Group Project - Animatic

Our storyboard for our group project has developed now. The story runs much more fluidly and we being the story outside The Sloop Inn in St Ives. From there the pirate walks in, scares a local and heads to the bar. From the bar he orders a pint and chips from the Barmaid (Inspired by Betty Stoggs) He heads outside. Seagulls are flying around, with a one  waiting on some bunting just outside. He notices the pirate's food and calls in reinforcements. Just as the pirate picks up a chip, a seagull swoops down to snatch it. The pirate notices this and looks up. Several seagulls now head towards him, causing him to fall face forward into his food. He runs back to his ship, a seagull takes a chainsaw and cuts into his wooden leg causing him to slip and fall down into his ship. He runs aboard, there he stands off a seagulls. He shoots it with his pistol. Using the style of the old cartoons, only a hole is visible in the seagull. He grabs his cannon and begins firing. One small seagull heads away from the crowd as a larger seagull divebombs onto the Pirate. From there a mass of seagulls begin to form around the pirate. The smaller seagull sits and watches whilst he begins to eat the Pirate's chips. The pirate eventually shoos all the seagulls off, only to see St Ives up in flames from his cannon balls. The setting ends with the seagull sat merrily on the edge of his boat eating his chips whilst the Pirate screams "Nooo".

We've been working on animatics, so far we've done two drafts and currently working on the final version;
First draft:


Second draft:




We've made some changes, after a tutorial from Georg. The local was the wrong way round, so we've changed that. He also gave us the idea to begin it from the outside of The Sloop.
We've begun sound as well, soon this will be added. I recorded some non-diegetic background sound of the seagulls in Falmouth along with the sea. So far it's going quite well.

Pre-Production. The Underground Circus.

My Pre-Production work has now been titled 'The Underground Circus'
There are 3 Human Characters;
Tilly the Clown (Main protagonist throughout)
Mark the Acrobat (Brother to Martina)
Martina the Acrobat (Sister to Mark)

Along with 3 Animal Characters;
Daniel the Elephant (Ringleader of the Circus)
Lionel the Lion,
Jim the Seal. (Youngest character, only has 3 whiskers)

The concept behind it is to teach pre-school children about respect, etiquette, responsibility and friendship. With each episode a new dilema will happen, in which the characters will have to solve it. The main character Tilly the Clown will be the focus point and the character who tends to most of the problems, except her own, from there she will have the help from her friends. The series is based on and in the Moscow Underground. From there the characters get on the train to The Underground Circus station where they live. Various characters come to visit them. The characters also leave the station, as some episodes feature them in Moscow.

Each episode will be about 5 to 10 minutes long with a simple progression through  disruption - problem - resolution.

The final characters have been designed and turnarounds are in progress. Concept work of the characters on the Moscow Underground has been produced. I am using a mix of collage and pro-markers to produce a textured effect. The skin for Daniel the Elephant is produced by colouring over brown paper in a light green pro-marker.

Pre Production Characters!

Working on the other characters for my Pre Production project. I've decided on using typical Circus animals; lions, tigers, elephants, camels, seals, dogs, horses etc. I have decided to use a Lion, Elephant and Seal.

Started off with some quick sketches, using the 1950's style. 

I began using collage to create my lion and achieve that 1950's angular feel, working with various coloured paper and marker pens.

I tried out using various different shapes and style to see which worked best. I wasn't too keen on using the gold covered paper, though it did give a nice texture.

After critique from my tutors I began as a trial using that very typical 1950's 'star' shape as the Lion's mane.
I began work on the seal, again using mostly block colour and outlines which extrude off the shape. I also decided to make the whiskers for both the Lion & the Seal triangular. I'm still unhappy with his face however and I'm going to work on this.

With the elephants I began using again very angular shapes. However receiving critique from my tutors, they suggested I go for a more curved feel as the trunk looked too sharp.

I began colouring onto brown paper to achieve quite a nice texture which I feel I will bring forward into my final!

Scribbles.

Literally just found these out. Hadn't posted them yet, so I thought i'd share. Some scribbles i'd done over the Summer:

Group Project - Yes Yes Yes Yes No

As part of our Second Year, we've also been asked to work in groups to produce a 90 second animation. However  the script for our project can only contain the words "Yes" "Yes" "Yes" "Yes" and "No". This can be narrated, spoken by a character or within the animation (On a sign, floor, etc) There cannot be any other dialouge, except for uninterpretable mumble and non-digetic sounds. I'm working with Luke and Lee, we wanted to base our idea around Cornwall after a brief lecture from Kathy. We decided it would be nice to use our local area, especially as I am not from Cornwall.

