This week’s work is mainly to read literature, and make some notes, and then sorted out according to logic.
First of all, cyberpunk is a rather heavy and serious theme，it’s not something light or easy. When I was reading some literature, I noticed that many plots in early cyberpunk novels actually refer to real life issues in society. Knowing that these stories were inspired by real events, and that the people behind those events may have suffered, is quite a sad realization.
Last week, I decided to focus on the theme of cyberpunk and body modification for my research. This week, I plan to search for relevant literature on google scholar to gain a deeper understanding of this field.
Before move into the literature search, I also did some online research. Through this, I discovered that there are significant differences between Western and Japanese cyberpunk in many aspects.
Technology brings alienation and oppression, often portrayed negatively
Machines and humans are in opposition, with a focus on individual freedom
Criticism of capitalism, tendencies toward liberalism
Japanese style cyberpunk
Ghost in the Shell, Akira, BLAME
Cyberspace, identity, collective consciousness, fusion of humans and machines
Technology is part of social progress, but raises philosophical questions
Human-machine fusion, exploring the philosophical question: Who am I
Metaphors for collectivism and state control
American cyberpunk always portrays the negative effects of technology, while Japanese cyberpunk makes people think about the deep relationship between people and technology.
In American cyberpunk, the idea of humans vs. machines and the dystopian world often comes from people’s distrust of big companies and capitalism. This sense of crisis makes people feel the gap between social classes, leading to one of the most classic cyberpunk themes: “high tech, low life“ Rich people live in luxury and breathe clean air, while the poor can’t even afford a meal.
You can also see this in Arcane. For example, the council members live in Piltover, a city full of flowers and sunlight. But the pollution from their industries sent through pipes down to the lower city, Zaun.
Bibliography:
Cavallaro, D. (2007) Cyberpunk and cyberculture: Science fiction and the work of William Gibson. London: Continuum.
Ertung, C. (1970) Bodies that [don’t] matter : Feminist cyberpunk and transgressions of bodily boundaries, Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi – EFD. Available at: https://kutuphane.dogus.edu.tr/mvt/pdf.php?pdf=0012480&lng=0 (Accessed: 15 February 2025).
Goicoechea, M. (2008) ‘The posthuman ethos in cyberpunk science fiction’, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 10(4). doi:10.7771/1481-4374.1398.
Fekete , J. (1992) Science fiction studies, John Fekete- The Post-Liberal Mind/Body, Postmodern Fiction, and the Case of Cyberpunk SF. Available at: https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/review_essays/fek58.htm (Accessed: 15 February 2025).
McCarron, K. (1995) ‘Corpses, animals, machines and mannequins: The body and cyberpunk’, Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, pp. 261–274. doi:10.4135/9781446250198.n15.
Sato, K. (2004) How information technology has (not) changed feminism and japanism: Cyberpunk in the Japanese context, Comparative Literature Studies. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/174105/summary (Accessed: 15 February 2025).
Since the class in the first week was cancelled, I combined the progress of Week 1 and Week 2.
During these two weeks, the teacher mainly introduced how to write a thesis proposal, why we need to write a proposal, and some important points to keep in mind when writing a literature review.
1. How to write a thesis proposal?
At first, it felt a bit abstract, because the word “proposal” sounded distant and formal. I’m not very confident in academic research and writing. However, the teacher explained it in a very practical way—the core purpose of a proposal is simply to let others understand what you want to research, how you plan to do it, and whether your plan is realistic. The structure is also quite clear: research question, methodology, literature, and a basic outline of chapters.
I began to realize that writing a proposal is actually a chance to organize my research plan in advance. It helps define the direction of the thesis. The first step is to decide on a topic and general area, and then start searching for related literature. The teacher mentioned that during the literature search, you will usually start to get a clearer idea of how to narrow down your research focus.
2. Why write a proposal?
A proposal isn’t just something to hand in—it’s meant to help you avoid getting lost during your research. At some point in the writing process, everyone hits a moment of “What am I even doing?” The proposal is there to build a roadmap in advance, so you at least have a clear idea of what you’re trying to do.
Of course, things will probably change along the way, but having a starting point is much better than having nothing at all.
3. Is a literature review just a book report?
I was actually quite confused about this part. I’ve read a lot of references, but when it came to writing, I was worried about quoting too much and simply piling up materials. The teacher said that a literature review isn’t about showing how many books I’ve read; it’s about explaining why these books are relevant to my research. Therefore, the literature I choose should align with my research topic.
