Inspiration for individual scenes 4

Scene 7

This scene is directly trying to imitate the game frogger, to represent the whites and blacks crossing the road separate. Again this could have been a contentious issue if not done in a tactful way, yet again by using a well known game not only are we linking this scene in with the previous but we are directly relating to the audience and there own childhood.

We want to use the form of the game frogger, but the aesthetics are out dated and would not integrate with the rest of the scenes. The way i envisioned the design of the shot was more like this Mun2 Ident, which i have featured in this blog before. A 3d model take on the game, with a more "Sims world" look, i particularly love the attention to detail and the lighting on this little displace slice of earth.

Inspiration for individual scenes 3

Scene 4

 The fight scene is directly influenced by mortal Kombat game, and will hopefully have the same sound effects. By making the scene recognisably  a classic computer fighting game, it minimises the theme of racism and makes it more nostalgic and about the audience own memories the game.

The dolls from this site which i found, inspired the design of my dolls: 

√http://www.flickr.com/photos/subliminal41/show/with/2614754534/

And this short film gave me an idea of how to draw and compose the movement and shot of the typewriter.

Inspiration for scenes 2

Scene 2

I based the layout of the environment of Hayle on a actual photograph, which unfortunately i have lost and cannot seem to recover. But this layout will be the basis of a more interesting and colourful design for the final piece, make of of numerous tiny elements that will pop up at different times akin to a children's pop up book.  This was technique that the group was in unanimous agreement about using, and we plan to create a recurring feature within our animation. The first animated scene that really convinced me of the charm and effectiveness of this technique was the BBC2 christmas ident that, used not only a pop up effect but a folding out method that really imitated that of paper.

Inspiration for individual scenes

I have completed the Final story board!!!!! WAAAAHOOO!!

What did i learn from this long task?? that i am 

no storyboard artist thats what.

It was far more difficult than i expected, as my understanding of a storyboard is to express the character movement efficiently using as little a det

ail as possible and to be done as quickly as possible. Well in i am not naturally fast at drawing and it took a lot of research on my part to come up with finished shots that i though was visually pleasing. However i felt like the storyboard need to be neat and detailed as we were going to used these drawings for our animatic and they needed to be self explanatory. Another reason i found this difficult was because our animation was not a narrative tale, more like moving graphics, which have none of subtleties of movement and character that is needed in a conventional storyboard. However i am pleased with the result and pulled an all- nighter to get it completed with plenty of time to be composited with the s

ound track into an animatic.  

This is the research which i used to inspire some of the scenes in my storyboard: 

Scene 1.

Myself and the rest of the team had decided from nearly the very begining to merge the idea of cut out photographs with the black outline drawings of "I met the walrus"  since the old photos of Hayle which were provided to the course were so beautiful. This combination remind us of the tile sequence of juno- jerky pixalated film, with black outlines, placed on a painted out environment. We decided we wanted do use this technique for the Narrator character, as it would illiminate the problems of drawing the lip-syching and also express to the audience the idea this audio being real- and the memories a real personal experience and not just compiled for the animation.

Tester 1

The genius that is Kat, did testers of all the techniques we might need within our animation while i was busy darwing the storyboard, and she managed to come up with a way of cutting out a moving character and placing it on a alpha channel without using a green screen. AMAZING!

GRRRRR......

I am starting to get a little tired... everytime we meet, everything seems to change! something that was set in stone two days ago, will suddenly be a problem and be changed, then be changed back to the orginal idea. Obviously the whole point of this is to let the project evolve, but we seem to be floating up in the air with nothing decided upon, and its only a couple of days until the pre-production presentation. It just one group member who keeps on changing their minds- they are fine one day-upset the next. As i say its a bit tiring. Especially as im meant to be producing the storyboard, which as soon as i work on and develop, the next group meeting will make irrelevant, because of changes that i haven't been told about. grrr....

Anyway, here are a couple of the story board scenes which are now not going to be used:

(sorry for the poor quality of images i should have ramped up the contrast, oh well)

Old Hamiltion Hawkins, Narrator introducing the scene

American officer appear in scene

Young American Officer, pulls out a younger version of Hamiltion Hawkins

 out of the Older version

American Officer disappears and the Hayle environment made of drawings

 and old photos, pop ups like a story book.

(Transition Device): Bullozer drives onto screen and pushes the Hayle 

environment off screen right.

Bulldozer drags on typewriter onto screen

I feel like i have been flying blind a bit with this storyboard the director is not giving me any clear idea about how to transition from scene to scene, and how she invisions the layout on the screen. Im not sure if thats her job or mine, but i at the moment everything i seem to draw is wrong :(

The first scene above has been taken out because we think this action will take longer than the audio allows and its quite compicated introduction the animation. We have decided to merge the old man narrator with the pop up Hayle scene.  Holly, who came up with the typewriter idea has decided she doesn't like the bulldozer transition so i am going to have to come up with something else.

