Background design is something I really enjoy and think its really important. I want the background to be a really integral part of the animations design. Although I had set out with mood-boards for the backgrounds I felt the I have deviated quite a bit from that. Al the things I had mood-boarded was quite flat and I wanted to move away from that in my animation.
Colour palettes were something I really found difficult for this I tried a few different colour variations for my first main background but they all didn't look quite right. I realised I needed to simplify what I was doing and use a more limited palette
Thursday, 9 February 2017
storyboarding
Storyboarding is arguably one of the most important stages in production and something I can often find it quite intimidating. This time however I really enjoyed the whole process and I am glad invested quite a bit of time into it. I started on post it notes and slowly went through my treatment panneling every shot. I thought carefully about trying to reuse shots if I could to save time when it came to production but made sure that didn't come at the expense of the story. For this project I really tried to push some more 3 dimensional camera shots and use a variety of camera angles. I have a habit of producing very flat work from not many angles so this was a good opportunity to break out of that. I felt that this lot of storyboards did that successfully.
A lot of shots got cut and altered to create the final rough version of the storyboards. Once I was happy with the first rough edit I cut the storyboards into a quick animatic to see how they run and whether more or less shots were needed before I redid them in neat.
I was fairly happy with the edit there were a couple of amendments and additions but after that I could move on to mocking up the boards in neat. The final boards where all pretty much the same other than some slight shot adjustments. I think I need to add some more lighting to some of the shots. I did not add that much layout to a lot of the shots as this is something I am planning on establishing further with environment design.
link to my final storyboards on boords: https://app.boords.com/s/5e3d4k
A lot of shots got cut and altered to create the final rough version of the storyboards. Once I was happy with the first rough edit I cut the storyboards into a quick animatic to see how they run and whether more or less shots were needed before I redid them in neat.
link to my final storyboards on boords: https://app.boords.com/s/5e3d4k
fraser mclean
Fraser Mclean was a really interesting speaker and probably one of the most insightful we've had at the college. He came for a talk at a really opportune time in my project as layout was something I had not really thought about much but its a really important thing to apply to my animation.
Since I've been trying different shots for this animation there were some layout problems I wouldn't have thought needed solving. After Fraser talk on the importance of it I went to read his book "setting the scene" which was really useful. It was really important especially for one scene that has a camera rotation so the background needs to curve to keep the perspective right. I need to do further reading of this book.
Since I've been trying different shots for this animation there were some layout problems I wouldn't have thought needed solving. After Fraser talk on the importance of it I went to read his book "setting the scene" which was really useful. It was really important especially for one scene that has a camera rotation so the background needs to curve to keep the perspective right. I need to do further reading of this book.
Director reviews on youtube
A really good way to understand film theory is from the many youtube based film analysists. There are a lot of channels that talk about film theory however two I have found particularly good have been everyframe a painting and Nerdwriter1. Both the people often analyse directors as well as films and provide useful insight into film traits I'm using for this project.
One from every frame apianting that is really useful is the one on busta keaton one of the original silent comediens of the time. One thing I took not of in particular is the way busta keaton frames his gags and a lot of them make use of the camera. He uses the rule of "If its not on frame then it doesn't exist" which means ridiculous things can come out of no were because the camera was not looking at them.
Another really useful analysis was slightly more relevant to animation which was an analysis of Ren and Stimpy. Although I am not a huge fan of the show for its overtly disturbing themes it does have some brilliant moments. A big thing I took away from it is the success of its originality. Every frame is different there are no quick fixes in ren and stimpy. Every facial expression is different so when you're watching similar weird gags they never get stale.
One from every frame apianting that is really useful is the one on busta keaton one of the original silent comediens of the time. One thing I took not of in particular is the way busta keaton frames his gags and a lot of them make use of the camera. He uses the rule of "If its not on frame then it doesn't exist" which means ridiculous things can come out of no were because the camera was not looking at them.
The spongebob Movie
Over the christmas holidays I re-watched the spongebob movie which I had not watched in a long time. I forgot at the sheer brilliance of the visual comedy created in this film. It was really inspiring to watch and showed how even with childish humour the right timing/framing can create an impressive gag that everyone will find funny.