This shifted my perspective: I’m not just summarizing what others have said, but thinking about how I can use their viewpoints to support my research. And I also need to use the Harvard referencing format.
I’ve also been thinking, should I include viewpoints I personally disagree with? Should I analyze the views in the literature from different angles—whose ideas are similar, and who contradicts whom? Do their viewpoints have limitations based on time or gender? This is actually a process of critical reflection.
The teacher mentioned that we can freely explore topics related to our FMP. For my FMP, I have developed three potential stories, which I have also mentioned in other course blogs. Now, I will introduce them.
The Cyberpunk Escape： A High-Speed Chase
The first story takes place in a futuristic cyberpunk city. A mercenary steals a powerful gene orb, triggering a citywide lockdown. With the gates closing, she must escape before it’s too late. The entire animation revolves around a thrilling chase sequence.
This story is the one I am most eager to explore in-depth. I have always been fascinated by the topic of artificial mechanical life, and I’ve played many games with similar themes, such as NieR: Automata and Detroit: Become Human. I find it very interesting to explore these topics from an academic perspective.
The Puppeteer’s Dilemma – A Story of Tradition or dream and Survival
The second story is about an elderly puppeteer, a profession that is now considered an intangible cultural heritage in China. I discovered that few young people learn this craft today because it doesn’t provide financial stability. Even in ancient times, puppeteers struggled to make a living.
This story takes place in a ruined temple during a harsh snowstorm. The puppeteer, cold and impoverished, realizes he is running out of firewood. He faces a difficult choice: should he burn his puppets to survive, or preserve his dream at the cost of his life?
Through research, I became deeply fascinated by the struggles of traditional artisans. This story resonated with me because it highlights the sacrifices artists make for their passion. It also made me reflect on the fragility of cultural heritage and how many traditional arts are at risk of fading away.
This story is actually inspired by Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (聊斋) and folk legends. The main narrative comes from records in ancient Chinese texts, but with a twist. In this version, the protagonist appears through the lens of a camera. As someone who can see ghosts, he hides in a ruined temple on a snowy night and meets a puppeteer and his puppet. During their conversation, the puppeteer complains that his profession and the puppet have left him poor, and then begins to perform for the protagonist. After the performance, the puppet suddenly comes to life, confronts the puppeteer, and then throws itself into the fire.
This folk narrative is quite interesting because at the very beginning, it’s stated that the protagonist can see ghosts. So, the puppeteer and the puppet might actually be ghosts. It’s possible that they have been frozen to death in the ruined temple long ago. This suggests that the puppeteer had already made the choice between burning the puppet to stay warm and holding onto his dream.
Inspired by this folk tale, I depicted the puppeteer’s choice to stick to his dreams. He is like the little match girl, who ends up freezing to death beside a dying fire.
Although the ending is not very happy, it does reflect the reality faced by many folk performers and artisans. They cannot earn enough from passing down their skills and are faced with the decision of changing professions. This has led to the disappearance of many forms of intangible cultural heritage.
This is also a very interesting topic, as it brings up the issue of passing down traditional arts.
The Magic Hat – A Reflection on Gacha Games
The third story initially started as a critique of the gacha mechanics in pay-to-win games. However, after discussing it with my teacher, I realized that it could be reimagined as a more warm story with happy ending.
The story follows a young girl who receives a mysterious package containing a magic hat. She discovers that by pulling objects from the hat, she can get animals—even rare creatures like unicorns. Excited, she continues drawing, spending all the coins in her piggy bank. But no matter how many times she tries, she never gets the unicorn she wants.
In the end, although she didn’t get the unicorn she most desired, she gained many animal friends. This story doesn’t seem to develop into an interesting thesis topic.
In my FMP, I plan to create a chase animation set in a cyberpunk city. The story takes place after Earth’s environment has been destroyed, and humanity is forced to live in limited-space, mobile cities. Due to frequent disasters, the cities move to different locations. To make transportation easier, the cities are designed in the shape of containers with buildings on the top and bottom to save space.
In a world with limited resources and a deteriorating environment on Earth, multinational corporations set their sights on interstellar immigration. With their propaganda, some wealthy individuals have already moved to other planets, but labor is needed to support the workforce and colonization efforts. The protagonist, an ordinary person, signed an unequal contract with the corporation, which secretly replaced her original body with a mechanical one. Now, her appearance is a projection based on preferences and DNA calculations, and her true body is fully robotic.
