Tag Archives: production principles

Production Principles: Out Of Your Head, 15-17th November

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While finalising the story, we were recommended to make a shot list, and I managed to condense our story down to this:

  1. A black and white 2D world. A man walks into an abandoned funfair. There is a faint sound of music playing.
  2. There is a camera on the ground. The music gets slightly louder as he approaches it
  3. He picks up the camera and holds it to his ear.
  4. He holds the camera up to his eye
  5. From his point of view through the camera, the funfair is colourful and alive. The music is louder still.
  6. He brings the camera away from his eye and looks up. Then he lifts it to his eye again and presses the shutter button
  7. A cloud of colour bursts from the camera and engulfs him
  8. A colourful stop motion world. Close up of the man’s eyes opening (made of paper). The music is at full volume
  9. A carousel is turning. 
  10. The man walks towards it. It slows to a stop as he stops next to it
  11. Close up of a couple of the horses on the carousel. Their eyes turn towards him.
  12. The horse nearest him is glowing a little. He reaches his hand towards it
  13. He places his hand on the horses head
  14. Another cloud of colour bursts
  15. Close up of the horses head. The eyes, the man’s eyes are moving frantically
  16. Zoom out, so we see several of the horses, including his. All their eyes are moving
  17. Wide shot of funfair surrounded by darkness. Music gets even louder.
  18. Cut to credits

I also had a go at starting to figure out timings:

We started discussing how the character should look today. We mostly imagined him being fairly minimalistic, putting the emphasis in the story on the funfair and what happens to him. Anika drew up a potential design, along with a few alternative details, and then a silhouette version, so we had various visual options to explore:

Initial character design by Anika
Alternative minimalist character design by Anika

Finally this week, after discussing many options for the ending of our animation and getting tutors to explain exactly what was missing from our story, got the green light for the story. One element we really wanted to include was to somehow loop back to the image of the camera that gets the camera into the colourful funfair, but having worked out the timings a little, it just wouldn’t fit without making the rest of it too fast.

Production Principles: Out Of Your Head, 13th November

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10th November 2023

We’re now at the stage of developing the story and visualising various elements.

This is a quick sketch of my initial thoughts for the stop motion section, involving paper cut outs on a multiplane. By having the character and the background elements on separate layers, it’ll be easier to animate the parts that move (e.g. the character, the funfair rides) without moving the parts that don’t (e.g. the sky, the ground).

If the stop motion part is made with paper cut outs, I really like the idea of leaning into that miniature, material world by using a variety of different materials and textures, such as buttons, ribbons etc. It would make an even starker contrast to the black and white world of the 2D section, and create a cuteness that goes against the sinister nature of the funfair itself.

We also have an animatic, made my Jocasta, for the beginning of our story:

Animatic by Jocasta

This is the new version of the story, after discussing together and with tutors:

  1. There is an old abandoned funfair, during day time. The rides are rusty and damaged, the stall are empty, there’s an old teddy on the ground. Everything is in black and white
  2. A man walks in
  3. He sees an old fashioned camera on the ground and picks it up
  4. He holds up the camera to his eye
  5. From his point of view, we see the funfair at night, in colour. There is still no people but the ferris wheel is lit up and turning, and there is music. 
  6. He lowers the camera. In his world, the ferris wheel is still and silent
  7. He holds the camera to his eye again
  8. From his point of view, we see the carousel lit up and spinning (with no one riding it), and hear the music again.
  9. He lowers the camera. The carousel is still and silent
  10. He holds the camera to his eye again and presses the button to take a picture
  11. Colourful paint bursts out of the viewfinder (where his eye is).
  12. He moves the camera away from his face in shock. The colourful paints covers his whole body
  13. Now in the colourful stop motion world, there is a close up of his eyes opening, while the paint falls down off his face. There is the music playing quietly in the background
  14. From his point of view, we see the funfair alive in colour, and hear the music playing louder
  15. With the camera in his hand, the man walks past the ferris moving wheel to a stall that has several huge candy flosses
  16. He picks one up
  17. He eats the candy floss as he walks towards the carousel
  18. The carousel slows down and stops
  19. He is now riding the carousel while it spins again
  20. Next he is is riding the ferris wheel
  21. From his point of view, we see a hook-a-duck game
  22. He lifts the camera to his eye
  23. From his point of view through the camera, we see the hook-a-duck stall empty, with no water or ducks or prizes, in the black and white world
  24. He puts the camera on the ground so that he can pick up a stick to play the game
  25. On the ground, the camera disappears
    1. we can discuss how it disappears
  26. There is a wide shot of the funfair surrounded by darkness. It is bright against the darkness and there is nothing else around it. The music gets gradually louder
    1. this is to create a spooky feeling, to suggest that he is stuck there forever and there is nowhere else to go
  27. Cut to credits

The main issue we have at the moment is how to end our animation. We want to make it clear that there is something sinister about the colourful version of the fun fair, and having a piece of it drift back into the black and white world isn’t quite dramatic enough. We think he should get trapped there in some way, so I added this idea of the camera disappearing, taking away his opportunity of returning home. But is that spooky enough, and is is clear enough? How can we show that this is somehow an intention of the funfair?

