About blocking
*spacing first to see the relationship between each two poses, then adjust the timing to clearify the weightshift and the speed in animation.
blocking plus of the heavy object shot→
Facial Poses
some exaggeration is needed while making facial poses according to real human references. Also the muscles on the cheek should also be paid attention to.
Stitch’s Tea Party
some note: build the constraint before animation, use different parents to connect and disconnect the cup and the hand.
Heavy Object Blocking
Facial animation is not only about changing the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth. A good facial pose should feel organic, readable, and emotionally clear. The face should work as one connected system, rather than separate parts moving independently.
The main goal of facial posing is to make the expression feel alive. The face should not look stiff, robotic, or like a simple control slider has been pushed. Instead, every part of the face should support the same emotion.
Perfect symmetry often makes a face look unnatural. Slight differences between the two sides of the face can make the pose more appealing and dynamic.
For example, one eyebrow can be higher, one eye can be more open, or one mouth corner can lift more than the other. This helps avoid a flat or mechanical expression.
Just like the body, the face can also have a line of action. The brows, eyes, nose, mouth, and chin can form a clear direction or flow.
This makes the expression stronger and easier to read. A good facial pose should have a clear visual rhythm, not just random feature movement.
Facial features should affect each other. When the mouth smiles, the cheeks should lift and the eyes may narrow slightly. When the brows move down, the eyelids and eye shape should also change.
This connectivity makes the face feel like muscle and flesh, rather than separate animated controls.
The face should not collapse during an expression. If one area is compressed, another area should push out or shift.
For example, a smile should not only move the mouth corners. It should also create cheek volume and affect the lower eyelids.
Strong facial poses use clear and graphic shapes. Avoid generic shapes, such as simple oval or “football-shaped” eyes and mouths.
It is often better to create contrast: one side bigger, one side smaller; one corner up, one corner down. This makes the emotion more specific and appealing.
The relationship between the upper eyelid and the pupil shows the character’s energy level and emotion. Small eyelid changes can make a face look tired, alert, suspicious, or surprised.
For mouth poses, keeping the upper teeth stable helps the expression feel believable. Hiding the lower teeth is often acceptable
Final version of the previs
In this version we add some shots to enhance the hunter to prey topic.
Some issues: some shots are a bit extra, and the body language didn’t really show the personality of the character, which still need to be improved.
Heavy Object Planning
References
1.pulling the door
2.dragging body
The rough blocking
The story is a bit dull in this version, I will incorporate a scene where an on-ground person stands up, opens the door, and then lies down again.
About the animation style, I want to go for a more cartoony style, however the model is too realistic, so i may consider changing the model.
Storytelling
Storytelling is a basic part of human communication. Through stories, people share experiences, pass down cultural memories, and explore questions about life, morality, conflict, and change. In film and animation, story structure helps organize these ideas into a clear emotional journey for the audience.
A story is made up of smaller narrative units. These units usually move from large to small:
Story → Act → Sequence → Scene → Shot → Beat / Frame
This hierarchy shows that storytelling is not only about the whole plot. Every scene, shot, and beat should support the larger narrative. A strong story structure helps creators control pacing, tension, emotion, and character development.
The Three-Act Structure is one of the most common narrative models. It divides a story into three main parts:
Act 1: Setup
This part introduces the world, the main character, and the central problem. The audience learns who the protagonist is and what their normal life looks like before change begins.
Act 2: Confrontation
This is usually the longest part of the story. The protagonist faces obstacles, makes choices, and experiences increasing pressure. Conflict becomes stronger, and the character is pushed out of their comfort zone.
Act 3: Resolution
The main conflict reaches its final stage and is resolved. The story shows whether the character succeeds, fails, or changes in some important way.
The core idea of this structure is simple: a story needs a clear beginning, middle, and end. It is especially useful for building rising tension through obstacles.
The Hero’s Journey, also called the Monomyth, was developed by Joseph Campbell. It suggests that many myths and heroic stories share a similar pattern. A hero leaves their ordinary world, enters an unfamiliar world, faces trials, and returns transformed.
Christopher Vogler later simplified Campbell’s ideas into a more practical 12-step structure for screenwriting. These steps can be grouped into three larger stages:
Departure
The hero begins in the ordinary world, receives a call to adventure, may refuse the call, meets a mentor, and finally crosses the threshold into a new world.
Initiation
The hero faces tests, meets allies and enemies, approaches the most dangerous place, and experiences a major ordeal. This is where the hero confronts fear, danger, or inner weakness.
Return
After gaining a reward or lesson, the hero returns home or enters a new stage of life. A final test proves whether the hero has truly changed.
The Hero’s Journey is useful for stories about growth, adventure, identity, and transformation. It works especially well in fantasy, action, coming-of-age stories, and myths.