After an unexpected program glitch, she was cut off from the company’s monitoring system. She reached out to the colonized aliens and struck a deal: If she could infiltrate the company’s headquarters on Earth and steal a gene ball containing the DNA of original creatures, the aliens would rebuild her real body. Once she obtains the gene ball, she escapes the city, regains her body, and joins the aliens and other workers to fight back against the company’s exploitation.
However, my animation project will only focus on the segment where she escapes the city due to time limits.
In this shot, I tried to increase the viewer’s sense of immersion by having the character as close to the camera as Ekko is. She spins around in front of the camera and the fly machine is very close to the camera. But in fact, the character’s actions lacked logic, as if she was acting knowing the camera’s point of view.
Also because of the need to get to the camera for the flying machine, the character’s lower body had to be very close to the camera, which makes the scene a little awkward. And because it’s too close to the camera, a few frames get blocked. But the main problem is still that one of her spinning behaviours in front of the camera looks rather strange.
So George suggest me can shot in the begging when the character face to the camera, so she will not turn around, just follow the motion trail looks like below:
Also, there are speed issues. For example, when the police car and the character are about to collide, both sides slow down. George suggested that I could keep the police car from slowing down and make everything happen fast. I plan to adjust the speed this week.
So I adjust it like this:
When editing this shot, I found it difficult to replicate the 2D composition because the camera’s field of view is limited. The character needs to fold their body to fit both the aircraft and themselves into the shot at the same time.
I tried to make the character perform a spiral rotation. I adjusted some keyframes and curves, removing unnecessary keyframes so that the overall animation looks smoother than before.
Moreover, George suggested that I modify the design of the flying machine to be in the shape of a skateboard with some larger planes. That way the character’s lower body can come sideways without having to keep moving horizontally all the time. When the lower body is always facing forward but the upper body is turned sideways, the movement can be a little strange.
The third problem is that the character decelerates for a while after getting out of the way of the police car, and then doesn’t continue to fly in the same spiral direction as before. So I need to get to the bottom of this.
The difficulty with this problem is that the camera is moving at the same time to avoid the character being too small a proportion of the screen. However, when the character and the camera are moving at the same time, cranking out the proper motion trail in normal view doesn’t make the character’s position in the current camera correct. This is because both sides are making coordinate changes. I think I’ll spend some time on this part to make it look normal in camera view.
Also, the speed problem still exits. Before I followed the fast-slow-fast principle, which was simpler and rougher to deal with. After George wrote the notes for me, everything became intuitive. The changes in speed are not averaged over a whole shot, but are based on the character’s trajectory.
In this week, I change some of the order of the shots, and delete the close up shot for character’s eye. I feel the story looks more smooth and connect after I change it. Cause some of the shot gives audience anticipation to what the character will do and why she do this next. That makes the whole action more logic.
This shot I added in week 6, when George and I were discussing how to give the character a close-up, and he suggested that I could jump down an air duct, which corresponded to the episode where she was wanted by police.
I delete the shot of her eyes, and make the shot looks like the fly robot notice the police car is coming.
Then the shot is the police cars fly to her
In week 7, George suggest me she can put the ball into robot body, with the camera went down, so gives audience a signal they notice the police and prepare to escape.
As previous shot the fly robot flies down, so it create a connection of the change of the robot position.
In this week, I edit the movement of the character, Before that, I added a move where the character is about to get hit and spins around in front of the camera to avoid it, and George thought there was something weird about that, it looked like he was dancing, so I got rid of it. It did work a lot better after I removed it. I find that often I complicate simple problems and simplify complex ones.
In this week, George advice me can add a shot shows the door is almost close up, like as the first person perspective. That may make connection between this shot and next shot.
I also drew the character design for the protagonist and the concept art for the flying robot.
She is an ordinary person who has signed an unfair contract with a large corporation and is forced to participate in alien colonization. The company stripped her of her body and transformed her into a fully mechanical prosthetic to work in extreme conditions.
So her current appearance is actually a projection, which is why she has such a strong physique and can navigate through the city. This is because her real body is made of mechanical components.
After an unexpected program glitch, she was cut off from the company’s monitoring system. She reaches out to the colonized aliens and makes a deal with them: If she can infiltrate the company’s headquarters on Earth and steal the gene ball containing the genes of the original creatures, the aliens will rebuild her real body(Her appearance is a projection). After she get the ball, she regains physical body and along with the aliens and other laborers, fights against the company’s exploitation.
However, considering the workload, my animation will only include the segment where she escapes the city.
