Pecha Kucha Presentation

On monday I presented my Pecha Kucha presentation to the rest of my class, Caroline and Leonie. I think it went quite well. Leonie came in just as I was finishing so she didn't say anything about it. I was worried about her feedback as she didn't like this idea. Caroline had some good comments though. 

My character design is good.

My concepts are improving.

The changing between the worlds doesn't need to be a big event, it can be just a close up of her face. Which is what I wanted to do. 

I am very pleased with how my film is progressing now, I just need to go a little quicker. So this week I will:

Make another iteration of my storyboard, with more detail. 

Create a basic animatic (to get an idea of the length and if it works).

Present my ideas to my composer, to start developing music ideas.

Finish character turnaround, add colour. 

Also, Today I started the stop motion workshop with Henry. Over the next few weeks, I will create a new puppet and animate it, and this will form the majority of my showreel. 

New concepts

I thought I'd have another attempt at creating concept art for the fantasy world, now that the idea is slightly different. I need two worlds, or the one to change. So when its happy I used the idea of the orange world with swirly tree's, and when it changes to scary, it then goes to the green world with spiky tree's. I also played around with the idea of having a blue sky, and it going from light to dark. I added in the detail of the flowers growing from rocks that i included in the storyboard. I added these for a few reasons: To add colour and beauty to the world, to give the girl something to interact with, to emphasize the changing of the atmosphere, and the fact that they are growing from rocks strengthen the feeling of fantasy world.  

By Cassie Austin

By Cassie Austin

By Cassie Austin

By Cassie Austin

I still wasn't happy with the design of these, so I researched concept art a little. I looked in the book 'Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation' by Hans Bacher.

The concept art I found most appealing was for 'Mulan' (1998)

Image: Page from 

'Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation' by Hans Bacher.

I tried to apply the same soft colours to my concept. I also remembered being told to add some hills in the background to give it more depth, so I also tried this out.

By Cassie Austin

By Cassie Austin

I am so pleased with these outcomes, I think it works so much better, the colours aren't so contrasting. I also love the watercolour look, I achieved this with certain brushes in photoshop, thanks to Deb. 

Now that I am happy with the world, I added the giant feet and the girl, so the audience can really get a feel of how the film will end up.

By Cassie Austin

I also quickly tried another concept of the girl in her room, now I have my character.

By Cassie Austin

I like this better, but I still don't know what colour walls she will have, and it still looks very bare, there needs to be a lot added to this image. Her bedroom can be full of props to make it feel more like a real bedroom, whereas the world can be very empty.

Rough Storyboard

I finally got round to it! I know I'm a bit behind but I've encountered a few problems. But I made the first draft storyboard, I'm going to make another one with a different way of getting to the world. This is what I have:

 I realise it probably doesn't read to everyone, but for now, only I need to understand exactly what is happening.

We learnt about the different story types today. I think my story fits into the 'Voyage & Return' like 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'The Wizard of Oz'. This is where a character finds themselves in an unexpected place, and has to find their way back home. Since my film is short, there isn't much time spent in the world, but it still fits into this story type.

Tim Walker Photography

I came across a photographer called Tim Walker. He does a lot of fashion photography for magazines, but he has also worked with Tim Burton. Alot of his work is very strange, his photographs contain objects that don't belong or are out of proportion. It was the out of proportion aspect of his work that drew my attention, as I am looking to create a world where sizes are reversed. 

Tim Walker Photography

Tim Walker Photography

Tim Walker Photography

Tim Walker Photography

I found a few photos of his that had toys in them, but they were very strange. 

They made me think of being inside a doll's house, as if you were a tiny doll and the toys were bigger than you. I then realised I could fit this into my idea.

Perhaps she could run into her dolls house to hide, but in there her toys are very strange and they scare her as much as her parents. 

I could have something similar to 'Alice in Wonderland' where she drinks potion to shrink and fit into such a place, and then eat something to grow and get out  of it. 

I quite like this idea, but it might be a bit more complicated than I hope, I would need to build a few sets of the interior of the house. 

Simple story and Synopsis

So, now I know my story, and it is going to be a very simple storyline. I just need to figure out how she gets from one world to the other. 

This is my rough storyline:

Little girl playing with toys, muffled arguing in the background, she wishes to be in another world with her toys.

