Idea Development

After some welcome feedback, the scope of the project has developed in a way that should be much more manageable.

The idea and context of the piece persists, where now the final outcome of the project will be to create a short scene of the animation (akin to an animated still image) capturing a moment of flight of the protagonist and his island. This may involve a single camera movement slowly revealing elements of the animated image to suggest the narrative of the piece.

This breaks down the main challenges of the project to:

• Character
• Environment Home/Island
• Animation of flight (secondary objects)
  

In this way, the narrative is found within the image, rather than told as a grand structured narrative as a whole. More time can also be dedicated into strengthening the design and the animation as a whole.

I'll organise a formal project proposal soon enough, while continuing to get things moving with research and references.

Final Major Project Idea

After much thought, here is my idea for the final major project. It's still in development so some details may need some more thought.

Goal
An animated short of roughly 2 minutes length (subject to change).

Context Only
The world has been flooded as sea levels have risen, land has become a rare commodity. Existing parts of land are now 'flown' by individuals. These flying/floating islands are powered by a whimsical element that is yet to be determined, but could be wind, steam or a unique material.

For the actual animation, we will only be focusing on a main protagonist and his own flying island, containing his home that has been expanded with an array of scrounged materials.

The Animated Short
Opening
The animation will begin by slowly revealing the flying island of a main protagonist, quite high in the air with the sea being partially visible below. Shots introducing the home and the contraption that is keeping it in flight will be key in setting the tone and atmosphere of the piece.

The protagonist is outside the home or on top of highest point, searching through binoculars/telescope for more land to gather more resources and make contact with others.

Trigger
Eventually the protagonist catches a glimpse of another flying piece of land, and adjusts the flight path of his own island accordingly.

However a storm approaches from behind, catching the protagonist off guard. The protagonist's island is engulfed by the storm and is battered by the elements with a fatal blow.

End
We return to find the protagonist floating on the sea amongst the wreckage of his home and island. As the water level continues to rise, the protagonist seems resigned to his fate as there is nothing he can do. When all seems lost...

Option 1
...A ladder drops down above the protagonist, leading to the island he spotted earlier flying above to rescue him. A silhouetted figure waves and awaits up top.

Option 2
...A submarine type vehicle rises from the water, with the hatch opening to rescue the protagonist and revealing another way humans have adapted to survive the flooded world.

As the protagonist meets his saviour, a much larger island (or underwater world) is revealed with a thriving community, suggesting that there is hope for humanity yet.

Challenges
The main challenges of this project will include:

• Protagonist Character (Rigging, animation etc)
• Environment of the protagonists Home, Island and props
• Possible environment of saviour's island/community
• Matte Paintings of the surrounding sky/sea
• Secondary animation of props etc.

Sound
Atmospheric and sound effects only
-Possible music played from a radio speaker prop. Would crackle and cut off upon arrival of storm.

Visual Style Inspiration/References
The presentation of the animation would be of a bold visual style with more saturated tones as seen in the below image. This will help reinforce the whimsical concept of the piece.



This idea will fulfil my ambitions of producing an animated short, relying much more on setting the tone and atmosphere of the piece with strong visual design. Research, sketches, thumbnails and storyboards will be to follow if all is in order.

Any thoughts and feedback is welcome.

Discussing Approaches

There’s been much discussion over the approach of our idea in The Wolves Within. Here I’ll try to surmise our line of thinking thus far.

Our idea is to illustrate the story of the Two Wolves with an animation that captures a frozen moment of time between the two wolves. Theatrical camera movement and staging of characters and props will be used to unravel the story, akin to Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and animations such as Apnee. This is to reflect the inner space within us, and perhaps the theatrical performance of the stage. The passage of time can be reflected with careful and seamless editing of frozen moments, not dissimilar to the idea of a modern La Jetée of sorts.

Only a select few of the qualities describing the wolves that echo the lines of good vs evil, will feature in our character and environment designs. For example:

Good Wolf
Peace, Benevolence, Love, Hope

Evil Wolf
Anger, Hate, Arrogance, Greed

These will be grounded with Native American culture and influences to reflect the philosophical origins of the tale.