The Five-Act Structure is often connected with Freytag’s Pyramid. It offers a more detailed way to organize dramatic tension.
Act 1: Setup
The protagonist, setting, and basic situation are introduced. An inciting incident begins the main conflict.
Act 2: Complication
The conflict becomes more complex. The protagonist faces new challenges, and the pressure continues to rise.
Act 3: Peak / Climax
The tension reaches its highest point. A major event changes the direction of the story and affects the characters deeply.
Act 4: Descent
The story moves toward its inevitable result. The audience begins to feel that the consequences cannot be avoided.
Act 5: Resolution
The conflict is completed. The audience experiences catharsis, which means the emotional pressure of the story is released.
This structure is useful for stories with strong emotional build-up, tragedy, irony, or dramatic consequences.
Dan Harmon’s Story Circle is a simplified version of the Hero’s Journey. It turns the character’s emotional movement into eight clear steps:
The Story Circle is practical because it focuses on character change over time. It can be used for both large adventure stories and smaller emotional stories. The key idea is that a character should not end the story exactly the same as they began.
Kishōtenketsu is a four-part structure rooted in East Asian storytelling traditions. Unlike many Western structures, it does not rely mainly on conflict. Instead, it creates meaning through development, contrast, and a shift in perspective.
Its four parts are:
Ki — Introduction
The basic situation, image, or idea is introduced.
Shō — Development
The idea is expanded. More details are added, but the story does not necessarily move toward conflict.
Ten — Twist / Turn
A new perspective, contrast, or unexpected element appears. This changes how the audience understands the earlier parts.
Ketsu — Conclusion
The different parts are brought together. The meaning becomes clear through connection rather than confrontation.
Kishōtenketsu is especially useful for quiet, poetic, slice-of-life, or observational stories. Its main strength is that it shows how a story can be meaningful without needing a major battle, villain, or direct conflict.
Different structures serve different storytelling goals.
The Three-Act Structure is driven by conflict and resolution.
The Hero’s Journey is driven by adventure and personal growth.
The Five-Act Structure is driven by rising and falling dramatic tension.
The Story Circle is driven by emotional change.
Kishōtenketsu is driven by contrast, perspective, and subtle transformation.
These models should not be treated as fixed rules. They are tools that help writers, filmmakers, and animators organize ideas. The best structure depends on the kind of story being told and the emotional experience the creator wants to give the audience.
Story structure helps transform events into meaningful narrative experiences. A clear structure can guide the audience through conflict, discovery, change, or reflection. Some structures emphasize tension and resolution, while others focus on transformation or a shift in perspective. For creators, understanding different story structures makes it easier to control pacing, shape character arcs, and build stronger emotional impact.
Curtin, M. (2012) ‘ Chinese media and globalization ‘, Chinese Journal of Communication, 5(1), pp. 1-9. Available at: https:// doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2011.647737
This article by Diya Abraham systematically traces the theoretical development and practical cases of adapting classic literature into modern media, moving from fidelity criticism to creative reinterpretation, and offering a relatively comprehensive framework for adaptation studies. Reading it has provided both theoretical inspiration and several directly applicable insights for my own research.
Summary of Key Arguments
The article’s central argument is that adaptations are not inferior copies of their source texts, but independent cultural products with their own value. The author organizes this argument around three main theoretical threads. First, early “fidelity criticism” treated the original work as the ultimate standard, viewing adaptation as an inevitable loss. Second, scholars represented by Hutcheon redefined adaptation as “repetition without replication,” emphasizing that it is a creative reinterpretation calibrated to new cultural contexts. Third, Kristeva’s theory of intertextuality reveals the ongoing dialogue between adaptations, their source texts, and contemporary culture. Through three case studies — Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet, Wright’s Pride and Prejudice, and The Great Gatsby — the article demonstrates how adaptations revitalize classic narratives for contemporary audiences through adjustments in visual style, characterization, and cultural framing.
Relevance to My Research
This article offers direct theoretical grounding for my study of how Chinese media reinterprets mythology.
First, Hutcheon’s framework of creative transformation can be applied directly to works such as Creation of the Gods and Ne Zha, which preserve the core narrative structure of mythology while substantially modernizing character motivations and visual language — a process that exemplifies the kind of “negotiation” my research seeks to examine.
Second, the article’s discussion of intertextuality is particularly pertinent. Chinese mythological adaptations do not merely engage in dialogue with traditional texts; they also enter into cross-cultural conversation with Hollywood narrative conventions, as seen in comparisons with the Thor franchise. This tension sits at the heart of the “global influence” dimension of my research.
Third, the article’s treatment of reception theory offers a useful reminder that the negotiation Chinese creators undertake between tradition, modernity, and global influence is also fundamentally a response to divergent audience expectations — domestic audiences seek cultural identification, while international audiences anticipate a fresh encounter with Eastern mythology.
