The 'What?' Project Idea and an update on the work from this term.

First of all I would like to apologise for the lack of updates on this blog. I miss out on a post and then one thing leads to another. More work needs to be updated and then I'm left wondering how to update the blog sufficiently and fit it all in to an update which is a situation that is just horrendous. I will make more of an effort to keep this blog as active as I can. Especially now that this new group project provides the opportunity to keep track of what my duties were along the course of the whole production of the animation...Now onto the extremely huge update:

The What Project:

The group I am working with consist of Sian Ross, Nigel Kitts, Alan Matthewman, Chloe Ingram Gooden, Darrien Gibson and myself. It a big group and although it will help during the production of the animation we all came to see it does have its problems in the creation of ideas. This is because the people in my group are all creative individuals and the isolation of a single idea became harder than we thought. After much debate we had all agreed on "The Old Man Fight" idea.


I came up with a few quick concept sketches using a tablet before we were allocated specific roles to help give the group some images in order to visualise the idea.


The images were going to get used for the pitch the coming Thursday however we decided to change aspects of the idea by introducing an old woman as one of the main characters. At this point Chloe was assigned the role for character designer along with Sian to help, so these concepts were scrapped. But I think they are still important in giving a hint to where our minds were at the time of idea generation.


As I stated earlier we had assigned roles for this animation which were voted by the group at this point. My roles are as follows:

Director
Animator
Editor and Final Cut
Voices
Fixes
Compositing

We spoke to Derek Hayes at this point to help clarify bits of the script and animation that needed more attention. The pitch came the following day and I rehearsed and acted out the idea as much as possible as we decided the idea was more important than the style and concept sketches of the animation in the process of pitching the idea. I would like to think that the pitch was successful as the class seemed to laugh at the gags in the animation which proved to me that the "whats?" used and its meanings in the context of the animation were understood clearly.

As I was given the role of the Director I took the initiative to write the script which I had turned into a pdf and have given to all of the group to have a look at and use for reference in their allocated jobs. Unfortunately blogger does not let me upload files like pdf, so I have converted the images into jpg. I am sorry if the writing is hard to read. If you would like a full pdf of the script than please email me.






The script is not set in stone, it was just created again as a tool to help everyone in the group visualise the idea as much as possible. Chloe showed me some of the designs she created and I chose three of them for her to finalise for the final animation. Sian worked on the character designs for the Dog and I am still waiting for the coloured versions of Chloe's characters to make a decision on which colour the dog should be. We have asked Nigel and Alan to come up with some quick 3d Backgrounds for the animatic so we can have an idea of timing and so on, while I will see Darrien tomorrow for his concept sketches. Tomorrow we will discuss as a group whether we will go down a fully digital path using Flash animation, or traditional hand drawn for the 2d aspects of the animation.

Animal Firm:

I am working with Sian Ross on this project as we had similar thoughts on the way in which the Animal Firm concepts should be brought to life. We have come up with a billion character ideas and after speaking to Derek Hayes we decided to draw out the characters that we feel are important. We have split the character designs between us. I have worked on 3 of the 8 characters that I have been assigned this week:

The Bear: Russian Mafia Boss (Female, but no one really knows)



This character designed focused on the animalistic side. Sort of like a butch female "man eater".



This character design is similar, but i added a fur coat and changed the eyes. I have to speak to Sian and see what she thinks. Perhaps merging the two or changing aspects of either of them. Either way we have to decide on the final ideas of the characters together.


The Private Eye-Eagle:



I decided to give him a more British look, almost like a Sherlock Holmes attitude in this design however me and Sian agree that it doesn't really fit within the style of the story and its characters.



The character is a detective, so I thought i would give him the classic film noir, "fat, retired and out of the business" design. This is the one that Sian and I like the most, which means i will take him further into colour.

The femme Fatal: Cat



Me and Sian wanted to go for a sort of 1940s traditional Femme Fatal character who can't be trusted (even though she's actually really nice).

Overall I think me and Sian are both enjoying the process of the project, be sure to check out her blog for her side of the project.

Sketchbook Project:

I think everyone is giving Kathrine a hard time over a good project. All I can say is I appreciate the loose structure of the brief that she has given us. Here are a few chose works of week1 of the brief which I chose:

"Object of the Day"






Week 2: "Negative Space"





I again apologise for the horrendously long update. I will be sure to keep up to date this term. Thank you for your patience.