Objects/props can help illustrate the two polar opposites. For instance, a Native American doll is presented to the two wolves where one is shown to care for the doll, the other destroys it, before descending into a final frame of eternal conflict. Acts such as this will help provide resonances of the ‘evil’ twin, sibling rivalries or the Doppelganger into the mix, reflecting the notion of the battle between good and evil raging within us.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

Revised Transcription Idea

The transition project is a prime opportunity to experiment and explore specific areas of the pipeline further before the start of the third and final year. As such, it came to my attention that the act of animating itself is an area I have not had much time to fully explore or develop on, often becoming the last area of focus. Thus, I aim to use this project to concentrate on the process of animation, leaving areas such as environments as a lesser concern in order to maximise my time animating.

My revised idea for this project is to transcribe the original sound piece from the earlier summer project 'Soundscape 17', creating a concentrated character performance animated short. As the track is a lengthy 5 minutes, I will most likely take a segment of the track to animate to.



The performance I have in mind is a ritual type dance matching the tone and rhythm of the track. Where there will be a central figure of focus, perhaps there is also an opportunity to have some extras with repeated movements in the background. The context of my designs will stem from my original idea I had from the soundtrack; with an apocalyptic world consisting of a dehumanised population reduced to a tribe like community, where various junk and technology are used as masks or idols. In my mind, the ritual dance takes place in a junk yard around a central totem made from the scrap, though I would form the environment with a minimalistic approach if I do decide to include an environment for the space the figure(s) to move in, so as to focus on the animation itself.

I feel there are several ways I can approach this, where most of the answers will come once I begin to design the various elements.

Unit 3 - Transcription

The last project for the second year is entitled Transcription, where we are challenged to create a transcribed piece or work of our own choosing, transforming an abstract source into a visual form. This can include an extract from a novel/poem, to a piece of music or artwork, fuelling our designs to create either an Animated Short, Digital Set or Character Design be it for a film or game. Essentially, one must identify the end goal of the project and shape the production pipeline accordingly.

Thus, with this project I intend to create an animated short with the aim to focus more specifically on environments. As I have focused pre-predominately on the character production pipeline with the recent narrative project of the Chainsaw Wielding Baby, as well as character designs with the previous character design project, it would be refreshing to turn my attention more towards environments and further refine my skills in these areas of my development.

The subject I'm intending to transcribe is an extract from Persian philosopher Omar Khayyám, where he questions the unknown of life after death.

'Strange is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the Door of darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover, we must travel too.'
(Lloyd, 2008:5-6)

With this, the main idea of my animated piece would begin with a calm, serene garden type environment, establishing an atmosphere of peace and harmony. From a first person perspective, the camera would travel through the garden environment to arrive at a small Church, where we are lead inside to find a open casket with a body inside. From here, the camera pulls away to reveal that the individual we have been following is actually the person inside the coffin, but in a spirit form visiting his body one last time before disappearing once more.

Effectively, the animation becomes my interpretation of Khayyám's words into a visual form. I do not intend to present a sombre or fearful portrayal of death, but rather a peaceful and perhaps comforting tone of the journey that not one can return to tell us, but a journey we too will travel and discover. Here the animation provides the opportunity to create two diverse environments of the calm, serene garden to the exterior and interior of the reverent man-made structure of a church. Along with the challenge to capture the right tonality and atmosphere of the piece with lighting and pacing. While the narrative contains a character, it will most likely be a model and not one that is fully animated as we move in a first person perspective.

With this idea in mind, hopefully it will be manageable to fit within the limited 10 week time frame, allowing for further development and refinement. Any thoughts and feedback on this idea will be most appreciated.

Lloyd, John. (2008). QI:Advanced Banter - The QI Book of Quotations. London. Faber and Faber.

Storyboard Draft #2

Second version of the storyboard, rearranging some shots along with the addition of new ones.



I decided to keep the initial shots of the snowman outside to help establish the space and characters of the story i.e. snowman is outside with the fridge inside as shown in the window. While additional shots amongst the action help vary the pacing and camera angles within the animation for a more dynamic effect.

Storyboard Draft #1

Initial storyboard to help further refine the story and pacing.

