Interim Presentation

Updated Animatic

While adding the animated scenes into the existing animatic, I also added additional sound effects and clips.

Peter McVerry Trust Project Presentation

Peter McVerry Trust Project Presentation

Style

The animation will be a sequence of quick-moving scenarios that will mostly depict what the speaker is talking about.

BABA from joel kefali on Vimeo.

Concept Examples;

Continuous Line Animation Example;

Cut-Out like animation done in Adobe Aftereffects for greater flexibility in producing the animation. The animation will be have a continuous line format where the audience will follow the path around as it forms a house. The palette will be the blues and whites of the Peter McVerry Trust website to keep with the theme.

Examples of Houses in Continuous Line 

Theme;

The animation follows a 'path to security', highlighting the advantages the Trust has given this person to maintain a safe, secure existence; filled with with dignity and security.

Animatic 4

Animatic 4

The animatic done for the mid-point presentation on the 6th November, 2017.

Zombie Character Concept - Major Film

Character Design

With the development of my story, I decided to go back and re design my zombie character fir the new story-line.

B.A Animation - Thesis Topic

Thesis Topic

Narrative Style in Animation; Looking at The Hero's Journey

What I wish to research;

1. The Hero's Journey is a narrative pattern that appears in many forms of entertainment media; games, film, animation, etc. It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as the Hero, an individual who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of themselves, or someone else.

2. Stages of Character Development; the Hero's Journey;

• Living fully in Identity
• Glimpsing, Longing or Destiny
• Moving towards Essence without leaving Identity
• Fully committed to Essence, but Growing Fear
• Living One's Truth, with everything to Lose.
• The journey is complete, destiny achieved

3. Character Arcs; The transformation or inner journey of a character over the course of the story, starting as one sort of character and gradually transforms into another in response to change or a key moment in the narrative,

4. Developing a character's story by creating a three-dimensional character

• A well-rounded character
• Three dimensions; Physical, Sociological and Psychological 

5. Character Archetypes in displayed in the Hero's Journey narrative, how these characteristics could be applied to my own characters and what problems come with it?

6. Comparing an example from modern animation with my own character from the animation short.

How this is related to my B.A Major Film;

My own animation short is one where I want to focus on character design and character animation. In creating characters, I find the process of developing intriguing characters an entertaining procedure, solving the problems that may arise during the process and the reward of a physically appealing character at the end is worth it. However, wanted to look at the narrative side of creating a character and from it, a story. The aspect of the narrative pattern of The Hero's Journey, is the path the character takes from his beginnings, going through trails and dangers at the centre of the story and reaching the end, where they gain and the glories or destiny they wanted from the start.  My own character, the zombie known as Creak, only has a minute and a half to get through his story, but I find that I can apply many of the stages of a Hero's Journey to his character arc, from his sudden impromptu desire to not want to die for real and the need to keep the child out of danger for his own safety.
 
Reference Material;

'Character Development and Storytelling for Games' by Lee Sheldon
'The Writer's Journey' by Christopher Vogler
'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell
'A Practical Guide to The Hero with Thousand Faces' by Christopher Volger

Visual Reference Material;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZQUebMSEg Pixar in a Box; Character Development 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvGcG4m9tgY Screenwriting; The Six Stages of Character Development - IFH Film School - The Hero's Journey

Wreak-It Ralph Produced by Walt Disney Animation Studio, directed by Rich Moore

Palettes - Major Film

Palettes

Backgrounds

Establishing Shot

Though I planned to have my animation take place at night, a majority of it would take place inside the house of the mother and child. The palettes I hope to use for my animation short are dark, muted tones that that blend together. In terms of background design, much of the environments will be based indoors, where I hope to use darker tones but softened to highlight the atmosphere of a cosy home, even in it's state of disarray. The backgrounds will have no define outline, more so they would comprise of colour and shade, becoming lighter the further the scene gets from the foreground.

