Narrative Film Screening 4

The films we watched today were called 'At the Ends of the Earth' by Konstantin Bronzit and 'When the Wind Blows' based on the book by Raymond Briggs.

'At the Ends of the Earth' is a 2D animation in which people live in a house at the very tip of a mountain, meaning that it tilted from left to right depending on which side of the house was heavier. Overall this is quite a comical animation which ends with the house falling down the mountain and becoming flat.

On the other hand, 'When the Wind Blows' is an animation based on the lives of husband and wife James and Hilda, who are a retired couple living in a cottage. James makes a shelter using the doors from his house in preparation for the drop of a Nuclear Bomb! This story follows the weeks leading to the drop of a Nuclear Bomb, in which James follows ridiculous instructions for a shelter that clearly will not save them from the effects of Nuclear radiation, e.g. rest doors at an angle of 60˚ to create a shelter, in preparation for a 'Nuclear Holocaust'. This emotional film results in both James and Hilda surviving the initial bomb drop, however they then both die from Nuclear radiation.

Below are some of the scenes from this film, as well as some shots of the scenery. This film is a mixture of 2D animation with 3D backgrounds:

A key line from this film is when Hilda says "If you can't see it and can't feel it, it can't be doing any harm." This is a fateful line as it shows that neither Hilda or James truly understand radiation. Also I feel that a really heart wrenching part is that even when the bomb has dropped and they start to feel ill from radiation poisoning. They continue to have hope and talk as though their lives will just return to normalcy tomorrow and they will be able to pop to the shops again and see the blue sky.

The film ends with them both praying to God that they will survive, but we know the devastating truth.

Week 1 - The Escape C(l)an and Glossophobia

This week we were told which Pitch Ideas had been chosen to be taken forward into the next stage of Pre - Production, which is the 'Proof of Concept and Pipeline Tests'. I am in a group of three with Tom and Karla and we are working on both 'The Escape C(l)an' and 'Glossophobia'. 

Firstly this week we organised the team jobs, created team rules (a manifesto) and planned out a rough schedule:

Additionally this week we all set up Trello accounts and then we each decided to write our own version of the scripts and then reconvene next week to take the best ideas form each and collaborate them. Here are the original Scripts and then my new versions of each script:

My Original Script of The Escape C(l)an:

My Updated Script of The Escape C(l)an (with some adjustments written on):

Original Script Glossophobia By Karla:

 My version of Glossophobia : 

Finally this week, I sent the first report to tutors, informing them on how we are working and what we have done so far.

Storyboard Pro

Today I was shown how to use a program called 'Toon Boom - Storyboard Pro' to create a story board at the same time as it creates an animatic. Here is the practice storyboard scene from today and then the animatic version, (a man getting stung by a Bee):

Adam Redfern Talk

Today I had a talk from Adam Redfern, who is a Producer and Script Writer.

He has worked with companies such as CBBC and Disney, with one of his most recent works being a series on CBBC called 'Go Jetters' as shown below!

This talk was very useful as Adam gave us some tips in script-writing:

- Allow work to change (creative compromise).

- We may sometimes have to cut out parts of a script that don't let the story progress.

3 great things to have in a script are:

1) Interesting characters with flaws

2) Light and shade - fast and slow paces - drama and comedy - visual and verbal

3) Scenes, dialogue and action that all push the story on. Everything should push the story to the next scene, e.g. answer a characters question in one scene by using the following scene.

Additionally it is good to give characters problems:

-The inciting incident is a key dramatic event or plot point that thrusts the protagonist into the main action of the story.

-Escalate problems too, for example in an episode of 'Go Jetters' a Solar Panel blocks the sun. Whats worse than a Solar Panel blocking the sun? When it turns into a meteorite.

Key Advice when script-writing:

1) Just start writing (even if its awful).

2) Get to the end of the story (even if its too long).

3) Go back, edit and improve (and it will get better).

I found this session really useful as it helped me to think about how the Story that I'm working on can improve.

Narrative Film Screening 3

The first film we watched today was called 'Shave It' which is a 3D animation. It is about a Monkey whose home is destroyed by humans, so he shaves off his fur and disguises himself as a human. He then learns hows to make a machine that will bulldoze down buildings and replace them with the jungle, recreating his home with human technology.

Next we watched a French film called 'Delicatessen', which involved a hotel above a Butchers. There are food shortages and the Butcher kills off the new residents and then hands out their body (meat) to other residents of the hotel, who are all in on his devious and horrific scheme. The Butchers daughter fall in love with the new victim and this film shows how they escape and put an end to the killing.

This film uses some great camera angles, for example in one scene the camera takes us through the pipes of the hotel (I have added red circles and arrows to show what I want you to look at:

Overall the colours throughout this film are quite dull(shown in the top two images below), however they grow brighter at the end, when the two lovers survive and live happily together(shown in the lower image below):

Final 'Escape C(l)an' Animatic

Here is my final Animatic for The Escape C(l)an in preparation for my pitch on Monday 21st January:

Final Foley added to Animated Scene

Foley/Sound Effects I created, added to an Animated Scene from WALL-E (Scene created by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures) :

Narrative Craft Group - Film Screening

In todays Narrative craft session we watched a film entitled 'Chuck Steel - Raging Balls of Steel Justice'. This animation shows good examples of the different camera angles that can be used in an animation, for example,

A Low Angle Shot - used to show a characters superiority:

A Voyer Shot - View of a character e.g. looking down the sight of a gun:

and a Tilt Shot - Used to show the animations scene:

One of the main rules from todays session is called the 180˚ rule:

This is the rule that when filming, the camera angles cannot cross the line of vision. A good example is that at the theatre you can only watch from one point of view as we can't move to the back of the stage and watch it from that side (facing the crowd). The same rules go for animation camera angles.

Learning how to draw Story Beats using Post - It Notes - Cooking a Fried Egg

Story beats are drawings of the main scenes in a film, used to give the viewer a good idea of what to expect in them by telling the story in simple steps.

Here are my first attempts at drawing story beats from todays session of 'Creative Making'. I had to draw the beats for the steps in making a fried egg:

(The top post-it note in each image shows my original thoughts. The second post-it notes were drawn, thinking about camera angles and the final post-it notes were drawn, as if they were scenes from an action movie).

I edited my final action drawing in order to try and really bring it to life:

Additionally today, I was introduced to the 5 C's of Cinematography:

Camera Angles

Continuity

Cutting

Close Ups and

Composition

Cinematography is key to all films and involves actually shooting them.

Guest Lecture by Tim Searle

Tim Searle is the Head of Animation at Beano Studios - London. He has worked on/directed animations such as the 'Title sequence to Have I Got News for You', 'Danger Mouse', 'Mr Bean the animated series' and more recently 'Dennis the Menace' and his most recent animation with puppets is the 'Title sequence to the series Man Down', just to name a few.

A key quote that Searle shared with us was by John Halas - "‘Animation is the most contemporary

form of human expression combining the elements of motion, story-telling, sound and space".

Additionally in the Spring of 1989, Searle set up his own animation business, called 'Triffic Films', a name he chose as he "wanted a name that bank managers found hard to say". I discovered this newspaper article, written when Searle had just started 'Triffic Films':

Searles top tip was to 'sharpen up storyboard skills' as it is a key skill that is always needed for any animation. He finished his talk with a quote from T.S. Eliot - "If I had longer, I'd have written a shorter letter". Searle used this quote in reference to creating an animation showreel because it has to show off  your work to potential employers. In particular it has to show your best work in the shortest time possible as employers don't have time or interest in watching long showreels.

I found this talk very useful as it gave an insight into what animation is like in industry.