Production: Out of Time

An (over due) update on my Production "Out of Time"

I would upload a video, but the file is too big. I will upload closer to the deadline on the 13th May. 

So far things have not been going great and it is quite draining. Up-until a couple of weeks ago my project was going great, but ever since my computer crashed it has been a bit of a chore.
One thing after the other just started going down hill; I thought I lost my background artist due to her work stresses, I thought I may of lost my musician this week too- but that has all been cleared up. An due to needed a job desperately I have been having interviews and meeting this week to add to this it is my boyfriends birthday this week. Everything is just piling on now, but I know I need to keep on trucking.

I am still currently in the process of clean up, I hoped to be colouring in in this week but alas there is a long bank holiday weekend and uni is closed.
On the Left is my monthly schedule it is planned to the hour the orange is colouring, which obviously hasn't happened yet, it should be coloured by Thursday, but that leaves me with the conundrum of editing. On the Right is my daily planner to keep me sane, this is my page to show which shots have be cleaned, coloured and have backgrounds.

Backgrounds

I am currently working on backgrounds with my background artist,  whilst university is closed.
I am making some more neat lines for her.

It has been one stressful time in terms of backgrounds, due to ill communication I thought I had lost my background artist so I took it upon myself to get them done.
It was my understanding that  my BG artist would have textures and their own examples for me, but my lack of knowledge to how the art stand of this course works, this is apparently no so.
Instead, I have supplied them with neat lines of my background- some still need cleaning up but i simply have not had the time, they have to now colour them in, and try to mimic my style.

I am very thankful that I still have a background artist as I only really have 6 days to complete my film this is due to other none uni related happenings that were unplanned.
So again I am working a full pace but am still hindered by something that is out of my control. I am still working as hard as ever it is just draining me a bit now.

In hindsight, no matter how much i thought that i had planned it can always be planned better. Communication is key.

Plans for the Week

My plans for the coming week are to get into uni on Tuesday 3rd to get animating and clear up the last part of my animation, I still have 8 shots out of 19 to clean up. I also need to check up on my artist and see how the backgrounds are coming along.

Wednesday again with an early start, I will be colouring all the short shots, this should count about 8 shots.

This will be continued through Thursday 5th (Also my boyfriends birthday) so this will be a shorter day in uni, but i will be working very late. It is also the day that I check on both my BG artist and my musician to see how things are going.

Friday is a little more sketchy but I hope to have booked a room to get some sound affects - this shouldn't take the whole day.

Saturday - keep trucking
Sunday- Birthday celebration
Monday - Job Meeting

The rest is just too far away to even plan for, with the amount of things happening there are so many things that you need to adapt to.

Other Developments 

I have completed my collaboration with a Stop-Mo student, I will have to get permission to post the video on here.

Major Project: Preproduction

Stylistic choices

Although that my story is based on Scottish mythology the style of the animation is influence by a few things too.

My main inspirations include:

Song of the Sea (byTomm Moor, 2014)
(Song of the Sea Trailer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jxc7WkC674
 

Secret of Kells (by Tomm Moore & Nora Twome, 2009) 
(Secret of Kells Trailer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw2_HZTuQBE 

 

The Reward (by Suncreature Studio: Mikkel Mainz Elkjær, Bo Juhl Nielsen and Kenneth Ladekjær)
 (Watch full film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cw7aAFS5oc)

Some art choices I liked for my film vary, check out my pin board on pintrest for a glimpse of the mood i wanted orginally for my film: Here

Some notable artists whose style inspired my include : 

IniquitousFish (Meredith McClaren)

I love how you can get a sense of motion form these characters, i also how simple but effective the colours are, especially in fig 2.

Fig 1

Fig 3

Fig 2

 Alvaro Ramirez 

Macka the Red Witch

I love the loose lines on this drawing and you can almost see the transformation it Macka can make into the owl

.








The Reward:

Tehre are some comedic scenes in the animation where the characters become superdetailed, I wanted to have a similar thing with my animation too- to keep it light-hearted.

Here is my character and his more detailed state - note i am not 100% definatly using the detail version as it will be very time consuming.

 Secret of Kells Inspirations :

 I really loved the texture of the trees and flower, I did have a forest secene in my film but it has now been cut.  this is the kind of style I would of been going for.


 Song of the Sea inspirations:  

Agian I really liked the tratditional fee of the film and the textures of the backgrounds. here are are some concepts of backgrounds i made regarding Song of the Sea and Secret of Kells.

Forest with Glowing orbs (Photograph, digitally editted)

Concept Interior Background (Mixed Media)

Major Project: Inspirations and Research

I am going to make a post of inspirations, more of a mood-board of my project, lots of my inspirations can also been found on my Pinterest here.

