Week 6 - Development of Character Designs

A continuing aspect of my film, is the development of my two characters. After previously trying to redesign these characters using simple shapes, I have built upon them to add more detail, and character. These designs stick truer to how I envision the two characters within my film. These designs still stick to what I learnt within the shape language task, but build upon those principles. As ever, there is still work to be done on these characters, but I feel I am going in the right direction with them, and hopefully achieving the right level to be transferred into Maya.

The Orphan

The Old Man

Continuing with Concept Work

Below is a few pieces of concept work  have created for my film. These pieces are there to show the atmosphere of the piece, rather then being designs that would be followed, and then created in Maya. I have taken a few key moments from my film, and tried to show the look of that current moment, to give my other team mates an idea of what I want from the film. I will add more of these as time goes on.

Week 5 - Changes to Animatic

After the presentation of my work this week, I have gained further feedback towards my animatic. From this I have now utilised this feedback to create, what should hopefully be, my final version of the animatic. Most of the feedback was about the length and pacing of the piece. Running at over five minutes, my animatic was far too long, but after trimming the shots within it, it is now just over four and a half minutes long. This shorter running time is certainly for the better, and helps keep the frantic tone I was hoping for within the film. My animatic is displayed below. 

Week 4 - Animatic

Although I had already completed my 3D Animatic, I have gone back and changed certain aspects of it, to answer some of the problems with the film. as a refresher, my original Animatic is displayed below.

Although I was, as a whole, happy with my piece, there were still some issues with it. Most issues were with the pacing, and how the characters are introduced. Also, the slip that the Orphan character has towards the beginning of the film really ruins the momentum already built up. After feedback from my tutors, these problems have now been addressed, and hopefully for the better. The new version of the animatic also included sound effects, an opening title, and a soundtrack. The music I used for the animatic were composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and feature in his ballets Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker. I chose this music, as it fitted my Russian setting (Tchaikovsky was from Russia), and was able to reflect the scale of my piece well. I have also always been a fan of placing classical music alongside animation and film work, such as in Disney's "Fantasia". My new animatic is displayed below.

Further Planning - List of Assets

I am not the only person creating my film; Peter Charman and Chelsea Ward make up the rest of the team working towards the finished piece. While I have been working on the story side of my film, they have been contributing design and art development pieces for the film. This process includes designing the various props, characters and other assets that will form the world of my film. To make this process easier for them, I have included a list of these items below.

List of Assets in Film

Props

* The Coin - The main prop of the film.
* The Barrel full of discarded rubbish.- The Orphan is seen trying to look through it at the start of the film.
* Loaf of Bread - Given to The Orphan by The Old Man at the end of the film.
* Piles of Snow, and Icicles  - seen around the square throughout the film.

Vehicles

* Cars - 1920s style; Multiple cars seen driving around the square.
* Trams - Also 1920s style; follows along the tracks around the square.

Architecture

* The Buildings - These form an enclosure around the square, where the action of the film take place. The buildings are based on architecture found in St. Petersburg from the 1920s. On these buildings are piles of snow, and hanging icicles.
* The Fountain - Found in the middle of the square. Frozen over and covered in icicles.
* Lampposts - Dotted around the square, covered in icicles.
* Roads and Pavements - Forming the base of the town square, the road has tracks in it for the tram to follow.

Characters

* The Orphan - One of the two lead characters in the film.
* The Old Man - The second lead character.
* Mother and Child - Seen briefly at the start of the film with the Old Man.

This list shows all the assets of my film so far, but this could change as design work for the film is developed.

Week 3 - Storyboarding

 Although I created a series of storyboards, as part of the planning stage of my animatic last year, I have redone my storyboards for this weeks task. I chose to completely redo my storyboards, rather than just alter or change parts, as I have changed the story of my piece since my last boards were created. In my last storyboards, the main focus of the piece was the Orphan losing the coin and trying to get it back, whereas the new focus has the Orphan losing the Old Man, and trying to catch up with him. Both feature similar scenarios, but with a different focus. Seeing as this new focus has been brought into the story, I thought it would be easier to totally redo my boards. This also allowed me to reconsider things like camera angles, and pacing, as I was creating the boards after creating my animatic. I have also included markers for Sequence, Shot, and Panel, which I had not previously included. I've also created these storyboards with more detail, as I've considered the fact that others will have to follow them too, whereas before I was only concerned with me having to follow them. Although I have already created two animatics for this story, by recreating my storyboards to fit my new story, it creates a more complete part of the pre-production of my film.

Week 2 - Shape Language

All work completed this week has gone towards the design of my two main characters within my film. Although I had already created designs for these characters, and applied them to my storyboards and animatic, I have gone back to refine the characters, and approach them through a different angle. I have redesigned the characters, applying a more obvious consideration for shape language. To begin, I began research into shape language, and saw that every character starts off as a simple shape, and is built up from that. A few examples using the characters of Tomm Moore, Mary Blair and Chuck Jones are below.

As you can see from these examples, the characters are made up of a mixture of the three basic shapes of a square, circle, and triangle. Last Year, when I first designed my characters, I was conscious of using basic shapes within their designs. The Orphan is a circle on a small square, and the Old Man is a huge oval. However, I built up from this and drew the characters away from these shapes. For this task, I will take the two characters back to these basic shapes, and try not to overcomplicate the designs. I began by sketching out the shapes of the characters, and planned out how their designs would fit into these shapes.  

I tried to keep the original shapes of the characters, but simplified them down further. I have also created designs with caricature  the different shapes to various degrees. For instance I have created designs which feature more squared edges, and those with more spherical qualities. My six designs are 

displayed below. 

The Orphan

The Old Man

"Doctor Zhivago" - Directed by David Lean

 

Inspiration for my film has come not only from photography and animation, but through live action film-making too. Perhaps the greatest influence for my film comes from David Lean's 1965 romantic epic "Doctor Zhivago". The film is set before, during, and after the Russian revolution; around the same time period that my film is set. The film is sumptuous, and it is Lean's beautiful visuals that have given me the most inspiration. Snow is ever present through the first act of the film, casting a contrast between the white and dark of the people and buildings of Moscow. "Doctor Zhivago" acts as inspiration for me, and kindled the idea of my film within my mind. After watching it, I knew that the style I wanted my film to take, although vaguely in my mind already, was firmly set. I will e able to take away an aesthetic from Lean's film which will continue to inspire me through the whole of production.