Chapter 311 Angry Aurora
Pedrarruna Manor, Elffire City.
"Bye, Michele!" Aurora said with a smile as she entered the house through the walk-in gate.
The silver-haired girl had just come from the school where she spent the day doing the final exams.
So, it was safe to say she was more tired than usual.
Aurora entered the downhill cabin and immediately pressed the elevator door button.
Every day she did the same thing.
She entered the elevator and observed the city through the projection on the elevator walls.
She didn't know how much her brother spent in this elevator, but it was one of the favorite things in their house.
She loved how realistic the projections were.
Some time ago she posted a storie on her Raingran account of this view, and everyone was amazed by it. 𝗳𝘳𝐞e𝙬𝙚𝚋𝗻𝚘𝚟𝗲l.𝑐𝑜m
After all, they didn't know any place in Elffire City where it was possible to see the city like that.
A while later, the elevator doors opened and Aurora entered her house.
She didn't even have to ask where her brother was, she knew exactly where he was, so she immediately headed in his direction.
Shortly after, Aurora arrived at the animation studio and saw her brother working.
He was still wearing the same clothes he was in the morning, and Aurora was sure that he hadn't stopped working even for a second since she left for school.
She could not help but worry when she realized that.
"Big Brother?" Aurora asked when she saw that he didn't notice her arrival.
Theo was suddenly taken by surprise when he heard a sweet voice coming from behind him, but he could not help but smile when he recognized to whom the voice belonged.
"Cupcake! Already home?" Theo asked with a smile as he turned his head to look at his sister.
"Hmm, it's already night, Big Brother." Aurora giggled as she pointed at the window.
Theo was surprised once again by what Aurora said, so he looked through the window and saw that it was already night indeed.
It was past 5 pm on a Winter day.
And during the winter, the days were shorter than usual, so the night arrived early in the day.
Theo was so focused on his work that he didn't even notice the light fading outside.
"It seems I was too focused." Theo laughed.
"Are you okay, Big Brother? Did you have lunch?" Aurora asked in a worried voice.
"I'm okay, don't worry." Theo replied with a reassuring smile.
"Hmm, but it seems that I forgot to have lunch." He added as he avoided looking at Aurora's purple eyes.
Just like he expected, Aurora became angry when she heard that.
"Theodore! How could you spend the whole day without eating?" Aurora exclaimed with an angry face.
"I know. I'm sorry, Cupcake." Theo replied with a wry smile.
"You just had to ask Sylph and she would get the food for you." Aurora added with an even angrier voice.
Theo had to admit that what she said was true, he could've just asked Sylph.
"I promise I won't do this again, Cupcake." Theo said with a serious face.
"You better!" Aurora snorted.
"How about you order something for us to eat?" Theo suggested with a smile.
"I will!" She exclaimed.
"While the food is coming I will take a shower. But when it arrives, I will watch you to see if you are really eating!" She exclaimed as she left the studio.
Theo laughed wryly when he saw her behavior.
He couldn't blame her as he would behave the same if he discovered that she didn't eat her lunch.
He turned his head to the computer in front of him and went back to work.
The food would take a while to arrive anyways.
As was mentioned before, Theo was 'filming' or compositing the animated music video for 'Believer'.
But there was always a point that Theo had to always pay attention to.
The photography.
Part of the final product we call animation is actually the direct outcome of photography a�" movement achieved by shifting the layers relative to each other to produce motion.
It is the work of photography that creates the real motion by shifting layers, while the key animation creates the pose cycles that make it convincing. Clouds parting, doors opening, objects falling, mouths moving, many small pieces of movement within a scene are not brought to movement by an animator but by photography.
Only through careful compositing can Theo pull off all of these kinds of camera movements and layer movements in a convincing way. If the audience perceives an incongruence in the relative movement of layers or the space between them, the intended effect can be off-putting and feel cheap. Picture the example of a car driving along a road a�" in the worst case, the viewer might not get the sense that the car is moving. Sure, Theo can work out that that's probably what's happening by the images involved, but it certainly won't feel realistic or natural.
The key word is DEPTH.
While there are certainly contrarian examples that we'll get to later, generally speaking, anime aims to replicate a sense of reality and a cinematic flavor.
In other words, it wants its shots to feel like they are occurring in a full-bodied, three-dimensional natural world and to present them so that the audience can feel drawn in.
Anime striving for cinematic tones will attempt to imbue their shots with visual depth a�" when the audience looks into them they will feel like their glance can penetrate ever deeper and deeper into the cut into infinity.
Through effective compositing, photography must then create visual depth with only a few flat layers. Unfortunately, human visual perception is a funny thing, it's easy to trick but also hard to convince. The first way to get around it is using proportions a�" obviously, layers that are meant to be further away should be proportionally smaller. Getting this balance right to portray correct distances is important to the viewer feeling that the layers are in a believable spatial relationship.
As Theo was aiming to animate a legendary fight.
After all, if the depth of the fight venue was not convincing enough, the audience would notice the abnormality.
What if the two characters evoked super strong powers, but the aftereffects of the moves were not convincing enough?
The audience would definitely feel that something was wrong.
After all, The quality of animation is a very important factor as it's a visual medium. In a fight scene, all of it is executed through motion. Different fight scenes may require different animation styles. When the fight is executed through proper usage of appropriate animation, it can show its full potential.
Theo was a using unique animation style, so no one would recognize who it was from.
After saying all of this, we can all understand now how difficult Theo's task was.
That's why he admitted to himself that it was a crazy idea to produce this anime in less than a week just by himself. 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮
Theo continued working until the food arrived.
As soon as the food arrived, Aurora dragged Theo from his studio to the dining table.
Only then did he realize how hungry he was, he ate so much.
Aurora already expected that, so she ordered extra food.
When he finished eating, he immediately went back to work.
He had to finish compositing before tomorrow!