Candle research & reference:

I wanted to have cream coloured candles in my animation, nothing too out of the ordinary, i need to see how they cast light in a dark space and how fast they melt so i will be doing some of my own video reference once i am back at home in a week or so.
In my animatic I have accomplished a good flicker with the flame, i only need to see how it illuminates the room and the wax.

Potion research and reference: 

Potions is a fun one for me because of the shapes of the bottle and the colours i can play around with, there are a lot of interesting shapes, it is just replicating it for the animation, it needs to be simple enough to animate but still look quirky. I feel like the last image is similar to my preference in design.

Hourglass research and reference:

Hourglass from Braid, Number None inc, 2008

Hourglass from Days of our Lives, 1965- present

Wall and floor research & reference: 

I like the cobblestone look but my animation is very dimly lit. I need the references more for the shape and how the bricks fit together as my backgrounds shouldn't be too detailed.

Similarly with the wood look, i have already accomplished what I want in terms of the wood, I used the bottom picture for a colour reference and I liked the cracks but I haven't used it in my backgrounds as again, they are very simple. 

Smoke and cobwebs research & reference: 

I haven't got on to drawing cobwebs or smoke yet, but they are more for the design of my character when he turns into a wraith. - I still haven't settled on a design yet.

Forest research and reference:
 

Here are a couple of images I liked for reference to the forest, being as I am currently revising my premise I doubt I will have a forest scene now -maybe in a future project perhaps. 

Picture references :

I do not own any of these photos or pictures. 

I googled "cream candle" "candle" "cobwebs" and took a lot of images off there, a lot of them were stock photos for shops such as amazon, with no other reference details.

Major Project: Preproduction #2

Preproduction #2

Premise

Yesterday we had critiques on our story ideas, my story has changed quite a bit really but it does still keep the bare bones of it all (insider joke ;) ).

Here are my rough thumbnails from my story before the critique, I will be working on new ones today as well as altering my written work for premise and format today.

My original story is in a previous blog post 13/02/16, if you would like to refresh your memory.
In summary it is about a sorcerer that doesn't want to dye and takes a potion to prolong his life, however it has adverse effects and he turns into a wraith. Later a forest spirit requests that he goes peacefully into the earth the wraith refuses and the two have a battle resulting in the wraith being forcefully pulled into the earth and becoming a thistle. - It was all based on Scottish folklore.

Instead I got a suggestion off a peer that can nature suck the life back out of him and peel away his flesh to reveal the dark wraith? I thought this was a bit too dark and perhaps a bit disturbing (I am very squeemish too) So instead I think i will use an already existing prop; the hourglass on the desk and make that suck the life back out of him there for making time the enemy not nature. It still need a bit of work and I will be rewriting it over the weekend.

Enough about the story, I have done some character design, it is nearly there. I just need to get a solid construction of the character, draw up the props  and backgrounds also do a few colour tests.

Concept design

A jumble of background swatches and concepts. 

An experiment to make a night sky.

I have done quite a few tests regarding the background for this project, I am still working on the character design.
The character design is something I will be working on, on the train back to Manchester.
Whilst home I am going to find some good background references for a forest and some castles because I know a few places at home that would be perfect!





I did an experiment with a latte I had the other day by taking photos of it and inverting the colours and messing with the contrast and saturation. I think it worked pretty well, I may edit it a little bit; adding a few more stars here and there.

Major Project: Production

Preproduction

I have decided that I am doing my story on Scottish Folklore, or at least based on it. I have written the story in the structure of a folktale; in small chunks. This works well for me and my time management because it means I have formed the entire plot in to 4 bite-sized "episodes", meaning I can add the other episodes on as and when. 

Here is my premise:

An old sorcerer of the forest looks to prolong his life through unnatural means, due to the law of nature his soul is torn and he is turned into a wraith. When the unnatural wraith appears, Ghillie Dhu the forest fae appears to beacon the soul to past back into the earth. The wraith being so warped from nature it retaliates and attacks the fae, supposedly killing the creature.

The wind starts to howl and the leaves swirl of the body of the fae. Ghillie Dhu is not dead, he pulls himself up off the floor his movement is stiff and crooked, his eyes darken and skin crackles, the wind flurries through the trees making branches snap. The wraith flails in terror, Ghillie Dhu opens the earth under the wraith and it curls around it swallowing it whole, the wraiths ethereal claws get pulled through the earth, the wind dies down and where the wraith passed through grows a thistle.

REVISED EDITION, My reasoning is annotated in orange. 

First Episode:

The sorcerer, old and weary, is dying. He looks at his hourglass to find that he doesn’t have much time left and so heads to his position room for a potion to prolong his life, he drinks it and starts to rejuvenate back to a younger state, the sorcerer sees the hourglass is flowing backwards and is happy about this.