In the world, its happy at first, but then turns bad, as her parents are getting closer in reality, she can't escape them in her fantasy, the world gets scary and the giant toys are stumbling over her. She tries to run and hide and somehow finds a way out of there. Back in her bedroom her parents are fighting right in her doorway. 

Also, now I am confident with my idea, I have developed my initial synopsis:

'A little girl finds a fantasy world to escape her parents arguing, but even in there her fears catch up with her'

Research, Again

I need to think of a quick and simple way for the little girl to go from one world to the other, I want to to be left to the viewers imagination, like 'Pan's Labyrinth', whether or not she actually goes into a fantasy world, or its all in her mind.

Disney's 'Alice in Wonderland' (1951)









'Alice in Wonderland' is a good example of a little girl going into another world, she follows a talking rabbit down a hole. But in the world, she drinks potion and eats things to change size. One of the main parts to my film will be the sizes of the characters changing around. So I could apply a similar idea of Alice's potions and foods to how my characters change size.

Disney's 'Alice in Wonderland' (1951)















Disney's 'Alice in Wonderland' (1951)

BBC's 'William's Wish Wellingtons' (1994)

'Williams Wish Wellingtons' was an old childrens TV show, where the little boy would make a wish using his magic wellingtons and it would instantly come true. He could wish for anything at all. So perhaps my character has some magic object that grants her wish to escape the real world. 

Panic!!

As I was struggling with the story line, I thought it might be a good idea to have a tutorial with Leonie, who was our Narrative Strategies lecturer. However, this didn't go to plan. She didn't like the idea much, because it was done to death (what hasn't been done to death these days?) and that it was like an NSPCC advert, which I could do if I had the reveal in live action. Also, she brought up the good point that if I want to work in children's television, I need to have a film that shows that I am capable of such work, otherwise the industry aren't going to bother. 

So, Leonie's suggestion was that I start afresh with a simple idea, possibly do an adaptation of an Aesop's fable. 

I began researching Aesop's fables, and had an idea to do an animation about a monkey that cannot share his food. This is when Caroline heard about the meeting with Leonie and recommended that I don't start from scratch, instead just tweak the idea to make it a little less dark. 

So I then had a tutorial with Caroline, who helped me realise how simple and more fun I could make my idea. 

So this is where i'm at: 

Keeping my idea

Making it simple

Making it a little less dark

Some quick things

I played around with the concept of the bedroom, to try and get it to be less bright. I kept the same colours, just darkened them. Also the shadows in the background look more realistic, before they looked as though the parents would have to be in the wall for their shadows to be in that position, whereas now they look better.

By Cassie Austin

Characters

I chose the two characters I liked the most and played around with them more, adding colour:

By Cassie Austin

By Cassie Austin

Here, I drew one of them in many positions, with different emotions. I'm not sure if this is necessary for me, as I'm creating the puppet in stop motion, and won't need an emotion sheet as reference to draw from. But it helped me get a feel of the character.

Drawing by Cassie Austin

Also, as suggested, I tried to make the faces out of plasticine, to get a better feel of how they would look in 3D. 

I find it quite difficult shaping plasticine as the heat from my hands melts it as I'm trying to mould it.

I'm still insure as to which of the two characters I'm going to use, I may develop both a little more first.

More Research

'Behind closed doors' by Jonathan Button

Nina showed me this animation as it was similar to my idea. The story is about a little boys who can hear his parents fighting, he is really scared. He also has a closet with something terrifying in, this turns out to be his vicious side that can stand up to his drunk dad. 

There were certain points in the animation that I found useful. The way the sound was used, the argument was muffled to show what the boy was hearing through the walls, and you can't quite hear what they are arguing about. 

Also, the way the monster in the cupboard is introduced, as if the boy has to go into the closet to become it. 

The style was very interesting. It seems to be made in 3D, with 2D drawings or textures added on, or 2D drawings put in a 3D space. The movement was very simple but effective, the characters seemed to have pins in the joints and thats how they moved. 

I showed this to other people, as I thought it might be useful to lots of people in different ways. 

Character Exercises

Another thing I am not confident with is character design. So Caroline suggested a character exercise: take three random kitchen utensils, and draw your character as them. I'm not sure i got the correct idea for this exercise, but I drew the character that I already had in the shape on the utensils.

