Quick Animatic

To sort out timings I said I would create a really quick animatic just so we could see exactly what happens where and also where we could place all our ideas, so we could see a clear timeline that we could start adding our idea to. I didn't want to focus too much on colour and the patterns as I felt that was something we needed to decide as a group. After finishing the quick animatic, I did notice there were sometimes long pauses, and I understand that when we come to animate it the background will be moving, however, I do think there needs to be more action, so perhaps the changing of paths ideas will fill that gap. Also at the end as we have not yet decided on what the repetitions scene will be I have just left that part blank.

Also this means that we can start with the sound now we have a more clear passage of events.

Fisheye Lens and Tove Lo

In the music video Tove Lo - Habits (Stay High) - Hippie Sabotage Remix I really love the fish eye lens effect, I think it really bring a kind of intensity to the piece as though you are with the girl, following her through he repetitious violent cycle of repeatedly going out to drink to forget how she really feels, you almost feel uncomfortable close as you watch her. It appears as though she is having fun, although there is definitely as sinister underlying tone that comes out towards the end. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYM-RJwSGQ8

After looking into fisheye lens more I have found out that they are used in photography to gain an ultra wide angled shot, which could be helpful as we are also worried about space as we only have as high as the ceiling to shoot the piece. The name for the lens was created by and American physicist and inventor named Robert W. Wood in 1906, and it is based on how a fish would view the world, and now they are generally used for their distortion.

If it is not possible for us to use this lens there is the chance that one of our members has a gopro which she said also give off a similar effect, also I know of an effect in after effects that we would be able to use to also create this effect. 

Defined story

After the meeting we collaborated our ideas together and created another brief animatic, although the software we had hoped to used was no longer installed on the university computers, so we struggled to make it using after effects.

This time we focused more on the adult life, and we came up with a really good idea of creating this cycle and loop throughout, we wanted the audience to experience this repetitious effect of life as well with the character, so we though by making it loop until the point that the audience similarly to the character where feeling this drained cycle effect. To end it and break the character out of this cycle we wanted something to happen, to remind the character of the love they once had for their life, we though by making them look up at the clouds like they did when they where a child, would reinforce this, and the sky would rain and reveal a yellow path, like the one they road on when they where young. 

Tutorial and new ideas

During the meeting with Sarah, she showed us this short animated film called Father and Daughter, I really liked how we saw the life transition throughout her bike ride, and how at times she was joined by others, or rode her bike differently as she aged. The way the film managed to create this believable world where it seemed people lived on bikes, just by these small techniques is definitely something worth considering for our film. I think it would be a good idea to experiment with how the actor rides the bike to show their life development. 

Other things mentioned where perhaps if different paths appear throughout the character's life, I also like this idea as it shows the character isn't just following a path but actively choosing which course to take, as we want the film to be about the characters decisions that cause this loss of excitement in life we need to show that they are choosing this path, not just following it.

I also quite like the idea of starting off the bike and getting on, as this symbolises the character being born, and also by getting off the bike this symbolises the end, creating the bike to be more of a metaphor for life and death, and the journey people take.

Practise Pixielation

We had a non compulsory stop motion workshop as part of our animation course, stop motion is something I have always been interested to looking into further, however, as in introduction we had to complete a pixielation in a group. 

This was great practise for our upcoming experimental film, as it meant we could begin to understand what we could accomplish in a set time and also skills needed to make it a high quality piece of work. 

This is the finished piece from the workshop, and although we have been a little worried about making sure we get everything finished in the set time, we have decided that we may animate on 12 fps or possible 8, to get the jagged pixielation effect, meaning this would also speed up the process. This is something we want to look into practising as a group. 

Issues we face

While doing more research I found this short film, expressing how children view the wars in Gaza, this is something we have not yet thought about, that as a child everything isn't just pure excitement, and that things can seem very threatening at times. Perhaps the harshness of the sound will represent this, however, I do think it is worth considering some different angles to express the life as a child, as they grow and begin to understand more about the world, things perhaps become darker as they realise that people lie and hurt each other. This may give us a different angle, as to not just the superficial things that make life dull, such as paying bills and taxes. So our message could still be representing how children have huge imaginations, but they're not always thinking about happy things. 

https://vimeo.com/107637525

In this film I particularly like the use of the children's style drawings and the narration being done by children, as the audience it makes you feel guilty for subjecting such innocent children to such horrific news. Perhaps if we have a stronger more meaningful way of impacting our message it will cause the audience to think about our film more, however, I do thing a big part of that will be done with the sound. 

Everything's bigger as a child

While doing some video research, I found this short film, I really like the perspective used, as when you are a child everything seems so much bigger. Also as we wanted to show how time passes longer when you are a child, this could represent how everything seems bigger/longer when you are a child. It might be interesting to experiment with objects in the pixielation and how we could make things appear bigger, then smaller as the character grows to show this passing of time from childhood to adulthood.

https://vimeo.com/68922521

Group meetings and planning

We met as a group and drafted up our first initial animatic, as we spoke through ideas, and messages we wanted the audience to get from our film. The main message as it stands is to show how we lose our imagination and excitement for our lives as a child becoming an adult. However, at the end we want to express to the audience that it is still possible to bring back this enjoyment for life, by using little windows with colour emitting from them.























This is a screen shot of a collage we made so we could put our ideas together on a basic time ling so we could understand the progression of our film