it is too late. The Door bursts open and the Darkness Consumes Balan.
-Ultra-Balan-
The Final Battle
Ok so here we are. Fear has possessed Balan and turned him into the ultimate Boss fight. You will now have your tamed emotions to help you in battle.
Anger and Sadness, they will have turned into Venting and Relief
You will need both of their powers to get you through Balan's first two phases, but the 3rd will be undefeatable.
SO now what? Remember how I said that we would not be showing the redemption of the people you met along the way? Well here they are and now its time. They all release their bottles and embrace their monsters, changing them!
When they embrace their monsters, each person now goes through their resolve in their life and shows how they got through their traumas!!
The now-tamed Monsters all band together to created one giant dome of light that completely surrounds everything!
And when the light settles, there is Balan, looking very different. He still has his hat over his face, but he lifts it to reveal his very human face. He has tears just rolling down his face.
The kids hug him and the people cheer. They start to disappear as if they were never there, leaving only the brothers and the kids.
Balan looks at their doors and with a sentimental goodbye, sends them back to their world.
His door awaits him, now calm as ever. He knows that he must go through. Lance holds his hand as he opens the door.
Its the outside of his home.. just his same front door, just as he left it.
He steps through and pauses. His hand holding onto Lance's
Lance nods with tears in his eyes, he knows he can not follow
Balan must.. let him go
Balan lets go of his hand and walks through the door
The outside world is awaiting him.. its quiet and he turns around to look into his home, but its just his normal home. Just as he had left it
He shuts the door behind him .. and decides he will go for a walk today
Now here is where the credits role as he is walking down the street. He passes by people that look very familiar to him. He waves and laughs with the people on the street and he goes along. He's happy to see how much they have made friends with each other as well!
He keeps walking until he reaches a building, the Orphanage. He knocks and for a moment there is no answer. But then the door slams open and Leo and Emma leap out and embrace him as they know they have found a new home!!
It zooms out and into the sky, the credits finish
The end
This connects all three of them. They all experienced loss in some form. Each of them went thought a different coping emotion. But the morale of our story being that you can't bottle them or hide them away. But you also cannot let them consume you. You must face your battles and learn to cope with your emotions
Though Balan and Lance are first introduced as "Good and Evil" It comes to pass that they are both wrong in their extremist way of dealing with problems and that they were just as lost as the kids were. In the end, they all helped each other ;w;
I really really hope you enjoyed reading all of this if you did.
Let me know if you would have added/changed any of this!
I always knew it for someone who was like erratic or prone to be hyped up easily or maybe just rambling on incoherently. So I used it as my chat tag cause I can be that way haha.
Im not gonna go edit all my tags cause Tumblr is a mess and that's a lot to deal with
But from now on, my talk tag will be
Hmmmm
#JazzJambles
I try not to share my random thoughts or post a lot of text because I'm the kind of person who doesn't like to see a lot of text on my dash. So I like to have a consistent tag so ppl can block it
I also do tag #longtextpost in case I really want to reblog a very rare text post that I like.