The cantankerous refrigerator, old, rusty and out of his prime, is resting (perhaps confined to the back garden shed and not in the home of the kitchen). With the rising sun, the snowman interrupts the scene seeking refuge inside the refrigerator. He slips as he is slowly melting, making a loud crash that wakes the cantankerous refrigerator from his sleep making him particularly grumpy. A battle of wits occurs as the fridge resists the snowsman's attempts to get inside him. Finally, the sun has reached its peak leaving the snowman to melt in his demise, yet the fridge also meets a similar fate being short-circuited from the water of the melting snow of the snowman.

With a plain background, this helps focus the animation to the central characters while avoiding unnecessary complications by establishing scene and setting. While keeping the cantankerous fridge as the centre in the majority of frames helps to emphasise the focus to the fridge.

A few issues that need to be resolved is that the snowman is perhaps a little 'too' cute, which starts to shift the focus away from the fridge with sympathy in his demise. Shots 1.3 to 1.4 similarly bring attention to the snowman and may perhaps not be necessary to the narrative, as shot 2.5 or 3.2 may work sufficiently to convey the element of the rising sun.

With some further refinement, I believe this could work well in providing an engaging little story while keeping the economy of hand drawing each frame into consideration. Any thoughts and feedback is welcome.

Some rough sketches while drafting the storyboard.

Story Ideas - Cantankerous Refrigerator

I've been thinking over a number of story ideas with the prescribed story elements of a cantankerous refrigerator . From a stubborn fridge refusing to open and reveal its contents to its owner, a fussy fridge nit-picking and removing unwanted food contents against its owner's whim, to perhaps competing fridges at a showroom/garage sale or with the fear of impending replacement. Either way, although each story may suffice individually, I wasn't quite satisfied with the ideas feeling perhaps a little too obvious.

As such thinking outside the box (or 'fridge' so to say), a new idea I'm thinking of features a Snowman desperately wanting to get inside the refrigerator before the racing sun rises up. However, our cantankerous fridge thinks otherwise to the snowman's plight and profoundly refuses with a struggle between the two, finally ending to the snowman's tragic yet ultimate demise as the sun reaches its peak.

Its a simple, straightforward plot that takes the well known charming idea of preserving a snowball/snowman in a fridge, with a different spin that is hopefully much more appealing.



Will try to get a storyboard going and some character designs soon enough. Though am intrigued to hear what you think.

Story Ideas #4

Having gone through a number of ideas, I'm starting to settle and embrace the simplest one which I've come to realise, will be far more easily readable while still maintaining its potential for comedy and depth. The execution will be key in delivering this straightforward concept well. So the story in a nutshell:

The Big Game Hunter is on vacation at the beach and has just finished building a sand castle. He wants to relax so tries to deploy a deck chair with some unexpected difficulty. What ensues is a montage of failed attempts to deploy the deck chair before he is finally consumed with absolute rage and shoots the deck chair in complete and utter frustration. The deck chair, however, finally deploys from the shot to the BGH's joy and disbelief. Relieved, he goes to sit on the deck chair only for it to collapse under the weight of him. With a thud to the ground, his sand castle too collapses to further rub in his utter failure and defeat against a simple deck chair.

To further establish the character of the big game hunter, his very beach equipment will reflect his role such as a bear skin for a beach mat and perhaps a type of bird species used as a beach umbrella. A quick shot of a photo showing one of BGH previous successful hunts could also be shown at the very beginning in act 1 to establish the context and some backstory to his character i.e. having achieved great success in hunting he comes to relax on vacation at the beach. Following the typical proud and gentlemanly stature as well as these extra details, I hope to capture the spirit of the BGH, which will only heighten the contrast (and his frustration) at being thwarted by a deck chair.

The rifle that BGH uses to shoot will be a type of blunderbuss musket rifle, the type with a large trumpet type nozzle for comedic effect.



I hope this type of story is the right direction forward.

Story Ideas #3

I've been rethinking over my story these past few days as my earlier ideas seem to be somewhat amiss. Its been difficult really as I guess I've tried to push the conceptual side of things too much in contrast to the aims of the brief of a 3 act storytelling. As such, here are some new ideas I'm trying to resolve. Objects are Big Game Hunter, Deck Chair and Castle.

