Xmas Holidays: Update

Merry Christmas Everyone!! 

Since my last post, I had been focusing on completing the draft of my dissertation and moving home for Christmas. Because of the limitations on my work while I'm at home, these are the following pieces of work I will be focusing on;

• The Industry Report
• Compiling this blog for submission
• My CV
• A website or internet presence
• Drawing out in pencil the structure of all my final backgrounds, in relation to my Rough animatic
• Painting a few of said final backgrounds

Since the last post, I have been in contact with my composer, he put together a little piece that was really beautiful and he was definitely on the right track, however, I suggested that we meet in person so that I could better discuss my film and desires for the soundtrack. I was really really pleased with what he had come up with and can't wait to see what he comes up with next!

Over this Christmas break, I am being treated to an amazing trip to Scotland!! Not only is this very excited as I'm going with my Boyfriend, but we're staying right next to mountains and Loch Slapin on the Isle of Skye! Which means that I can create some amazing research paintings of water and mist, and there may possibly be a boat there, and if so that would be just perfect for me to take some reference footage! Or just paint... depending on how cold and deep the water is ... :)

But this trip also means that my work will the restricted even more, and to be honest that's alright by me! This is the last chance I'll get to relax this year until my work is submitted and so I feel I deserve it :)

Once again, Merry Christmas! 

xxx

Treatment

     My film has one main theme, and that is the theme of feeling lonely, and wanting the company of others. I have tried to portray this message through many elements of the film. The character looks at the Lilies that are grouped together, and recognizes that there is one segregated and out on it's own, and she relates to that, resulting in her placing the lone lily with the others. This visual metaphor communicates straight away what it is that she wants the most. The film is quite a slow paced one, and is set in the same environment throughout, which builds the sense that this is all that is on her mind, she is consumed by her quest for companionship, and will build the intensity of her and how she feels.
    The little boat has also brought up the expression 'We're all in the same boat', as our character feels lonely and even though she feels thoroughly isolated, there are always others who feel exactly the same as she does - 'We're all in the same boat'.  I wanted the purple lake to have a kind of mystical feeling, that the impossible could happen on this lake, because when she reaches the center, she touches her hands to her chest, and pulls out a bright light. This is what I have called, her 'Life light'  and I think is a very vulnerable thing. She's taking all of her inner-most hopes and fears and desires and putting it all out there, risking it to reach out to someone. I think that this reflects hugely on how shy and lonely people feel when they are trying to reach out to someone, or make friends or fit in, they give all of themselves for it. 
    When this doesn't work, she is obviously crushed, and she'd really hoped and believed that someone would see her life light, she looks up and spots a lighthouse. She then has renewed faith in her hopes and rushes to the top of the lighthouse, to use it's far reaching beam to send out the message of 'here I am'. The Lighthouse is a universal sign for those lost and trying to find ground, and also known as being very lonely places, often miles away from land, and often manned by a single person and so I thought the use of a lighthouse in my film would be perfect. When she reaches the top she shines the light around 3 times, looks frantically around but again, nothing happens. We see her shoulders droop as her spirits are crushed once again, and as she turns to leave, a whole bunch of life lights float up in the air around her, showing that people have seen her lights and come to the lake and offered up their own 'Life Lights' as well. I do not show this image but have chosen to let the audience draw their own conclusions, and I'll leave them with the beautiful image of all the twinkling lights floating around the girl.

My film with be created using 2D - Digital animation on Adobe Photoshop, I have chosen this as I have a deep knowledge of painting in and animating within the program, I also have more control over the aesthetic of the line quality and colour. I will be hand painting the main colour and atmosphere of the backgrounds in watercolour on Canvas paper, scanning them in and then adding the other elements of the scenes in on Photoshop (ie. the lighthouse, pier, lily pads and reeds)
It will have a painterly style that is close to the concept art that I have produced. The music will be one tune that then moves with the emotion of what is playing out on screen, with organic tones and instruments. The music will be key to conditioning the audiences emotions while watching the film. Other sound effects such as wind and water splashing will also create atmosphere and aid the action. I will composite all the elements of the film together in Adobe's Premiere Pro and After Effects. 