Okay, so I really need to talk about BAMF Daddy Pluto. A while ago, my family went to an observatory on vacation where we learned about the discovery of Pluto. The thing is, that a really long time ago, a scientist named Lowell discovered Neptune and knew that there was a planet near it, though he didn't know the location--Planet X. Except that finding a planet is uber hard. Like, taking a photo of a section of sky and putting it through a machine to see if a single dot flickers or not (planets move and don't flicker, stars do.) for each dot in each photo, hard. This takes literal HOURS of staring through a telescope and collecting frames of multiple sections. The hunt for Pluto was worked on for years and then shelved, but resumed in 1929. That's when young Clyde Tombaugh came in. He was a farm boy from Kansas, hired basically as a custodian at the Lowell Observatory. This man had zero education but charted the night sky on his own. He built MULTIPLE of his own telescopes because of what a perfectionist he was. When he was hired, the scientists at the observatory handed off the project to him. After hours and hours of work, Clyde discovered Pluto. He went on to fight in WW2 go to college, and meet his future wife. But wait, there's more! As time went on, more planets were discovered in what we now know is the Kuiper belt, like Ares, etc. Problem was, there were over ten of these planets, and who wants to make elementary kids memorize all those? So revisions had to be made. To boot these planets, the new requirement to be classified as a planet was that it had to be able to be big enough to pull pieces of debris into its own orbit. Thus, Pluto and others of the Kuiper belt were classified as dwarf planets. No problem, right? Except for the fact that by these revised standards, if they were surrounded by as much debris as those in Kuiper, only TWO PLANETS IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM ARE ACTUAL PLANETS. It annoys me that Pluto is just as underestimated as its daddy was. It's long and you should probs check my facts, but I know that tumblr is a Pluto supporter and thought the story should be told.
I honestly think of her at an uncountable times since the last day. I always wonder why? Because I don't want to give meanings for these thoughts anymore. I want to escape the mere thought of having her back, because what's true is that we're over. And there's no assurance that we'll be able to regain that sturdy treatment and closeness for each other. But no matter how much I refuse to ... Sometimes I still laugh and crazily smile whenever I remember subconsciously all that we've had. I'm still hooked and attached to the situation. I still feel the galaxies and stars, whenever she tries to approach me. You know, the warmth and happiness mixed up. Longing to know you have someone with you like before.
This was a Saturday and we had our weekly worship service. After the worship service, we (me, Kuya Roi, Patrick and Kuya Arjay) left together. We were talking in person then, btw. It was awkward at first because I felt like I knew him in such a deep level but I didn’t know him in a less deeper level which made talking in person weird. After a lot of teasing and bullying, we got comfortable with each other. Anyway, the four of us walked together and they accompanied me until I got home. We hung outside my house for a little while and they (Patrick and Kuya Arjay) had me confessing to Kuya Roi that I had a crush on him during our YE. That was almost two years ago, I said it was just a crush and that it’s no big deal now. I’m pretty sure he was flattered. I lied, I was starting to really like him, not just as a crush. All those deep conversations and teasing/bullying made me like him. Ha ha!
Then bad vibes hit me when someone texted me. It was a guy/suitor whom I’ve rejected countless times but still won’t quit. I got really annoyed and then they told me to let that suitor come to my house so they would teach the guy a lesson. I rode along but warned them no violence. Ha ha! They came up with a plan. The plan was that one of them was supposedly my boyfriend. Patrick wanted to be my “boyfriend” but Kuya Arjay insisted and teased me for Kuya Roi. So when my suitor came, Kuya Roi sat next to me. like really close, and he gave me something. It was a keychain from Subic. First, I thought it was probably for someone else and he was just giving it to me for show, but he turned it over and it had my name on it. ‘Twas really meant for me. (*kilig*) Then, he held my hand to make my suitor jealous and he succeeded, that guy got mad. I didn’t care, I got butterflies in my stomach. His hands were so soft and gentle. He was only faking it but I didn’t care. He held my hand. That was the first time he held my hand. After a while, my ex-suitor got tired of feeling stupid and left. I thanked them for the company and everything else, and they left a little after my ex-suitor did. I also apologized because it was already dark but they said it was okay.
That was it. That was the day he became my fake boyfriend and he first held my hand.
So I have finished my movie!
(Not actually, I still need to go through sound and colour but I am finished with the "production" part of it... so I have a lot of renders.)
But for the purposes of this blog post I AM DONE!
So I thought I would go through and do a reflection of what I learned in this process. The pitfalls and triumphs that went into the production of my F3. A post-Mortem... well I guess it's just a mortem. Anyways...