Scissors. By Cassie Austin 

Bottle Opener. By Cassie Austin

Ladle. By Cassie Austin

I also decided to just try and draw many different designs for the little girl, and see if I can come up with any good ones. 

Character ideas. Drawings by Cassie Austin

I am quite surprised at myself, they're not brilliant, but I am improving my own skills slightly. I am quite happy with the two characters in the middle.

According to my Gantt chart, I was supposed to do a synposis, thumbnails and some more research this week. I began to look up traditional fairytales with a quest, which is something Caroline suggested. (Perhaps the character has to figure something out in the fantasy world to fix the problems in the real world?). But then I was waiting for a reply from Leonie. So I focused on editing the stop motion sequences I have been doing to make up my showreel. 

Hopefully by this time next week I will have a storyline, and feedback on my character and concepts.

Scheduling

We had to make a Gantt chart this week. I find Gantt charts very useful, I like planning time and being organised. However, I've never made a 9-week Gantt chart before, it is very difficult to predict how long things take and when you are likely to do them.

I do feel a lot more prepared for this semester now, I have included time for dissertation, showreel and work at Sainsburys. And also, things like this, organising my work at the end of the week.

Feedback and Concept

Feedback from last week was good. I am pretty sure I am going ahead with this idea, I am happy with it and excited to make it. Caroline preferred the blur fantasy world, but only because it had depth whereas the others didn't. I wasn't focusing on creating a perfect painting, I was more experimenting with colour and shape. I still prefer the green world concept, as it is the most creepy. I then went on to develop more concept images. 

Concept for Fantasy world
Drawing by Cassie Austin

Concept for Fantasy world
Made by Cassie Austin

Concept for Real world bedroom
Made by Cassie Austin

I am happy with the fantasy world concept, but it still doesn't have the depth. 

I wasn't happy with the real world concept, it feels too calm, its not supposed to be as scary as the fantasy world, but she's still scared in her bedroom. I want it to look less scary then the fantasy world, but not as calm as this concept. So I will keep working on this. 

I am still struggling to come up with a storyline, I have the idea, bit I can't figure out exactly what happens in the fantasy world, and how to get from there to the real world. After Deb told us that she had changed her idea completely because she had a meeting with Leonie, I decided that I should meet with her too. Leonie taught us for the Narrative Stratagies module and she showed us how to come up with a good storyline. I think it'd be really useful to meet up with her to go over my ideas. Only problem is she is a part-time lecturer, and I have been unable to get a reply yet. So this is still in progress.

Creating A Fantasy World

I started experimenting with different colours to see what kind of world I wanted to create. 

I took ideas from all the films i researched. Pan's Labyrinth has a dark blue colour to it, whereas in Paranorman it's green. Andy's imagination in Tory Story 3 is a sandy colour.

I also thought about what was going to be in the fantasy world. I want to create a vast landscape with little life in. So, for now, all I've put in the wide open landscape is a few trees. I also experimented with the shape of the trees, I didn't know whether I wanted a typical tree, or a strange, fantasy tree. 

Here are the experimental images:

Image: Painting by Cassie Austin
Green world with spiky square trees

Image: Painting by Cassie Austin
Orange world with swirly trees

Image: Painting by Cassie Austin
Blue world with traditional tree

All of these worlds have a different feel to it. my favorite one is the first one, the green world. I like the creepy, spooky feel. I also like the trees in the first one, they look a little like claws rising from the ground. the swirly trees of the orange trees are good, but they don't have the same effect. The last world is quite dark and spooky, but it also looks like night time. With the typical tree and blue sky, it doesn't represent a fantasy world.

Researching Fantasy Worlds

So I went away and looked at live action films and animations with fantasy worlds from children's imagination. There were actually quite alot, I had to narrow it down to ones that were relevant, and that influenced my idea development. 

Toy Story 3 (2010)

The beginning scene in Toy Story 3 is all of the toys on an adventure, and it is revealed at the end of that scene that it was Andy playing with his toys, and we saw what he was imagining. I feel this is quite relevant to my idea, as it begins in the imagination and then reveals the reality. Although the tone is very different, Toy Story is more of a comedy with adventure. Its overall a good feeling film, I want to create a scary world and a sad theme. 