Something I really wanted to pay homage to was the ridiculous faces of spongebob. It is a constant source of amusement in the film and show. This is definitely something I can utilise and fits into the silly characters I often draw. The use of framing in the animation really pushes the comedy of these faces and makes sure its ridiculous pose it not lost on the audience.
One of the best sections of the film.
Something I really wanted to pay homage to was the ridiculous faces of spongebob. It is a constant source of amusement in the film and show. This is definitely something I can utilise and fits into the silly characters I often draw. The use of framing in the animation really pushes the comedy of these faces and makes sure its ridiculous pose it not lost on the audience.
story refinement
After the pitch I started to refine the story of my animation. The Main thing I was focusing on was adding ore conflict. The story was about a really thirsty character trying to get a drink so I thought it would be best for another character that was the polar opposite from the main character in personality to steal some water to force a chase which would form the A to B narrative.
Once I got a rough idea of what character I was adding to create conflict I started doing flow charts of the story. I was plotting key events I wanted to take place it the narrative and slowly added bits. I kept going through this process until I had a full linear narrative.
Once I had finished this I went to see Max one of my peers who I felt it good at writing narratives and comedy. We went through the story together to add or remove gags think about timing and also come up with the final resolution gag. This was a really beneficial process as even just saying ideas alud helped them to flourish.
Once I got a rough idea of what character I was adding to create conflict I started doing flow charts of the story. I was plotting key events I wanted to take place it the narrative and slowly added bits. I kept going through this process until I had a full linear narrative.
Once I had finished this I went to see Max one of my peers who I felt it good at writing narratives and comedy. We went through the story together to add or remove gags think about timing and also come up with the final resolution gag. This was a really beneficial process as even just saying ideas alud helped them to flourish.
Reading Graphic Novels
I really enjoy reading graphic novels especially one offs with different styles. I found these to be a really good inspiration for this project. Over the last few years I've slowly built a collection of graphic novels at events like thought bubble. This has been an excellent resource for this project. One of my favourites for this project was Matt Forsyths Ojinchallo which is a graphic novel without any words. It doesn't have the luxury of movement so it conveys the entire story through single imagery which I found really interesting and is something I need to apply to my own film.
The art of ooo
The art of ooo is the adventure time art book. It breaks down all the design choices shows sections of the shows design bible and takes you through the thought processes behind a lot of the show. Its a really interesting read as the book shows the do and don'ts of how to draw and animate characters. The bible shows that the characters can be altered in many different ways like finn can have between 3-5 fingers depending on the shot but it always works. I want to set specific parameters like this for my project.
Post pitch
Pitching was a really useful stage of this project it forced me to settle on ideas and really start setting the project on motion but it also provided me with some essential feedback.
The concept of my film seemed to go down well people responded well to the idea, style and mood I was trying to pitch however it was apparent that my story needed quite a rework to make it a better comedy.
My story at the time lacked any conflict so nothing was really driving the animation forward. At first this didn't seem very apparent to me but when thinking about the animation running as a whole it made sense that my current story would not work very well.
I decided to keep the current narrative the same as I liked the concept and I didn't want to waste time on concepting something completely new but rework it so it flowed better.
The concept of my film seemed to go down well people responded well to the idea, style and mood I was trying to pitch however it was apparent that my story needed quite a rework to make it a better comedy.
My story at the time lacked any conflict so nothing was really driving the animation forward. At first this didn't seem very apparent to me but when thinking about the animation running as a whole it made sense that my current story would not work very well.
I decided to keep the current narrative the same as I liked the concept and I didn't want to waste time on concepting something completely new but rework it so it flowed better.
further story development
Once I started to come up with settings I wanted to include in my world 9a desert, a cave and a jungle) I quickly started to come up with ideas for the project. The problem was I quickly incoiuntered a common pitfall which I often do when planning animatins. Once I have one idea I like I stick to that and don't move on from that.
I did that with this project and for at least a week I was dead set on doing one idea that wasn't all that good. Once I realised what I was doing I quickly tried to plan completey different stories in the same settings to distance my self from the original idea. At a later date I could take gags and ideas from it if it would help the story.
After going throught this process I wound up with a simple narrative which I thought could be effective for this project.