Production Principles: Out of Your Head, 8th-10th November

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On Wednesday, we managed to create a basic story idea, and decide which parts will be 2D animation and which will be stop motion. Clara and Evelyn offered to make storyboards, but there were so many different ideas being discussed that it was difficult to make sense of which ideas to include and which we had thrown out. So to clarify things, I wrote a straight forward list of the main plot points, with a few gaps filled in, using clear language and pictures so that we were all on the same page:

Version 1
The man walks into an empty fun fair - there are no people, the rides are not moving, the lights are off. Everything is black and white
There is an old camera on the ground
The man picks up the camera and puts strap round his neck 
He looks through the viewfinder 
Through the camera, he sees the funfair is colourful and alive
He looks back at his surroundings, which is empty again.
He looks into the camera again, and sees a different part of fair in colour
He presses the button.
There is a flash of light. 
When the light is gone, the man is in the alive, colourful fair
The man walks through the colourful fair
He buys a giant candy floss and eats it as he walks
He watches some fireworks
Colours from the camera start spreading across his body
He looks through the viewfinder and sees the black and white world
He presses the button
There is a flash of light
He is back in the black and white world. All the colour is gone
He takes the camera off and puts in back on the ground
He walks away
A piece of colourful confetti blows in the wind in the same direction as the man

We also started a Pinterest board to help collect visual ideas related to our story:

A Pinterest board became a very helpful way to communicate visual elements when language differences made it hard to explain verbally

These are the resulting storyboards:

Storyboard by Clara
Storyboard by Evelyn

Both Evelyn and Clara added details of their own as well, which added to the pool of ideas we had. There’s a part of me that finds that stressful, and wants to have everything decided and solidified as soon as possible, so I’m having to be more relaxed about letting the project evolve and change as it goes. Afterall, when I’m making something by myself, that tends to be how it happens. I think it’s just when I’m collaborating with a group, I feel more anxious about time and getting everything done because I feel less in control.

Production Principles: Out Of Your Head, 6th November 2023

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We started out project by trying to find the key themes and images of our animation, starting with these words from the list:

  • Greed
  • Uncover
  • Tiny
  • Huge
  • Burst
  • Awaken

I tried to gear the group more towards the verbs from the list, as it made sense to me that action words like ‘burst’ would generate more images and basic starting points that we could build upon than trying to navigate too many big themes like ‘love’. Similarly, visual words like ‘tiny’ and ‘huge’ helped to generate simple ideas we could build upon.

At the brainstorming stage, we were open to any kind of images and ideas that came up. I felt more comfortable at this stage to stick to abstract themes than concrete story ideas, since it became clear quite quickly that people in the group had quite different ideas of what made a good story.

However, we reached a point when discussing abstract concepts could only get us so far, so a tutor suggested we brainstormed individually from each word, putting down whatever words and images came to mind without overthinking. This was helpful because we could then bring those ideas back to the main group discussion.

[insert scan of my ‘Uncover’ brainstorm]

We also discussed mediums, as we want to use both 2D and stop motion animation. I think I have more experience of stop motion than the others, and I’m more aware of the possibilities within that area, so I shared this with them as an example of bringing 2D and drawing experience into a stop motion world:

Production Principles: 3-Panel Story and Feedback

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My final 3-panel story was based in this location drawing I did at Tate Modern:

I chose this one because I was pleased with the proportions of the girl (you can tell it’s a child) and she reminds me of the sort of characters that featured in books I read when I was growing up.

The way she’s standing made me imagine her waiting for something, which is how I ended up drawing her standing on a train station platform. It made several drafts before I decided to submit this one, most of which came from my head rather than using references.

I was pretty pleased with the final result, given that I rarely draw entire scenes like this from my imagination as a polished piece. However, a number of issues were flagged up during feedback. People felt it was unclear that it was at a train station, and some people thought the person on the opposite platform was another version of the girl. I had tried to change the proportions to show that this was an adult, but maybe the differences are too subtle.

The tutor said that my piece isn’t really a story, more just a single moment, and commented on the fact that it is very static. Part of the reason for this is that my moving image work is often influenced by director Wes Anderson, who uses a lot of static camera work and central alignment in his composition, and hones in on small, seemingly inconsequential moments. So I think I got a bit too caught up in my own stylistic tastes and didn’t think about whether I was creating a genuine dynamic story here.

But I still like the non-moving camera angle and the simplicity of it. I can see that it’s not very exciting, but it feels authentic to me. To me, this 3-panel story is about the feeling of waiting for someone important to arrive, not being able to move until they do, and then finally seeing them. I think you can communicate big things like that in small ways, and if I were to make this into a film or animation, I would include those little details like the girl’s hands fidgeting, or the wind blowing her hair and coat.