Image: Toy Story 3 (2010) Pixar Animation Studios

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

I was recommended this film, as it is quite a similar concept. The girl creates a fantasy world to escape the horrors of reality. It is a creepy world with a strict, unreliable creature. The world she creates, or finds, reflects the events of the real world. The tone is also quite sad and has a strong impact of the audience. All of this is very relevant to my idea. 

Image: Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Guillermo del Toro

Heavenly Creatures (1994)

This was a film that I didn't know about, and it was recommended to me. Two girls create an imaginary world in which they can be together. The world is very strange, with giant butterflies, unicorns, and men made of clay. It was a very touching film, with a both extremely sad and happy moments. I began to notice that most of the films with fantasy worlds, also have young female main characters. 

Image: Heavenly Creatures (1994) Peter Jackson

Coraline (2009)

In this stop motion animation, Coraline finds a fantasy world when looking for a way to escape the boring real world. In the fantasy world she finds excitement, but it soon turns out to be a scary world. This animation is relevant because of the style and the story. 

Image: Coraline (2009) Henry Selick

Paranorman (2012)

Paranorman was such a brilliant animation. As well as being stylistically similar to what I'm hoping to achieve, there was a couple of scenes that fitted my idea perfectly.  The main story line of ParaNorman is about a little boy who could see ghosts and his family and friends don't understand him.  One scene in particular that mirrored my original story idea and designs involved the boy's parents being unable to understand him and arguing in front of him.  The boy gets up and leaves while the two continue to fight in the background. There is also a scene towards the end where the witch starts ripping with world apart, and Norman finds himself in a strange world. The look of this world and the way Norman moves in it inspired the look I have in mind for the world the little girl is in.

Image: Paranorman (2012) Laika Entertainment

Short of the week: The Renter by Jason Carpenter

A child in daycare is scared by the strangers, and he imagines that they attack him. And strange things happen, such as eyes in his soup, and the room flooding. The style of this animation is different. Its not stop motion, just 2D animation. But I love the style, the dull colours and heavy shading. 

Image: The Renter (2011) Jason Carpenter

Feedback and changes

We had to create a poster and present our ideas for the first day back in uni. I was really looking forward to showing my idea, as I thought it was a good one. But I hadn't shown it to anyone yet as I was also scared that it would be put down, and I wanted to preserve the thought that it is good. 

My fears came to life. People liked the concept, but not the way I wanted to portray it. The main point was 'Why is this animation? It could work just as well in live-action'. On the spot, I couldn't think of any improvements. I felt very disappointed, I was looking forward to showing this idea. For a change, I came up with an idea that could work, and that I was excited to make. 

It was suggested that I think of someway to mask the fighting, as a child might. The little girl wouldn't see her parents fighting, her imagination would block it in some way. And it would be interesting to make the animation from her point of view, see what she sees. 

The first thing I could think of is to have her parents doing some intense dancing, as if the girl doesn't see them arguing, just dancing with each other in a slightly scary way. Or to have them play fighting instead of real fighting. A child might not understand what arguing is, she may only know of play fighting, so thats what she sees. This idea got slightly out of hand when I imagined the dad squirting the Mum with a water gun, then realising that that would mean the dad actually shot the mum, and I didn't want the fighting to escalate that much. 

Image: Sketch by Cassie Austin

 The second idea was to have the little girl playing with her toys, and she acts out the toys fighting. She does this because, without realising it, her parents are influencing her, and she's thinking about it all the time. This idea then developed to the animation showing what the little girl sees, and going into the world of her imagination. Where toys are giant and fighting.

Image: Sketch by Cassie Austin

The third idea was the little girl lying in her bed at night, and she can hear her parents arguing. But she doesn't know it is her parents, she just heard scary loud noises and imagines scary monsters. The animation can show the scary monsters she thinks of and what she thinks is happening with them. With this animation, I would need to include the sound of arguing, as you would need to hear what the little girl hears to understand what is happening.  

Image: Sketch by Cassie Austin

My favorite idea was the second one, so I went on to develop another image, of the world and the toys fighting in it. 

Image: Sketch by Cassie Austin

After presenting this idea, it was a little more successful than the first one, but there were still suggestions to be made. It is still very literal - her parents fighting, so her toys are fighting. But perhaps if we see her in the world first and then reveal that she is playing with toys and her parents are arguing at the end, it could work. 

So the next plan of action is to develop this idea further and see what way I come up with will work best.