The little robot is a simple and cute character, with a screen on its face to switch expressions. However, considering the animation, the little robot might be redesigned into the shape of a skateboard.
This week, I need to adjust the narrative sequence of my shots to make each shot feel more connected rather than isolated.
I need to remove the close-up shot of the eyes and make the following adjustments to the sequence of shots 1-5：
The original sequence had some inconsistencies in continuity, particularly in how the protagonist reacts, the cut to the police car approaching, and then the close-up of the eyes. The transitions between these shots felt somewhat disjointed. Additionally, the sequence from a full-body shot to a long shot in the opposite direction, followed by a close-up, created a sense of visual confusion.
George suggested that I could show the reflection of the approaching police car in her eyes instead. I think this could be a great effect to add later in post-production, but for now, I will remove the close-up of the eyes in the previs。
Here are some shots I edited the order:
After adding the shot of placing the ball into the robot, it feels much more coherent. It also shows their reaction to the approaching police car, and then the camera moves down, giving the audience an expectation that they are preparing to escape.
In this shot, last week I tried having the character do a spin in place while avoiding the police car. She would stretch her arms to maintain balance, but I later realized this might feel a bit odd, as someone fleeing wouldn’t perform such flashy movements. It also felt unclear what she was doing.
So, I’ve decided to simplify this shot of her flying out：
In the past few weeks, I have already translated the storyboard into previs shots. So in the coming weeks, my work will focus on adjusting the pacing of certain shots, refining the transitions between them, and fine-tuning the camera shakes.
In this week’s feedback, my shots mainly have the following issues:
1.The original close-up shot lacks dynamism
So I need to add more movement. George suggested that I could have the character jump down from the ventilation duct and make the small machine’s actions more lively. I think I need to consider the interactivity of each character more carefully
2. The issue of flying speed
In Shot 6, the character notices the police car chasing her and quickly jumps onto the flying robot to escape. While reviewing the animation, I realized that the pacing of her flight needs some adjustments. Currently, her movement is too uniform, but to make the animation feel more natural and dynamic, I should adjust it like fast-slow-fast.
The action shouldn’t follow a fixed linear speed. She should jump quickly, then experience a brief slowdown, allowing the audience to see her adjusting on the flying vehicle before accelerating into a high-speed escape. In Shot 6, the middle flight segment feels too fast, so I need to slow it down slightly to enhance the pacing.
While researching animation references, I found that when accelerating, the character’s upper body may lean back slightly, while during deceleration, they tend to lean forward. This principle will help refine my character’s animation, making her movements more physically believable.
3. Distance from the Camera
In this shot, George suggested that I try bringing the character closer to the camera to create a sense of urgency and immersion while also establishing a visual contrast between the character in the foreground and the police car in the background.
After the character escapes, the movement should follow a golden spiral trajectory. However, I encountered some challenges here because both the camera and the character are moving, making it difficult to maintain this trajectory. On the other hand, if the camera remains stationary, the character would appear too small on the screen due to the large scale of the scene and the fast movement of all elements.
So I added a shot where the character moves closer to the camera：
4. Refining the character’s pose on the flying robot
In some shots where the pacing has been finalized, I need to refine the character’s poses, such as adjusting her center of gravity. When she turns, her entire body might rotate accordingly—her feet and the flying vehicle would apply force in the direction of the turn, while her body would lean into it.
5. I need to add an ending.
In the final shot, she escapes the city and look back. However, this feels end suddenly. George suggested adding a shot where she sees the distant landscape ahead and then flies toward the sun. I think this is a great idea because the natural scenery creates a strong contrast with the enclosed cyberpunk city, making the ending feel more complete and less abrupt.
In this week, I add more camera shake and time for each shot, to ensure the chasing speed is not too slow or too fast, this is the previs shot I have edited this week:
Personally, I would like to make everything interesting, I wanted to create a feeling that the protagonist was being chased by a police car but was coping with it easily. But it’s hard for me to mold her movements to react to the fact that she’s a seasoned master in a short period of time. I think I need to refer to some movie and TV works and do some research on 2D pose draft. What kind of moves do confident criminals like to do and what habits do they have.
In this shot, I add a close up shot to introduce my character between the news broadcast shot and the city shot:
Actually, I personally had planned for it to be like in one of those anime where the villain starts out standing inside the shadows and the news is broadcasting her wanted posters. Her initial appearance was with her back to the audience to add some mystery. Because my idea at the beginning was to have the audience focus on the cyberpunk urban setting. I intended for the main character to appear only as a black silhouette. I think the final way of presenting it depends on the choice I make after I have built the scene and tested both narrative approaches.