I did that with this project and for at least a week I was dead set on doing one idea that wasn't all that good. Once I realised what I was doing I quickly tried to plan completey different stories in the same settings to distance my self from the original idea. At a later date I could take gags and ideas from it if it would help the story.
After going throught this process I wound up with a simple narrative which I thought could be effective for this project.
story generation
I knew I wanted to create a simple narrative so I started the slow process of idea generation. I personally feel that one of my most successful animations that I have made during my degree has been one of the first ones I have made. It was technically the best but its simple narrative was easy to follow and I thought it was pretty funny, this was my golgothan animation.
The reason I felt this story was successful is that it focused on one main character travelling from A to B for a simple reason. The character's journey is interrupted for the sake of humour. This is a really effective and simple way to create a comedic narrative.
I started off struggling with a creating a concept and spent a lot of time coming up with nothing. I reliased I was trying to pull a story out of thin air which was not going to happen.
I decided a better way to create a narrative was to build a world first then fit characters and stories into it. This is somewhat how show like adventure time structure their episodes and its a solid formula.
The reason I felt this story was successful is that it focused on one main character travelling from A to B for a simple reason. The character's journey is interrupted for the sake of humour. This is a really effective and simple way to create a comedic narrative.
I started off struggling with a creating a concept and spent a lot of time coming up with nothing. I reliased I was trying to pull a story out of thin air which was not going to happen.
I decided a better way to create a narrative was to build a world first then fit characters and stories into it. This is somewhat how show like adventure time structure their episodes and its a solid formula.
creating mood boards
Pinterest has been an excellent resource for this project, as it is so easy to create an online moodboard and if images are not available on pinterest you can just upload them yourself.
Here is a link to my pinterest page for extended practice
https://uk.pinterest.com/oscarbarany/extended-practice-inspiration/
I have been really interested in the print aesthetic for this project and seeing what interesting textures I can get with my work. I also have been interested in using characters with no outlines. It is a style of character I started to experiment last year and want to build on it. I also think it can be easier to animate characters like this frame by frame as line boil is less apparent.
Here is a link to my pinterest page for extended practice
https://uk.pinterest.com/oscarbarany/extended-practice-inspiration/
I have been really interested in the print aesthetic for this project and seeing what interesting textures I can get with my work. I also have been interested in using characters with no outlines. It is a style of character I started to experiment last year and want to build on it. I also think it can be easier to animate characters like this frame by frame as line boil is less apparent.
Character board
Enviro board
Maf inspiration
Not long into the initial planning phase I went to manchester animation festival. What I always feel is the most useful thing at the animation festival is watching the large numbers of shorts available. In a discussion before with a few people it was apparent there was not enough comedic animation getting recognised by festivals so this was something I wanted to aspire to. The comedic animations were also ones people could unanimously agree on enjoying.
The main thing I learnt from the best comedic shorts at MAF was the importance and possible utilisation of visual comedy in animation. Most of my favourite animations had no dialog, all the jokes were told through character action, juxtaposition and timing. This is something I really want to apply to my animation and really build on my film making skills.
The main thing I learnt from the best comedic shorts at MAF was the importance and possible utilisation of visual comedy in animation. Most of my favourite animations had no dialog, all the jokes were told through character action, juxtaposition and timing. This is something I really want to apply to my animation and really build on my film making skills.
starting ideas
I knew from the start I wanted to make a short film for this project. I feel my film skills need to be challenged more as I've often shied away from creating a full length animated short with a proper narrative behind it.
I was torn between making something with a serious message and making something silly. After a few discussions I realised I wanted to go back to the roots of my animation and go with something funny. I felt I would enjoy making this more as I always like making ridiculous irreverent designs and little animations so this would be an excuse to scale that up into a bigger project. I also wanted to take the opportunity to improve my comedy writing/directing skills especially visual comedy.
My writing skills aren't a strong suit for me so I knew I should keep the story for the animation simple. I want to make something that I would personally find funny and hope that my similar demographic would also enjoy it. So my target for this animation would be young adults who still watch cartoons.
My writing skills aren't a strong suit for me so I knew I should keep the story for the animation simple. I want to make something that I would personally find funny and hope that my similar demographic would also enjoy it. So my target for this animation would be young adults who still watch cartoons.
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