Currently, my senior thesis project is going to be me creating a machinima using the Smash Bros Ultimate video game and other possible games to create an original story. At first, I came up with the idea of doing this project because I have prior experience in creating mini smash machinima series. I have made 2 videos like this that are a mix of a music video with minor story elements that continue throughout the video.
I have not made any real progress on the work or development of the project for about 3 weeks. This is because I have been dealing with focusing issues and prioritizing a lot of my time on Video games, socializing, and my Chinese class. Recently, I have got myself back into thinking about my thesis. So, I have started planning ahead to figure out how I want to move along with the process.
New Concepts, Ideas, changes
This week I thought of a new concept that will help me move forward with my idea. Last Tuesday, a new smash character was added to the game as DLC. This character is Steve from Minecraft, which gave me the idea of creating a story about Steve going from the Minecraft world to the Smash Ultimate universe. The story will revolve around how he got to the smash universe and his adventures there.
In addition, I am going to format it more like a normal smash machinima. So instead of doing a music video with a minor story format, the machinima will not focus on the music to represent the majority of the story and any music used will be for complementing the events that occur in the narrative I create. my original desire was to just continue my music video smash machinima parody series, but I felt like the format is to make content less restrictive time wise. This allows for more flexibility and I can use multiple songs depending on the situation or scene. The length I am aiming for is 5-10 mins per episode, but I am willing to do longer episodes if possible. I don’t know how many episodes I will have done by the end of my senior thesis but a minimum of at least one is my goal.
Also, I plan on creating introduction videos for all the characters with priorities on the main characters to give the audience background and origin stories before the narrative begins. For example, Steve’s intro video will be about who he is (as a character in my story) and how he ends up in the world of smash. I find it easier for me to create concepts this way as well and its a source of content to help me progress. Anyway, they will be 1 to 6 mins cause the purpose of them are to show the origin of the characters and their past. I have no characters planned out or any story boarding currently.
Future Plans
Here are my future plans for working on my senior thesis.
Next Week
- Storyboard Steve’s Introduction Video
- Look into interest groups and ask other smash machinima creators for advice and interviews on the process (I know a discord I am in with a couple of people who have made smash machinima videos so I will ask there)
- Start collecting footage for Steve’s introduction video (from Minecraft and Smash Ultimate)
In 2 weeks
- Create a list of possible characters and stages/settings for the world building of the story + thinking about how the characters will interact in the game play/scenes
- Ask people for voice acting help + setting up scenes (probably friends or anyone who wants to help-You can help too whether you have Smash ultimate/Minecraft or not)
Overall, these are the plans I want to follow and I will update my progress when things get completed (Most likely in another post) or the IMM thesis Trello.
Either way, If you have any suggestions or questions about my project, I can answer them. I have an alternate plan for another possible thing I want to do for thesis but I will make a post separate to it if anyone is interested in seeing that. my purpose for this blog post is to keep this article focused on my main thesis idea.