My project focus on the theme of folklore. 

My project goes over the idea that if such mythical creatures, that only exist in folklore such as Spinx and Jackalope, would become a reality in our modern era.

Folklore (meaning ‘regional group’ and ‘stories’) can define a population’s values, beliefs, and way of life with its traditions. It is used as a means to understand the world around us. Because in the past, we didn't fully understand how the world works in terms of scientific knowledge. Humans tell their way of life through stories and experiences. It's also a way to connect within a group, as well as to encourage our use of creativity. Today, folklore became a measure of the progress of society, how far we had moved forward into the present and upcoming future, and how much we removed ourselves from the past.

MINDMAP:

Despite this, there are still people who hold on to such fictional beliefs, despite science already debunking the myth. For some, these myths are deeply tied to their tradition and culture. In which folklore says something about their original roots as a native, that defines them apart from the other group. To some people, folklore is a form of escapism. Away from the exhausting and boring reality, to a world of creative and exciting fantasy. This is why the old story of myth and legends persists in the minds of people. You can still read stories about Greek gods and goddesses. You can still hear old experiences of Bigfoot or Yeti in the mountain terrain. You can still hear rumours of howling ghosts from your grandparents, or perhaps even the talk of the holy book from your religious community. You can see all of that collective stories return in all sorts of media.

CONCEPT IDEAS:

The thing about folklore is that it's all fake. It's a made-up collection of stories by humans. The mythical beasts that are told in legends are works of mankind’s imagination and lack of understanding of the animal kingdom. Oftentimes a misconception by misidentified certain species of animals and their traits. As well as human’s lacked of understanding of the world back then. Which leads to humans mistaken a natural occurrence, an example is that of a spontaneous combustion over a swamp area to be an area of wandering spirits. Or that a species of animal is in control of said element just because it lives there. One famous example is that of a Chimaera. A mythical creature from ancient Greece, which consists of three heads: a lion, goat and a snake. The creation of these three-headed creatures was born from human confusion of early fossil discoveries. The fossilized bones could be found in the same place, which has humans placing the fossil remains together and then imagining a creature to explain what they saw. 

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However, no matter if folklores are manmade, it’s undeniably rooted deep in the humans’ psyche, tradition and belief. We can’t help but still believe in such things. Because it satisfied our imagination of the world in a way that reality can’t. As Neil Gaiman once said: "There are only two worlds - your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power; provide refuge and pain. They give your world meaning."

With our current advanced technology, scientists can manipulate the DNA, cells and genes of a living being. There’s already animal-human chimaeras made in the lab, but with tissue cells to produce human organs in test animals such as pigs and mice. This is to provide even more possible organ donations than just from humans. Furthermore, there existed a living chimaera: the geep. One goat and one sheep combined to make one embryo. There are even instances of animals having extra limbs like the two-headed snakes. The closest to a cross mix-animal is the hybrid animal. Hybrids have one embryo, from two related species mating. Examples are ligers, mules, coydogs, wholphins, etc. With this in mind, creating new creatures of mixed traits shouldn’t be impossible.

CREATURES DESIGN IDEAS:

To create something new, a purpose needs to be made. This is why for such a creature to exist, I first have to go through situations to make that happen. With my research and interest in animals, I found that the animal kingdom is slowly but surely declining in numbers of any species. Statistics showed that between 0.01–0.1% of all species are lost every year — about 200 to 2,000 extinctions every year. Mainly due to climate changes, urbanization, hunting and habitat destruction. In the last 500 years, human activity is known to have forced 869 species to extinction. Today, the current species extinction rate is estimated to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural or ‘background’ rate. That’s about 1 every 5 minutes. Before long, most if not all of the animal kingdom will reach extinction by the year 2046. As such, new generations wouldn’t get to meet any of these wild animals in real life, aside from domesticated pets. Sure we can create robotic animals to replace the animal kingdom. However, it is not the same as a living, breathing, being made of flesh that has a mind of its own.

To save the remaining species, scientists preserve all the DNA of the animal kingdom. Then launched a project to bring ancient species back to life, organically. Scientists would try to ‘recreate’ the creatures back to life. Given that they too would have not met these creatures before, would try to add their creativity based on stories they ‘heard’ through others and the media they consumed. By combining the animal’s traits, the scientist would, not only create a folklore beast but also save spaces on Earth by only having a limited amount of wild animals to roam the world among civilization. Provided that most areas on the planet are overpopulated by humans. Furthermore, these animals would then be placed into a suitable terrain, where they should not only belong but also possibly safeguard the only natural areas of the Earth.

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However, bringing in a new species could also mean a change to the ecosystem. How would it behave towards other species or humans? Would it be a danger to another species? Would it be a danger to itself? Would societies in general just accept it? These problems are what I’m going to explore and make for my final project.

STORYBOARD: 

Since I’m dealing with folklore, I have thought of sticking to its traditional roots. I have the idea of using a traditional method: the ‘wayang kulit’, also known as ‘shadow puppet’ in South-East Asia. As a way to give the feeling of antique and how people used to tell tales of myth in my culture. Out of the ten folklore creatures I’ve made, I have decided to pick out one and focus entirely on its existent surrounding the future. 

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Since this project is all about the future scenario, I’ve thought to incorporate digital animation into the film as well. This is to illustrate the current, future scenario for when this creature has been brought to life. But I have to make sure the style of the animation stays abruptly the same as its traditional form. I decided to have the animation in black, white and with an accent colour for the beast. Because if I have the entire animation in colour, it would render the whole project with too much detail and distraction to the background and environment than on the scenario at hand.

PUPPET THEATER: 

The idea of the film is to first introduce the problem of the future world where most wild animals have gone extinct. Then comes the recreation project to bring these fictional beasts into the world. Shortly after, I’ll illustrate the rising scenario and problems with this creature’s existence in the environment and society. As for how it’ll end? Perhaps these mythical beasts will be locked up. Or even be killed by human’s hands, the same manner as to how previous wild animals have fallen. Or are we humans destined to be doomed by these beasts that we have created for our own amusement? It’ll be an open ending to allow for others to freely imagine what our future will hold if these beasts are real.