THE SUCCESSES
"If you wanted the easy road you should have gone to Harvard Law." - Ron Honn
I'll start with the good stuff. I definitely learned a ton about my own personal work habits over this process. It was extremely satisfying for me to have stayed on schedule over the course of the project. Even with major setbacks and story revisions I managed to stay on schedule and still produce work to the quality I wanted, it ain't perfect but it is still mine.
I have found that I am a quick worker, and I think that is my greatest skill. I can move and power though an assignment quickly and produce a lot of revisions in a short amount of time. While this definitely leads to some overlooked details, I think this is a good way to work and I am happy that it is a trait I possess. (That's a Job interview answer) I like to think of it as a sort of Minimum Viable Product. I get as much done as fast I can so I can get notes more quickly, thus less time is spent moving in an unnecessary direction. It applies less to my own creative work, but it is still something I try to do.
Another big success I've had is in the collaboration I have had with my fellow artists. From the beginning I have enjoyed going over revision and revision with my wonderful art director Susan over the design of everything in my world, from the characters to the environment. Her awesome skill has been instrumental in giving my film the aesthetic which I love so so much. But I also had a wonderful experience working with my co-animator, Victor. He just latched on to the style I wanted right away and blew me away with the quality and quantity of work he put out. Originally he was only slated for two shots but wound up hitting five (~60% of my whole movie!) and had a strong influence on how I tackled my own shots. And finally I worked with a phenomenal Lighting and Comp team of Justin, Austin, and Collin. They contributed so much to my movie and took the challenges I assigned to them in great stride, producing wonderful work and further pushing the aesthetic of my film.
And finally, I think the biggest success I had was that I really had fun through the whole process. Sure it wasn't all peaches and cream, but I really am happy and I made a fun happy movie and I had a good time creating this piece with my classmates. It was fun and I think that is the most important aspect, because if we aren't having fun then why would we be here in the first place?
THE FAILURES
"If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs." - Steven Universe
So onto the less fun parts. Of course it didn't go perfect. There were many a dailies I left wanting to just curl up in a ball and cry. But it ain't easy, and that is the fun part. So on with the death march of sadness...
I have an issue with basic story structure. I would love to blame watching too many Linklater films, but I know my downfalls definitely don't stem from an excess in creative skill. My initial F3 failed from basic story issues and I again ran into this issue while in the MIDDLE of production on this project. When I had to go for that big story revision I fell right back onto the same basic dramatic questions. Who is my character? What does he want? Where is the conflict? etc... I emerged from the pits of reworking the story with a stronger film, I think, but it is something that I am determined to not let happen again.
I had a big issue whenever I received notes. I was confident enough in my vision to know when notes were really off the scale or right on the money, but my problems came with the notes that might work. Because at that point it was an issue of decision making. Spending the time. Risk vs. Reward. These were the ideas that I was afraid of not implementing. I have a hard time saying no and I feel like I am offending someone when I don't take their notes. Saying no is a hard thing.
This goes into my biggest issue of confidence. I have never ever ever considered myself an artist. I have always loved making short movies and learning VFX, but I had never (and this might sound dumb) realized that these were real art forms. Like, real art. And maybe that was because I was an Astrophysics Major until I applied to the film school, but I have never been an artist in my life. So now I am surrounded by these wonderful and creative and passionate and talented individuals who just love the art. True artists, and that makes me incredibly intimidated and self conscious. So it is always a struggle for me to try and stay confident in my own vision when I have other people who I assume are far more creative than myself giving constant input. A blessing and a curse because again, I love being surrounded by all these wonderful talented people but I just absolutely loathe them for how incredibly talented they are. So something I really need to get better at is confidence, and I think it will greatly help my own growth both as an artist and as a person.
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So obviously there is far more that I learned in this massive undertaking of crafting an animated short. But I feel that these things are really the key lessons I have taken away and they are what my mind turns towards when I think of my successes and failures.
So moving into my Thesis I am more confident in my abilities and I will for sure be able to foresee problems and course correct before any Icebergs are hit... hopefully.