But considering I’ll be carefully sculpting the character’s face, I think a close-up of the front face is again necessary or I’ll be sorry for the time I spent on modelling hahaha.
In this shot, I edit the movement curve of the character. The common problem with this shot and others is that when the character and the camera are moving together, the adjusted position will constantly become undesirable.
Just like relative motion in physics, if the shift speed is the same it creates the effect of no movement, if the shift speed is different, for example, if the character is moving at a constant speed but the camera is speeding up at that moment, or if it stays at a constant speed but is moving faster than the character, the screen will appear as if the character is decelerating its movement. There doesn’t seem to be any way around this problem other than patiently tweaking it.
Another issue that has been a constant throughout the semester is the distribution of speed. I have a really hard time adjusting my speed, often going too fast at times or too slow at others. And this week George gave me the very helpful advice that my speeds look pretty even. That is, the distance of each keyframe looks the same, which causes the whole shot to move too evenly and lack some variation.
I feel like I need to learn some animation theory because before, I would just think my shots were weird, but I didn’t know what was weird or how to modify them. I’m thankful to Wendy for helping me. Because I had a problem this week, that is, how to modify the speed of the camera, the character and the police car uniformly when they are all moving. Wendy told me that I can select them to create a set. this really solved my huge problem.
For this week, I added this shot of the protagonist flying out of the narrow alleyway because she has to fly towards the outside of the city. However there is a police car waiting for her long outside the alley. As soon as she comes out the police car immediately drives towards her and fires a bomb at her. The protagonist changes course to dodge it.
In next shot, I added a camera follow shot to reference Ekko’s shot. At this stage, I wanted to go for a restoration and add something to my storyboard. I adjusted the placement of the buildings to add a sense of space for the main character to fly through. To give her a reference point for her speed.
Weekly summary:
Since my protagonist has been using a flying machine, the design of the motion trail for the chase was important. In the first few weeks of trying, I went from not being able to plan a route and generating the motion trail directly and adjusting it, to getting the routine and using a blue pencil to go ahead and draw the trajectory she should follow beforehand and then adjusting her position.
At this stage, my main task was to present the storyboard. In the next stage, I think I can build on this to edit the pose of the character’s movement, the details of the action, and think about the connection between each shot.
This week, based on George’s feedback, I added camera shake when the police cars fly by and a delayed tracking effect when the protagonist is flying. I also adjusted the length of some shots.
Problems:
I realized that if every shot is just the police cars chasing and the protagonist running, it will feel repetitive and might bore the audience. So, I thought about how to make the scene more engaging and add more interaction between the protagonist and the police cars.
Solution:
I came up with an idea where the protagonist, after spotting the police cars, leaves a bomb on the crane she’s standing on. When the police cars get close, she detonates it, blocking some of them. This way, the number of police cars keeps decreasing. So, I added this shot:
But in later feedback, this scene of running, stopping, and pressing a button made the audience confused about what the character was doing, so I removed it.
George suggested that I look for movement inspiration in Arcane Season 2, such as having two police cars crash toward the protagonist while she dodges.
So I went to watch the shot in Arcane Season 2, I learned some key poses for characters steering a flying vehicle and how the camera follows the protagonist during flight.
I mainly reference some of Ekko’s dynamics and shots. I noticed there were some great shots.
This shot transitions between the puppet, Ekko, and Viktor, but the cuts are logically connected.
The first scene is a close-up of Ekko flying past a puppet, lasting about 1.5 seconds.
And then, the shot shows the overall scene (front view), with the puppets neatly lined up while Ekko flies in from the distance.
The shot focuses on Ekko’s blade, smoothly transitioning into the next battle scene.
The shot continue to show the overall scene, but in side view.
I think this shot is very good, it shows a dynamic curve and unexpectedly pulls from far to near, the previous shots seem to follow this logic. And Ekko’s transition from far to near is very fast, after about 3 frames. and the whole shot lasts about 1.5 seconds.
Since Ekko’s action is to the right and Ekko is already very close to the camera, it’s natural for the next shot to switch to Ekko’s point of view：
The camera is given to Ekko flying past a golem, and then the golem looks back at him after Ekko has completely flown away.
Top version show the dynamic curve.
Front version:
Side version:
I wanted to go for a scene where the protagonist brushes up against two police cars and it moves in a circle.