Actually I kind of want to make that now…

So to improve this piece, I would add some colour to help distinguish the different elements, and I would make the drawings more detailed for the same reason. If I were to change the camera angles, some ideas would be to show the little girl from the side in the second one, maybe looking at her watch or down at the long length of the train tracks.

Production Principles: Final Storyboard Feedback

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Everyone enjoyed the story I had written, and seemed interested in what had happened. People seemed to think my method of using photographs instead of drawings worked well, and felt that the emotions of the characters came through despite their simplicity, due to the use of different angles and close-ups.

There was also an agreement that a bit more detail would make it even more clear. If I were to do this again, I would draw the facial expressions of the characters onto the photographs in Photoshop. I would also go with my original intention to stick pictures of the setting onto the cardboard set.

Overall, I’m really pleased with the reaction I got from this, particularly the things people found funny. Some of that was from the story itself, but people also laughed about the techniques I’d used to make it, such as the poorly-cropped images of tea and cake pasted onto the photograph of the table (a cube made of card with stripy paper glued on). I don’t mind the scruffiness or haphazard elements of my work being laughed at, because it’s generally at least partially deliberate and shows the character of my style. Because f it wasn’t deliberate at first, it probably was by the end. I was only person in the group who didn’t draw their storyboard by hand, and even though this method came from a lack of confidence in my artistic skills, people seemed to really enjoy the creativity and uniqueness of it.

Production Principles: Storyboarding, Location Drawing at Tate Modern

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Monday 30th October 2023

Today we spent the afternoon at Tate Modern doing fast location drawing of people. It had to be fast because, being in a public place, people kept moving so you didn’t have much time to capture them.

To start with, we had to just draw people’s faces. I found this really challenging at the beginning, particularly since I’m used to just doing the bare minimum to represent faces when drawing people. I ended up sitting near to an artwork that people would stand and look at for a while, which gave me a bit more time to draw them, and by the end I felt more confident with it. Here are my some of my drawings:

Then we had to draw scenes. By now I felt much more willing to quickly get something down and move on, and I was quite pleased with some of my drawings:

Production Principles: Working on Final Storyboard

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For my final storyboard, I didn’t feel confident in drawing 20-60 frames myself, so I decided to use photography instead.

After brainstorming the story, I found quite easy to write the final version with an inciting incident, climax and resolution.

I then decided to use pipecleaners to make simple puppets for my characters, and I made a set out cardboard and paper. I found it quite tricky to figure out how much detail I needed, particularly in the set. I considered printing off pictures to stick to the cardboard background, to create a backdrop, but worried this would limit the amount of angles I had available for photographing the panels.

For the panels, I photographed several angles and compositions so that I would have more than one option for putting it all together. By keeping the puppets/models simple, I could also reuse photographs to speed up the process.

I was pleased with this method of creating a storyboard because as well as reducing the amount of stress and time it would have taken to draw all the panels and compositions I wanted, it links to my main interest in stop motion. I found the process of composing close-up photographs of miniatures more challenging than I had anticipated, and I was glad to have the chance to develop that skill a bit further.

Production Principles, Storyboarding: 23rd & 25th October 2023

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Monday 23rd October

In our first storyboarding class, we discussed the purpose of a storyboard and the elements of visual literacy that form storyboard language:

We also went through the different elements that go into composing a frame, often known as ‘camera language’.

I feel like these are all things that I would notice and be effected by when watching any kind of animation or film, but often without noticing, which is suppose is the aim to an extent – that these elements add to the message and emotion of the work without being a distraction from the story.

I found during today’s class that storyboarding that things like camera angles, framing, composition, perspective etc are more part of the purpose of it than things like character or set design. I also discovered that these are not things that I find easy to communicate in drawing – at least not at the same speed as other people in the group. My attempt to draw someone knocking over a vase, with the vase falling towards the camera, was not very successful:

So when we were set our assignment in the second lesson of creating a storyboard, I felt pretty overwhelmed, but knowing I didn’t have to rely on drawing alone helped a lot. I think I might bring in things like collage or photos for my storyboard. One idea I’ve had is to make models of my characters and stage them, and then photograph them to make the compositions I want.

Later on in the class, we had to do a continuous line drawing of the whole room. I enjoyed this a lot more than the little one-panel storyboard drawing we did. I think that was because a continuous line drawing is expected to be messy and imperfect, so I relaxed more. I also know from previous studies that I enjoy working in this scruffy, unfinished style in my drawing:

Continuous line drawing of classroom

Wednesday 25th October

Today we talked about story and story structure:

We also looked closer at composition in a camera shot. We had a go at recreating shots from a film, focusing on shape and tone value:

I found I felt more confident with this as I went, although the results are still quite mixed in terms of how well you can see what is actually in the shot.