Our beginning idea began around seagulls and the nuisance they cause, primarily around St Ives where they are known to steal food from local trade and tourists. Luke has a good knowledge of the area as does Lee, we began formulating ideas and researching St Ives. We thought using the Sloop Inn (one of the oldest pubs in Cornwall) would also be a nice feature. So I began researching there too;

 From there we began a first priliminary story and storyboard. We decided on the idea of a pirate coming into St Ives' harbour after a long trip out to sea. He points and says "Yes" as he sees the harbour. He comes into land, and walks up into the town and to the Sloop Inn. There's quite a few tourists sat outside enjoying lunch and drinks, as the Pirate walks up, the mood turns awkward and silent as the tourists stare in disbelief at the Pirate. A large tourist's ice cream drips off to form a "Yes" on the floor. 

 The pirate walks into the Sloop Inn and orders chips and a drink at the Bar. (We decided on having Betty Stoggs from the Skinners Ales behind the bar, or a character with similar traits. As he turns around to leave Betty Stoggs checks him out and gives an "ooh Yes". From there a close up of him carrying out his food with really disgusting dirty nails. A seagull sat on the roof notices him. He calls in his seagulls friends, there they formulate a plan to steal the chips.

The seagulls swoop down and begin taking his food. At this point we finally see the pirates face as we decided to keep it hidden from the viewer. The pirate isn't happy about this, he looks up to see the seagulls circling him from above. He grabs his chips and drinks and runs to his boat whilst screaming "Noo!" The seagulls gather behind him. Once on his boat, he begins to slace at the seagulls with his cutlass. He notices his cannon and begins to fire cannon balls at the seagulls.

One of the seagulls is hit by the cannon ball. The pirate laughs as the seagulls get angrier. However he hears a noise behind him, only to realise the seagulls have eaten his chips which he left on the deck. He clears them away, only to see a plate rocking slowly from side to side. The pirate then looks to the side, only to see St Ives completly destroyed from his cannon balls. The camera then cuts to the seagulls flying away with chips in their mouths.

I also did a few quick sketches of the pirate, however we've decided on Luke designing the Pirate, Lee the Seagulls and I am doing the backgrounds.

University Year 2. Pre Production Project.

Start of my Second year at University, our first project is a Pre-Production one. For this project we were given 4 cards; Setting, Character, Genre & Style. I was given The Moscow Underground (Setting), Comedian (Character), Genre (Pre-School) & 1950's Textiles (Style) So far this is what I've come up with:

I began doing quite a few mind maps, get some ideas going. I decided my main character should be a Clown.  I've also decided I want a variety of Animal character, classic circus animals such as lions, bears, seals, horses etc. I began looking at Children's animations and tv shows, mostly through YouTube, but I put together a quick mood board of some which I found inspiring:

I wanted to use a collage-style as conveyed within Charlie and Lola, however as I'm using 1950's textiles as my style, I thought I could use bright coloured paper in blocks. I also looked at Something Special which uses Mr Tumble (bottom right) as their main character who is a clown. His simple yet bright coloured costume was highly useful as it uses an array of shapes which I could portray onto my character.






Pingu at the Circus helped give an idea as to convey a Circus primarily for pre-school television.

Chuck Jones also began producing the Loony Tunes cartoons, along with Tom and Jerry & Woody Woodpecker. I began watching these to see how the 1950's style became apparent in the backgrounds and characters.







I began looking into 1950's textiles, some of the bigger designers such as Stig Lindberg, Marian Mahler, Mary White and Lucienne Day.

Lucienne Day

Stig Lindberg

Marian Mahler

Mary White

My Grandparents also sent me some photos and clothes from the 1950's for me to use. These have become incredibly useful as I want to achieve not only the textile styles but the fashion of the Fifties too.
(I've had to blur the faces for privacy reasons)

From there I began brief designs of my clown character who I've named Tilly.

I also looked into Circus tents briefly to give me an idea of the shape and size.

From that I created these colleges and drawings, using the style of 1950's textiles...