One idea is to have a showdown scenario between the big game hunter and deck chair, using a series of cuts to highlight the characters nuisances for comedic effect e.g. the winkle of a moustache, a twitch of a brow etc. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly serves as a perfect scenario.



Of course, most of this will depend on the embodiment of the character which I'm thinking of a typical gentlemanly stereotype to contrast the absurdity of his confrontation between a deck chair, with the iconic pith helmet and moustache.




Although quite awful to watch, this video captures the typical big game hunter bravado I am thinking of.


Another idea came to mind with some further research, is the big game hunter having devised some sort of elaborate trap, lies in wait in a what is known as a pop up blind.



The shape or form of the popup blind in general could be a mere sand castle to blend into his surroundings of the beach for further comedic appeal. As he waits, a lengthy amount of time passes before the resolution of the final act.

I still have a number of things to resolve namely the final act to bring such a setup to a conclusion, whether the BGH succeeds or how he ultimately and in an absurd way fails to a deck chair. But I thought I get my ideas up now and see what feedback I can get, better here than stuck in my head.

Story Ideas #2

From my previous post, it seems I forgot to mention some the character elements I intended to portray in my narrative. Namely in that I was trying to establish the emotional link between the BGH and the sand castles which was his home, full of his trophies and games from past adventures, and that he is hunting the deck chair in revenge for destroying his home.

While developing this idea further, I found that the story would not quite work in certain areas with such little time to convey the action between BGH and deck chair, resulting in a series of shots that would progress far too quickly lessening the impact and coherency of the story. I thought of changing acts 1 and 3 respectively to compensate with this, as well as considering a montage of events to portray the BGH attempt to hunt the deck chair. Yet ultimately, I found the story would not work to the confines of the time and perhaps was not building to the character of a Big Game Hunter enough.

Thus, I've revised my story to one of my initial ideas. Originally I thought to have the Big Game Hunter hunting the deck chair, but I've decided to turn this around for some unpredictability and have the deck chair hunt the big game hunter instead. The idea of scale came to mind to reflect this turn of events, so the deck chair and sand castle remain as a normal real world scale with the BGH being very small in comparison, enticing some comedic opportunities in contrasting the two scales together. So the story as follows:

Act 1
The BGH is residing atop a sand castle searching the landscape for prey using binoculars. In the distance, he sees a small deck chair, grins, and readies a shot with his rifle. As he takes aim, a large shadow looms over him, revealing another yet larger deck chair about to come down and crush him. BGH dives off the sand castle in escape landing to the ground with the dramatic destruction of the sand castle. It is here we cut back to our real world perception of scale to see a standard deck chair merely being placed on the beach crushing the sand castle that BGH was in, establishing the twist in scale.

Initial basic storyboarding of Act 1. Its pretty rough, but establishes some of the initial visual imagery I had in mind.


Act 2
On the ground, a hail of deck chairs come crashing down in a dramatic fashion, as BGH runs narrowly avoiding each one. Another cut to real world scale shows deck chairs are simply being placed in a row along the beach. BGH runs but he is eventually cornered and trapped as he falls into a small crater. As another shadow looms over him and BGH fears the worst with his eyes shut, the scene is engulfed in darkness.

Act 3
BGH opens his eyes and is confused that he is still alive to reveal that he is in a sand castle. BGH in disbelief, rejoices and walks out of the sand castle triumphant that he still lives, only to be crushed by another deck chair.

With this story, the character of the Big Game Hunter is drawn out more with his act in search of prey as well as in the environment of the sand castle perhaps being decorated with trophies of his previous endeavours. Additionally, the story provides a twist with comedic elements in the use of scale contrasting both the BGH perception and our own real world perception of the objects and the environment. The ending in Act 3 is something in particular which I am still considering, and whether it provide sufficient closure with a comedic punch. With some further development, I'm hoping to refine the narrative as a whole.

Some other quick sketches of images that came to mind while developing the story.


Eager to hear out your thoughts and comments.

Story Ideas

Here are some of the ideas I have floating around for the story of the three objects - Castle, Deck Chair and a Big Game Hunter (BGH from now on).