There is only one outdoor scene shown in great detail; the establishing shot of the the delapidated house that has been cheaply repaired numourous times. The house sits on a hill, surrounded by trees, shrubs and mountains in the background. I wanted this opening scene to begin with that traditional dark and spooky vibe most scary films begin with, maybe adding some thunder and lightning to give the scene more feel. However, I want it to compose of greens and blues, with hints of purple to give it that outer-worldly effect due to the strangeness of the storyline.





          Interior Environment

The interior of the house will be brighter thanks to the artificial lighting of the lamps and lights within the house. The interior will be a showcase of a cluttered, messy home of a single mother, but should have the sense that this is a home, a place she and her child are perfectly comfortable in. There will be no dense shadows, nor will there be overly dark colours. I hope to be able to blend various shades of blue to highlight shadows with hints of warm colours centred around lighting.

Influences - Artist Inspiration - Major Film

Influences - Artist Inspiration

Genndy Tartakovsky

One of the key artist who has influenced my short animation is Genndy Tartakovsky, a Russian-American Animator, Director, Producer and Storyboard Artist, known for creating the animated television series, Samurai Jack, Dexter's Laboratory and Star Wars: Clone Wars for Cartoon Network. He has also worked on animated series such as the Powerpuff Girls and most recently, Tartakovsky directed the animated Hotel Transylvania films.

(Top; Dexter's Laboratory. Bottom; Samurai Jack 2017)

I think what appeals to me in terms of his character designs, is Tartakovsky's use of simple characters with angular designs and thick, flowing outlines.  from to his designs have maintained this style and though these designs may not seem inherently nice to look at, I still think the are done so for a purpose. Though some of the angles may seem unnecessary, in my opinion the limited number of outlines seems to help streamline the images and thus, the animation clicks for the viewer.

(Top; Concept art from the animated film Hotel Transylvania. Bottom; My own early concept art of the Zombie Main character)

I wanted to try this type of drawing style as it is simplistic yet effective in focusing the audience on the character and not drawing them away with too much excess detail. My attempts at Tartakovsky's have shown me that my own character designs are still too overly complex and I will need to simplify them further.

Character Influence - Major Film

Character Influences

With the character designs of the wolf and zombie, I wanted to do a style that was simplistic and yet would be easy enough to follow on-screen. Taking influence from the works of Genndy Tartakovsky, I began looking into concept art from animated films that featured monsters as the main aspect.

(Concept Art from Hotel Transylvania; Artwork done by Pete Oswald and Carter Goodrich)

These concepts where the first pieces of influence I took inspiration from, attracted to the concept of horror creatures in an unexpected situation. 

(Art by Tracy Liang)

(Art by Maxime Mary)

Some examples of influence I used in developing my zombie character; here I witnessed the ghoulish creatures express a quirky nature despite their normally terrifying stereotypes and I wanted to test what strange designs I could come up that where as half as interesting to look at as these character designs where for me. 

Animation Short - Degree Animation Idea

Animation Idea;

I plan to themed my animation idea around dark humour and a parady on cliché horror. The general idea would be that a werewolf and zombie fight over who gets to eat the baby. The story will be loosely tied together by several gags and a minimal story line. I want to focus on character design and character animation mostly, as that is what I am mostly interested in.

Influences

Courage the Cowardly Dog

Courage the Cowardly Dog is an example of dark humour turned into a cartoon and proven to be quite popular.

Dexter's Laboratory

I like the character designs of Dexter's Laboratory as the are simple in shape yet the are detailed.

Early Concept Art - Major Film

Early Concept Art

The Werewolf

The werewolf is the much larger character, compared to the zombie. He is menacing and  meant to look thickly furred, however he is an idiot, with the mentality of dog. Throughout the animation he easily becomes distracted and it is his lack of observation that gets him shot by the child.

The Zombie

Though undead, the zombie character is surprisingly spry for the state of his rotting form. The zombie is the intelligent individual of the main duo, as he is the one to figure out how to open the window and devises more thought out plans to distract the werewolf, who resorts to violence when he finally figures out he is losing.