It is worth noting, however, that the article’s scope is limited to Western canonical literature, with virtually no engagement with mythological adaptation outside the Western tradition. This gap is precisely where my research has the potential to make a meaningful contribution.
Ai render
example
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/google-deepmind/dear-upstairs-neighbors
My ideal workflow
Traditional 3D animation workflow combined with AI, do the modeling and animating in MAYA. Using ai to do the rendering. In order to avoid the instablity of ai, i will probably go for a more sketchy style to cover the flaws.
I would like to do something relate to fantasy works and cultural differences in film and animation industry.
Possible research questions:
Specifically, I am interested in examining how Western fantasy productionsintegrate elements from Eastern and East Asian cultures to construct Eastern-inspired fantastical worlds through a Western interpretive lens—exemplified by works such as Kung Fu Panda. Given the considerable popularity of such productions in China, I also aim to explore audience reception and the ways in which these works are perceived and interpreted by Chinese viewers.
There appears to be a growing trend of reinterpreting ancient Chinese mythology in films, games, and animations, wherein original narratives are adapted to convey modern meanings. At the same time, these fantasy productions frequently exhibit stylistic and thematic parallels with prominent Western fantasy works, despite emerging from distinct cultural and mythological traditions.
Film and Animation I may refer to:
Kung fu Panda
Mulan
Yao-Chinese Folktales
The Legend of Hei
Nezha
Spirited Away
Harry Potter
Cinematography analysis — using The Social Network as an example
https://syncsketch.com/sketch/Kdr4CpEEUbzj
Storytelling
1. Story is about cause, not just sequence
A good story is not a list of events. It should not rely on “and then.” Instead, events should be connected by cause and effect, using ideas like “therefore” and “but.” This makes the story meaningful and engaging.
2. Narrative vs. chronicle
A chronicle simply records what happens. A narrative gives meaning to what happens. In a strong story, every event should lead to the next one, instead of existing on its own.
3. Let the character drive the story
Stories should be shaped by what the character wants and the choices they make. Events should not just happen to the character. Instead, the story should develop because of the character’s actions, desires, and flaws.
4. Conflict is essential
A story begins when a character wants something but cannot easily get it. This creates conflict. Conflict can be internal (inside the character) or external (from the outside world). Without conflict, there is no story.
5. Use a simple structure (SWBST)
A useful way to build a story is:
This helps turn ideas into a clear story.
6. Different story structures exist
There are many ways to structure a story, such as the three-act structure or the hero’s journey. But all of them follow the same basic idea: conflict, development, and change.
7. Storytelling needs practice
Good stories are not created instantly. You need to try different versions, improve them, and connect events more clearly. Storyboarding and rewriting can help make the story stronger.
Previs: Hunter to Pray
First draft of the storyboard
Futher adjustments: the major character needs to be more like a pray, we plan to add the plot of the guy try to hit the cat.
I got confused about the genre Fantasy.
Fantasy is a genre that presents events that cannot occur in the real world, usually through the presence of magic, alternate worlds, or both. Unlike science fiction, which is based on possibilities that may one day become real, fantasy relies on the impossible and supernatural.
According to Steven S. Long, three elements commonly define fantasy: magic, alternate worlds, and low technology. Magic introduces supernatural forces, alternate worlds create unique settings beyond everyday reality, and low technology often gives fantasy its medieval-inspired atmosphere.
Fantasy is more than just an escape from reality. Through imagined worlds and impossible events, it provides a space to explore human experiences, cultural values, and mythological traditions. This is why fantasy remains one of the most influential genres in contemporary films, animations, and video games.
Long, S.S. (2011) Defining Fantasy. Available at: http://www.stevenslong.com/articles/2011/12/28/defining-fantasy.html (Accessed: 15 April 2026).
Worldbuilding Across Cultures: A Comparative Study of Western and Eastern Fantasy in the Animation and Film Industry
Fantasy is one of the most globally consumed genres in contemporary cinema and animation. However, fantasy is not culturally neutral. The way fictional worlds are constructed—mythology, social hierarchy, magic systems, visual design, morality, and narrative structure—often reflects the cultural frameworks from which they emerge.
This thesis proposes to examine how Western and Eastern cultural traditions influence fantasy worldbuilding in animated and cinematic works, and how these differences shape audience perception, identity, and global media exchange.
While fantasy is frequently treated as universal escapism, its worldbuilding strategies often encode cultural values. Western fantasy frequently draws from medieval European traditions, Christian cosmology, and individualistic hero narratives. In contrast, Eastern fantasy—particularly from East Asia—often incorporates Shinto, Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian philosophies, collective identity, animism, and cyclical views of time.
Despite increasing globalization in the animation and film industries, there is limited comparative research analyzing:
This study aims to address that gap.