Various Cafe Nero Meetings

Our first proper Group meeting took place in Cafe Nero. Unlimited coffee supply and comfy sofas appeal.

I wrote out the script and took it with me in order to make notes of changes, script cuts and potential scene ideas. Our main aim was to establish key images around which to build our animation, and a brainstorm of ideas ensued. What we came up with was a variety of very contrasting visuals, but united by the fact that they all played on the words in the script. As i will be doing the storyboard i recorded all the ideas then took them back in order to start a first draft. Its hard to explain exactly what we came up with because its all in pieces there are so many scenes and changes, it looks like nothing will be fixed within our animation- which is exactly what i wanted.

Here is a list possibilities in script order:

• Old guy-narrator-American soldier taps old guy on the shoulder- pulls a young guy out of the old guy- young Hamiltion Hawkins
• Pop up place- Hayle- graphic sea and buildings- maybe port???? Barge????
• Production line- machine churning out Whites, Americans and blacks onto conveyor belt
• work out routine- " do the work correctly" falling off slipway, maybe judges with big black crosses
• barbie decapitation????
• Computer game cheesy fights- K.O., ninja moves, FATAL message- mortal combat- figure crumble into a pile of dots. Pop up crowd- background-boxing ring.
• Background change to road
• frog dots- like frogger hop across road- black white dots
• Swear words- poof off
• Screen built up with geometric pattern slipways
• Condense into unfinished barge--- arrow labelled Barge, stamp approved.
• Lego, playmobile car crane thing- comes and takes it away.

I know that your meant to explain why and how you came up with these visuals in our blog but i genuinely couldn't tell you.  Ideas just appear

 i suppose. I am currently working on a first and 

very rough draft of the story board.

I am concerned that Holly is not completely on board with the animation itself. She doesn't seem to be very enthusiastic, and has been quite negative about some of Kat's and my ideas.  She keeps on getting hung up on the fact that she doesn't want our animation to end up a copy of "I met the Walrus", which i think is unnecessary. Our final animation won't look anything like our inspiration because, we are different people with different preferences and experiences and naturally things will alter and change through the natural progression of the project. Everything is derivative, and to focus too much on trying to be original would make us lose focus. She also doesn't seem to be on board with doing traditional hand drawn animation, as she stated to Andy during the first tutorial that we were doing a 3D project before our group had even discussed what technique we were using! However we have reached a compromise, and will use 3D maya software, but try and create a more 2D graphic look within it.

Important decision method???

Rock Paper Scissors results :

Director: Kat

Producer: Holly

Loser: Sarah

Oh well I'm not too bothered, i would have liked to take on a proper role, however we are a small group and there will be know shortage of work for me to do, so im quite happy.

Track Decision : Hamiltion Hawkins

I have come back from a weekend away in Cardiff to discover I HAVE A GROUP! How did this miracle happen???

Turns out Kat looked up "I Met the Walrus", and really liked it, and sent me email suggesting we worked together for the project!!! I love it when, things like this happen, and its really comforting to know we are sort of starting with the same base idea.

It has worked out that i am in a group with Kat and Holly, neither of whom i have worked closely with before, but both of their work i really really respect and admire. It is a all female group, which could signify problems for the future, having spent my school years in an all girls school-i no intimately how unpleasant an group of women can be to each other. I would normally avoid this situation like the plague. However i hope that I'm proved wrong. I do have faith that we could work together successfully.

On scanning through the audio choices that we were given, we decided on the spur of the moment plum for Hamiltion Hawkins, talking about the racism among the American soldiers, in Hayle, during the war.

Its hard to say why this was our preferred audio, but we considered things like voice quality, diction and and the expression of character within the voice through speech mannerisms. The old woman-Winnie's audio tracks seemed to be a popular choice with the rest of the groups, but we found that her voice was far too accented and crackly , making it hard to distinguish what she was saying. Some of the other characters featured in the selection of audio talked about subjects that were not engaging enough, about mundane ephemeral things, from which no particular message could be expressed within a potential animation. Other characters had monotone voices, lacking appealing inflections to play upon.

In the end we chose Hamiltion hawkins, partly due to his lyrical and clear voice, but also because the subject he was talking about had gravitas and intrigue, rather than just being simply entertaining. Racism is controversial and we have taken on a huge task by trying representing it, we could not pass up the opportunities it gave. He congered up very clear images in our heads of the scenes he experienced- and therefore he would do this to our audience as well.

Hayle and rain, and stormy seas.

I just thought i would give time to reflect on what i think of the new project,  its initial potential and hopeful outcome. 

Firstly, i think that this project has true worth to it. Its not particularly glamorous, or original and won't propel us students onto much of a wider stage, yet the idea behind the radio producer's initiative, creating a stock of audio memories from elderly members of Hayle, is hugely valuable.

Speaking as somebody who as lost a grandparent very recently, part of my grief was to do with the fact that our relationship had deteriorated over time, and although i new he had lead a hugely interesting life, i was never truly able to ask him about it.  And now i never can.