With a deck chair, most of my line of thought has been to link these two objects by setting the scene on a beach or desert environment, thus effectively turning the castle into a sand castle. Of course, the deck chair opens some typical comedic gags such as being unable to deploy a deck chair or falling through one when sitting - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf4hZQhzpt0.
While these may provide some potential, I’m wondering if I can push the narrative further for a more comedic or serious tone.


Story 1 – Comedy, Beach environment
A fairly straightforward setup, with a comedic effect

• BGH on vacation, building a grand sand castle
• Almost complete, fetches more water with bucket
• Wind blows umbrella over which in turn knocks a deck chair over, starting a domino effect towards sand castle
• Races back to save his sand castle
• Succeeds just in time using the butt of rifle(?) to steady final deck chair
• Relief, sits on deck chair heavily
• Deck chair collapses with a thud, similarly causing the castle to collapse with the ground shock

Story 2 – Action, suspense. Beach environment
This idea plays with the scale of the objects, with the BGH being miniscule in relation to the sand castle, but with the deck chair remaining ‘life-sized’ so as appear gigantic in comparison to the BGH character. However, I’m lacking a sense of closure with this idea.

• BGH stealthily moving amongst rubble of sand (ruins of a castle)
• BGH looks into sand, finds peculiar tracks that lead over crest of sand hill
• BGH walks over to crest of sand hill, pauses, takes off hat in solitude
• Pannning shot, see vast number of sand castles lying in ruin
• Cut back to BGH, noise or shadow indicates looming threat of life size scale Deck chair
• A deck chair comes crashing down, BGH jumps to floor with a narrow miss
• Begins running after hail of deck chairs being deployed one after the other
• BGH sad, moves on?

Story 3 – Beach environment.
Using the same idea of scale as before, this time mixed with the concept of the life cycle of a beach. At the beach during the day, people build a variety of sand castles. When they leave when night falls, the castles are left to decay by time and the tide, only to rebuild new castles the next day for an ‘eternal cycle’ of the beach. Has a more serious quality with a twist at the end.

• BGH looking forward to vacation, walks to crest of hill
• Pauses in disbelief, drops gear. Takes a photo from pocket and holds it up to landscape
• POV of photo in hand, picture perfect world of city made of sand castles
• Pulls photo away to reveal sand city of castles in ruin [pull focus]
  
• Cut back to BGH, noise or shadow indicates looming threat of life size scale Deck chair
• A deck chair comes crashing down, BGH jumps to floor with a narrow miss
• More deck chairs come crashing down, being deployed in a row one after the other, ready to begin a new day at the beach
• BGH devoid and desolate, picks up gear and looks at photo one more time before letting it drop to the floor
• Begins to walk off in opposite direction
• Camera zooms out to see time lapse of sand city built anew with activity of humans, before decaying in rubble when the humans leave as night falls.

Story 4 - Beach Environment.
This idea follows similarly to the previous two, yet further plays with scale and time. Being set on the beach, BGH is miniscule in comparison to the sand castles where his scale of existence will be real-time. The object of the deckchair being life sized will be in a slower scale of time. See the 'Antz' scene with the human shoe below for a better example. Bears a more serious tone, with possible comical elements.

• [Real time]BGH returning home, walks over crest of sand hill
• Sees his home of sand castles standing tall and well, BGH joyous, proud (establishes emotional connection)
• As he begins to walk down to sand castles, [Slow Motion] shadow of deck chair comes looming overhead
• Deck chair comes crashing down in the middle of sand castles, destroying them utterly as debris fly into air. More deck chairs continue to fall (placed by man)
• [Real time]BGH tries desperately to save the castles with no effect (fires off rounds of rifle?)
• Sand castles lie in ruin. BGH in despair at loss, starts to turn and walk away
• As BGH walks away [Slow Motion] a slow moving bucket comes crashing down, leaving a new castle in its place. More sand castles continue to be rebuilt.
• BGH turns at noise, rejoices as home is rebuilt, runs towards them.
• Pan upwards, End.

Antz scene time/scale distortion


Out of the ideas so far, I am leaning towards the 3rd and 4th ideas so far for their creative content and different interpretation of the objects playing with time and scale. It may be a little ambitious, but I'm trying to see how far I can go with these objects in the narrative sense.

Am keen to hear any thoughts and feedback that you may have. Other than that, I'll try to flesh some ideas out with sketches.