Week 11 {end}

So it's the end of week 11 and the hand in for the rough animatic and Production folder is Monday. I have both of these things finished and ready to submit. 

I finished off a lot of  design pages to put into the folder which I will post now.

Creating the Production folder really helped me to think about some things that I hadn't had a chance to think about yet. Here are some of the more developmental images I produced for the Production Folder.

So the next steps that I need to think about and maybe slip into this version of the Production Folder is the list of Scenes, with backgrounds, animations and moving elements. This way I can start production over Christmas and started picking away at the bulk. 

Roles

When planning my final film, I wanted to try and design a film that I would not need help with. Obvisouly I know I'd need help from Stan and Charlie sometimes and the music would definately need to be out-sourced, but I am confident enough in my animation skills, background painting and compositing skills.

 

However, I will of course be constantly taking the advice of my fellow coursemates and peers from around the University.

 

So, the roles are as follows.

 

I am;

 

Director

Writer

Animator

Background Artist

Designer

Compositer

Editor

Promotional

 

 

and

 

Score written and composed by

 

Jason Savoury

Synopsis #1

Our character feels isolated and alone, she yearns for a friend. She sets out to a lake beneath the stars in a little boat and sends up her wish of companionship. A few moments pass and nothing happens, but then a light in the distance blinks, and our character goes to it, excited, and as she rows and the fog clears, we see a lighthouse. She jumps out of her little boat and runs into the lighthouse, up the stairs and into the light room… but there is no one there. Her heart sinks and she feels the burn of disappointment as she approaches the huge window. The lake is still and baron as is her loneliness. She returns to her little boat and sets off back across the lake. Almost at the pier her boat hits something. Startled she turns around, and is facing another lonely soul, heading out into the lake.

Premise

 

A lonely girl sails the Purple Lake in search of what she is missing. 

Descriptive Storyboard

We open to a low angle shot of our character lying at the edge of a wooden pier. One arm dangles over the edge and playing with lily pads. We see several dotted on the surface of the water.

Titles fade up and are blown away by a wind. "Violet" or "The Purple Lake"

The camera pans to the left and we see a lone yellow lily pad, away from the other pink ones grouped together. She looks up at it. We cut to a low angle shot from behind the yellow lily, making the viewer focus on it's importance. In the distance we see her looking at it. 

We cut to a high shot from behind her, and it is obvious that the yellow lily is out by itself. Much like our character. She looks between the two. Back to the low shot from behind the yellow lily, we see her rise to her feet and approach it. Her hands swoop into the frame and take the yellow lily. We see her walk back to her spot, and lean over the side of the pier with the yellow lily in her hands.

It cuts back to the high backshot, and we see her leaning at the edge of the pier, obstructing our view of the lillys. She stands up and pauses, before carrying on down the pier to the left. As she moves out of the frame, the wind blows her hair out of our view of the lillys and we can see that she moved the lonely lilly blossom over to the others, so as to not be by itself. This again is a metaphor to help condition the audience as to the characters desires.

Cut to a long sideways shot of the pier with the character walking slowly along it, wind still blowing. These kind of shots are inent of building tension and mystery. I want the audience to get a sense of a task, or a purpose that is being fulfilled during this chain of events.

Another cut to a close up of the girls head and shoulders, a long bacdkground pans and she walks. She turns her head from our direction to look to the left, the screen cuts to a slow pan of the left lake side. We rejoin her, and looks to the right, we see a slow pans of the opposite lake side, there are two broken boats there not unlike her own. This is to show that there are others out there.

A high point over view of the pier on the lake, and her reaching the end slowly. We see a little boat tied to the end of the pier. The right of the frame gets gradually darker and dense with cloud/mist.

A low shot over the edge of the boat, and looking down the pier shows her legs and skirt approaching. SHe pauses at the end of the pier. The boat is rocking slightly in the water.

There is then a side shot where the pier, boat and action is in the far left third of the frame. She bends down backwards and reaches her leg out to try and find the boat. She fumbles a bit and eventually falls backwards into the boat, causing it to rock. This is a sweet scene making us sympathise with the character and find her cute. (She climbs to the edge of the boat and releases the rope)

Return to the high shot of the pier on the lake, and we see her heading off in the boat (rowing or moving by itself?) and towards the darker edge of the lake.

There is a side ways pan of her in the boat, looking up, down and around as she and her boat move into thick purple fog that then obscures her from our view. The background begins as the lighter shades we see at the beginning of the film and gradually get darker. Giving a sense of forboding? Or that she is moving toward a place of purpose.

As she moves out of the mist her boat stops, at the bottom of two vast clouds, lighter in the darkness, with a kind of shaft leading up between them. She looks up at the clouds.

There is a close up of her in the boat. She looks down to her chest, and raising her arms, presses them to her chest, in doing this her whole body scrunches up.Hold. When she pulls her hands away, a light is drawn from her chest and is now held in her hands. It is a white ball of light that is her beacon, her life light. She looks at it for a second or two in her hands.

We cut back to the view of her at the base of these two giant clouds, she looks up from her light and towards the sky. She stretches up her arms and sends up the light. Speckles dance on the water and move with the light as it floats up between the clouds and dissappears. All light is gone.

She waits, looking around for a time, and then slumps back into her boat after nothing happens. She looks up, and the then jumps the edge of her boat looking out and stretching to see as far as she can without falling from her boat. And we cut to a backshot of her in the boat, and a lighthouse, faint in the distance stood on a rock island.

The next scene is simply her boat, abandoned on the shore of the rock island, the wake of the lake slowly lapping at her boat.

We are then inside the lighthouse and see her slowly push open a large door and peaking her head and hands around the edge. She looks behind the door, the behind her, and noticing the stairs, looks up. The camera pans up a panoramic background leading up the lighthouse to the roof. 

We then see her burst through a door at the top of the lighthouse and her the roar of wind. In the foreground is the switch for the search light and she throws it with eagerness. The light spins, one, two, three times, and she is running back and fore along walkway looking.

A far away low down shot shows the lighthouse on the island, with the light spinning round once.

We cut back to her at the railing and she is visually dissapointed when nothing happens.

Back to the far away low down shot we see the light house light shine once, and then is turned off.

Back at the top of the light house, we see the girl leave the edge to turn away and return to her boat, but as she heads towards the door, she notices that her shadow has been cast on the wall, and turns around to see what has created the light. Then we see a backshot of her, with loads of little lights, windings their way up in the air.

She steps forward cautiously, reaching out a hand.

A close up of her hand getting closer to a ball of light.

Fade to white.

The End.

* I have left the end open so that the audience can make their own discisions on how it ended. The presence of the lights will communicate to the audience that there are others down on the lake, sending up their own beacons. And that she is not alone, anymore.

CREDITS - Stills that didn't make it into the film that are my favourite. :)

Week 10

SO!

 

I am now back from Vegas and it is the end of Week 10... In relation to the plan of action in the previous post, I did this much on the plane;

 

 

I'd come up with a background style that I was going to apply to the backgrounds I'd already designed and was going to keep, I had re-designed the girl character to make her more strong and have a little more character... and I'd listed a few things that I wanted to do when I got back. Needless to say I didn't get any work done while I was actually in the States.

 

Once I returned I started to think about the changes that needed to be made, and I was so confused and I have been for a long time. I have had no direction with this film and so I made a decision.

 

I'm going back to my original idea, that I loved and knew what I wanted from it.

And that is final. It is going to be moving and be simple and beautiful.

 

I did however, do a few water colour paintings of other backgrounds as I wanted to experiment with the digital animation in handpainted back grounds...

 

 

And I thought they were beautiful, you just can't get this atmosphere in Photoshop. So I also decided to hand paint my backgrounds. This is exactly what I wanted my film to look like originally!!!!!!

 

My next step was to get started on my animatic, not storyboards or concepts, as I only had 2 weeks till the deadline for the rough animatic.

(I also lost 2 days to food poisoning)

 

The animatic is coming along really well, I have filtered in little scenes that I liked from all the idea generation of the longer film idea and I'm really happy with it so far. Finally.

 

And all I had to do, was do what I originally wanted to.

 

Go figure.

 

 



Week 9

Just showed my 3rd pass animatic to Caroline and quite a few changes are to be made I think...

 

• I'm going to cut down the beginning summer scenes so that the film is mostly set in the autumn and winter, with more emotional tugs and interaction.
• STORYBOARD #5 - with ending change*
• Once I've cut down the summer and moved everything around after it, I need to work on the composition and stylization of my backgrounds - really nice stylized backgrounds are needed for the film to have the sumptuous slap in the face I want. RESEARCH + CONCEPT ART
• In relation to the fog I must not be afraid to loose the character in the scene.
• Review Character Design in relation to hair and face... CONCEPT DESIGN
• Review Lighthouse design ... CONCEPT DESIGN
• Think more about character performace... FEASABLILTY STUDY + TEST ANIMATIONS
• Think about beginning the film with a quote that would establish the audience better, that would make less need for over acting on the character behalf. RESEARCH.
• *ENDING CHANGE - The light house does not light up, she sees it and runs to the top to turn the light on herself to attract people, she seens no one and turns it off sad - then the lights appear (better ending)
• When it comes to character design - focus on Light and Shade.

 

I leave Newport today to go to Vegas for a week... and I have all this to do.

 

Good job the plane journey is like 10 hours...

 

:(

Animatic #3

Now I've completed the 3rd pass and first complete and final animatic. There are still a few tweaks I think it might need, although I think that once some music has been added it might flow better. It contains 207 images and some scenes are quite jarey... the animation will make even the shortest scenes smoother and read better. I worked in grey scale and she is always black in the scenes, the backgrounds are quite rough but seeing as I had so many I thought it was justified.

Now to complete some more production folder work and start my dissertation.

*sigh*

Story Boards

I have now reviewed the 3rd story boards and produced my revised 4th pass;

I tried to include more pairs, to keep the theme going through the film, and I also cut out some action scenes that weren't related directly to the fact that she's alone/lonely.

I'm really happy with this story board and so onto Animatic pass #3!!

Week 8

Good Morning all!!

So, I had a wonderful Birthday on Sunday! Got given some amazing, one of a kind presents ^_^

But back to the grindstone... before I go to Vegas next week ^____^

Since I last posted I had compiled together Animatic #2, thought about the action sequences and secured a musician for the film! Success!!

Here is a link to Animatic #2;

My thoughts are;

• It is quite long, and I'd left out a few of the background concepts that I really wanted to use... I need to sit back and decide which ones I want to use and which ones to scrap.
• I might be able to save some seconds as I haven't planned out the action, just guessed as to how long, so action is the next big step
• I had some black gaps in between the first few scenes, that then got faster to the point where each scene cut to the next. I don't like it, it's gone.
• I need to try and cut up the long shots with scenes of action - important
• I need to be ruthless and cut this film. I'm thinking that maybe the only action that happens needs to be relevant. 

SO!

I worked on a storyboard yesterday from all my concept images, animatic and action ideas, 

and I think that this is very close to how the final film will look. Although I need to go through them with other people to find what's missing and if they flow well. I've introduced a new pairing metaphor to show the viewer that she is lonely in  visual way. 

*unfortunately these are in reverse order, start at the bottom!*

I literally just spoke to Alex and reviewed my story boards, they definitely need more pairing... I ran out of ideas in autumn and winter, but speaking to more people will help with that :) 

So now I'm going to review my #3 storyboards to make the 4th pass!

Onwards!