I think that it comes with age, an appreciation of the older generation. As a child, its hard to believe that my grandparents were ever young. I new it as fact, but could not envisage it. It is as though i imagined them being born at 60, retired, doing gardening, wearing slippers and watching daytime TV. Understandably because that is all i have ever known i my lifetime . Yet, elderly people, although highly cliched, do contain a great amount of wisdom when asked to share. My other grandparents are full of stories of great romances only fit for Disney films, travel and adventure in foreign climbs, war, conflict and suffering that i can never apprehend. 

So, back to the project, this was the sort of material i was hoping for from the sound clips provided to our class. The concept of animating to interviews, isn't a new one. Especially evident as we all know Andy used to work at Ardaman who produced the legendary, " Creature Comforts",  based soley on this format and whose box set sits on my shelf. However it does have a large scope for experimentation and new skills to be learnt. This is the first major project where we have a story telling capacity, which we can either use or reject for multiple other styles, such as pure narration with lip-synching (as seen in creature comforts), graphic imagery etc. On first hearing the assignment i was very pleased and excited about the projects potential- i love trying to do things that have already been done. Measuring yourself against a benchmark and aspiring to a certain level of sophistication. It doesn't ever worry me that my work might be unoriginal due to this because in my experience your outcome will always be significantly different to your inspiration. And as soon as heard the project i was inspired.

The new project includes a further challenge to overcome, than the last. We are to work in groups. HA. yeh. This could either be good or bad. It could either cut my workload, or increase it. Be less stressful or greatly more so. I was quite nervous at the thought of working in a team, for many reasons. One being conflicts of creativity, I don't think anybody in our class doesn't aspire to be a director in the future and have creative control, so there is a large possiblity of strong minded people clashing over ideas. I include myself in this, and will have to regulate my assertiveness and make sure I'm not being unreasonable. A group has to work as a team so i am going to have to come to terms with the idea that whatever we decide to do the final result is going to be a comprise from the original vision. Another problem, is the distribution of workload. Unfortunately some people sometimes don't pull there weight, and this might have to be addressed, as it increases the amount of work for others. I'm also worried about my skill set within the group. Some people in the course have skills far and above what i have at the present moment with some pieces of software like photoshop/flash and adobe after affects. If they were included in my group, the situation might turn out to be that they complete most of the work because they are faster and produce better results. However this means that i will have very little role, won't be useful to the team and will not learn anything through the process. I hope this will not be the case, but if so i might have to assert some authority and ask for work. I hope i will not be under estimated by my teammates. I may not be naturally technically minded, but i am learning fast and have grown to really enjoy the maya software, and think that i am completely able to produce good results. I hope my teammates will have that faith in me.

Immediate inspiration

I'm actually hugely excited about the projects potential!!!!! wooop wooop, as soon as we were enlightened to the project, during the briefing i knew exactly what i wanted to do! i have been waiting for an opportunity use this particular animation for a while. " I Met the Walrus" by Josh Raskin was nominated for a short animation Oscar in 2008, and the format follows that of this assignment-Animated to a separately recorded, relatively unknown interview with John Lennon. This films brings to life the controversial concepts and all encompassing world issues he talks about, with such flare,wit and humour.  It steps away from a narrative form, which would have been impossible to maintain due to the sporadic changes in topic, and instead interprets Lennon's words literally, using pop up static images, constantly changing and morphing into one another. This i feel accurately mimics the way a persons mind works- fleeting and making connections.

I Met the Walrus

The design of this Animation also appeals to me, as i love quite obviously stylised work with a strong design and identity. If i can i would like to emulate and adapt this aesthetic for the new project because not only does it have great simplicity and appeal but i would give me an opportunity to do some traditional hand drawn animation, which i have not yet used in a project.

Observation- I love how they have left the frame numbers in the corners of some of the individually animated elements!!! it really ties in with the overall theme of drawing, pens ink and writing.

From a different point of view, perhaps me feeling so strongly about this idea and aspiration could cause potential problems. We're working in groups this term, so it is unlikely that i will be able to get "my way" completely on the style and design.  This is fine, and i expect it, compromises must be made, but finding a group of people willing to take the risk and experiment with styles is important, as i have already got high hopes about the final product.

 I haven't found a group of people yet! I really don't like the Idea of us choosing our own groups! Its like gym class all over again. I don't want to actively seek out the people i would like to work with because I'm not sure they would want to work with me- and i wouldn't want to offend anybody else in the course.  I also don't want to be in a group with my friends. Previous experience taught me that its not worth the heartache and aggro of falling out with them over work, and i don't want this project to affect me socially.

Grrrr....

I did end up talking to Kat today after the brief though, and i happened to mention the sort if design i was initially thinking of, and told her about the John Lennon interview. She seemed genuinely enthusiastic, and on the same page as me, which is heartening. I don't really know Kat very well but i would love to work with her. She seems to have the qualities which i can sometimes lack such as calmness and organisation, and i think we might be a good pairing. Her work on the previous Ident project was OUTSTANDING!