This leaves the story with a happy end, the old sorcerer lives and can continue with his magick ways. 

Second Episode:

The backwards flowing hourglass gets a crack in the glass, the youthful process is interrupted and flashes of a skull are seen within the sorcerers transformation, the sorcerer panics. He gasps for air as his hair and beard flitter away, he knocks over the remainder of the potion and collapses on the floor the room is filled with darkness, out from it eventually emerges the warped sorcerer.. He is now a wraith.

Developed further, we see that the sorcerer made a mistake and is turned into an unatural entity.  This connotates that you shouldn't stop what is inevitable. 

Third Episode:

The wraith roams the forest when Ghillie Dhu, a forest fae, crosses his path. The fae asks the wraith to return to the earth.  However the warped wraith retaliates and attacks the fae, supposedly killing the creature.

The fae is a representation of nature, and the sorcerer turned wraith is a representation of man and his power/will/greed to surpass and change natural events. 

Fourth Episode:

In a turn of events, Ghillie Dhu did not perish; he picks himself off the floor and becomes enraged. He grows more and more monstrous, he manipulated the wind to batter the wraith and then the fae opens the earth to swallow it. The wraith is pulled into the earth, the forest is restored back to its tranquillity and a thistle grows where the wraith fell. 

With the last installment the story changes again, the message becomes; no matter what you do to fight nature it wiill come back bigger and better than man, after all we are all still part of the earth. 

Major Project #2

I am leaning more towards the animation side of the project being as i want to do my own thing, although I feel i would be more at home with the Art side. It is tearing me in tow at the minute my love of art and my love of animation are equal, but the freedom of the animation route is very appealing. 

My more refined ideas for animations include: 

Inspired from my Scottish heritage, I looked up where my Clan's original homeland is, it is Loch Earn. From this I found that a creature called Each Uisage is linked to the loch (as well as others) but it could be a good starting point for a story. 

Being as the Each Uisage is a "water horse" it is very monstrous and has kelp for a mane and is often confused with a Kelpie, it lures people away and drowns them or devours them- the tales vary. the story could be perhaps one of morals for children that run too far away from their parents or misbehave. It would be very cliche.

The Wulver is a creature i have always liked as a spirit that is kind and humble, with the figure of a man and head of a wolf that leaves fish on the doorsteps of the poor and less able but is hostile/deadly when approached or antagonized. Again more of a moral story similar to "the boy who cried wolf" but more of "don't judge what you don't know" story, again rather cliche.

My strongest and favorite story would be one with my own twist and not heavily based on folklore like the other two ideas: According to folklore, a sorcerer that defies natural life by unnaturally prolonging it becomes a wraith: With this as the base of my story; a sorcerer of the forest prolongs his life unnaturally and becomes a wraith, then the forest fae Ghillie Dhu beacons the sorcerer to come to the earth and be at peace. However the wraith is too warped from nature for Ghillie Dhu to control and so strikes the peaceful fae (presumably killing it). However the fae does not die and in a "rage" Ghillie Dhu manipulates the earth into swallowing the wraith dragging back to the earth where it becomes a thistle. (Basically a story about man vs nature)

My only idea for the art route is to reinvent Yoda as a padawan, although Yoda is animated he is in a live action format so I would presume it would be allowed. His character would be basically the opposite of what is depicted in the films, thus he'd be rowdy, mischievous and perhaps fearful/hateful.

---I have drawn up my ideas for Yoda reimagining and the Ghillie Dhu which I will post at a later date ---

Preparations: Major Project

Preparations

We have not been given the brief to this module yet, but I know it is just around the corner. What I do know is that we can make a show reel or a film.

I think I would like to make a film, however I want to take the art route on this course and I don't know if the film is the art route.

My initial ideas

I would like to make a film about fantasy creatures and/or scenarios, I would love to have a forest setting with all kinds of wildlife, I would stick to British wild life for now because that currently is the wildlife I know most about and can reference better. I plan on taking a trip to a local petting zoo to study some animals as well as get reference footage.
Secondly, I have also had this image in my head that is set far in the past, perhaps quite Nordic and Pagan, again I would have to research this as currently I am too ignorant on the topic.

Another thought was a Boadicea like character charging through the woods with her animal companions, obviously very stylized as it is purely an inspiration not a representation. (You probably guessed it was kind of Miyazaki inspired, Celtic Mononoke).

I may also want to do an animation on my heritage, my family is from Scotland originally although, I am born in England. It would be about the clans of Scotland, again it will be based in the distant past and involve folklore. I have been very inspired by films such as Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, obviously Brave (which could of been better story-wise, but I am not going to write a review now).

One thing is for sure, its roots and theme will be ancient/ historic Britain. and it will have fantastical twists.

I was very inspired by the animations Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea