Epiphany

I will admit that lately I have lacked direction with making my film... it seems that with too much freedom I seem to flounder... but none the less, I explored ideas of action and mood and developed the girls design. The success of these activities are varied, but they have all helped me make decisions  elsewhere. In the lecture on Monday, I had some good feedback for my character, everyone likes the textured hair look rather than the empty lines, I do as well, but I need to test animating them to make sure they look good when they move too. We did a character design exercise that was fun and interesting to do, it helped me to think about my character as a three dimensional being.

Originally I wanted there to be very little audience involvement with the girl, but now I feel that there needs to be a more emotional connection with the girl, meaning close ups, more action shots and interaction, not only so that the film tugs on the heart strings more and can be enjoyed more by the audience, but so that it will give me some direction when designing the scenes and backgrounds (which I sorely need right now)

So, I created an action page, an emotion page, and have done several character studies.

I really like some of the action ideas I've come up with, but I still lack direction in what my film will actually consist of.. that does not sound good. I am confused as to how long it should be, how long to hold each scene, how many scenes to have etc - but that is all what an animatic is for and so I need to start a storyboard and the play around with the animatic.

BUT

After a super successful brain storm this morning with the lovely Sam Coleman (view his blog here) I now have sifted through the ideas in my brain and have a working path to start on with my film!!

This has really helped me pin down what I want and how I need to show it, it has structure now and that will help me focus on what I need to design, what emotions each scene needs to portray and how they all tie together.

I also made some decisions about little ideas I had floating around, like no more animals being introduced to show that we're getting closer to life, there needs to be a few buildings dotted so that the lighthouse is not strange, no spring and maybe a little humour to establish an emotional attachment. I've decided to scrap Spring as that is what comes once she's 'found the others', I've also decided to let myself design some fanciful, fantasy-esque backgrounds, taking bit of real scenery and merging them to make something new, so that we can place that we're not in a physics bound earth. Her hair is part of her, and can be manipulated and shows emotion. 

'A Beautiful Apocalypse' is no more, I had gotten away from the real message of my film, it is about her 'Journey' and struggles through her loneliness... and so my film is reborn again!

NEXT STEPS

• write up this board of information
• develop the arc of emotion with a colour script
• look through 'The Art of Journey' for inspiration and direction
• STORYBOARD to then...
• ANIMATIC

I need to get a move on... did I mention I'm going to Vegas for a week at the end of November??

VEGAS BABY!!!