Final Video

https://vimeo.com/195897152

This is my final animatic, I was generally happy with the overall outcome; however I do think there is big room for improvement, but I was quite limited to what I could do as I am not that familiar with After Effects. I feel as if the camera movements could have been done a lot better and made to look more natural and keep with the flow and timing of the animation, also the fade to black transitions could have been timed better.

Creating the Animatic Pt 2

I began by scanning in my original story board into Illustrator and tracing over them so I had digitally drawn versions. I did this as I thought this would be the easiest way for me to animate the images, as I would be able to draw movable parts on separate layers.

There were times where I could not animate a single section of the image because it would not fit correctly when rotated, so instead I had to draw each frame individually to make the movement look smooth.

Once I moved into after effects I was able to be more precise with animating the frames. For example, when the thumb transitions from the first position the second position there is a change of opacity (shown in picture two) so that it looks as if the thumb actually rotates, rather than flicking from one position to another. This almost has the same effect as adding a frame in-between the two frames just to make the movement smoother.

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Creating the animatic

After making a animated sequence from my frames I thought my story board could do with a bit more direction in terms of which parts of a scene would need to move, camera direction and how I could compose the scene so that it was easy to animate.

For scene 3 I would have to make a single long illustrator document and then a second document the size of my frame, so that when I imported it into after effects I could animate the long screen to look as if it was being scrolled down.

I annotated and circled areas that would need to be animated, so I knew which parts would need to been drawn on separate layers.

I also marked where I would like transitions such as fades to black in order to break up scenes, or imply time has passed.

Timeline sequencing

Before I created my final animatic I made a quick timeline sequence of my storyboard to give me an idea of how my animatic will look, and also to look at which frames will need more work in terms of animating it.

Animation workshop

For this workshop I had to produce a 5-8 second animation of a basic character which should show one emotion changing into another.

I was given scenarios to choose from, and chose to draw a 'Character smiles, brushes teeth furiously, smiles "shark teeth".'

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My intentions with these three frames was to duplicate them and play them on a loop to create a repetitive action; instead of drawing the frames multiple times.

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These were the frames from my animation.

Initially I tried making my stop motion animation on istopmotion, however I was un-able to save and export the file so I ended up making my animation on photoshop.  

Edited storyboard

Following the feedback I received I went on to edit my storyboard and cut out scenes so I would have a maximum of 20 shots, and only the important information.

As I was limited to a 40 second animatic I decided that the opening panning shots of the city were not needed, as the location was not that important for this story. Also I plan to reflect the shots of the girl talking, and keep them facing the same direction, so when she is texting the guy and he replies it looks as if there is a conversation going on, and will also give the audience this impression.

I cut the shots the show the phone and messages appearing on their own because I thought these could be shown in shots with the characters in them, and also later on in the story when the text messages are shown, as the viewers will be able to catch up on any conversation at that point without showing it twice.

I merged some scenes, so instead of cutting to different shots the scene would just run as one continuous conversation; the same way messages on a phone would come through one after the other, this also allows me to show an active conversation between the two characters.

Again I cut out shots with details that could be shown/combined into other shots, and merged two shots as it should've been a single shot originally because it showed one movement.

Here I completely cut out the journey of the friend on the way to the guys house as I think the conversation between them shows that they have made this plan clear. 

I skipped straight to the friend arriving outside the guys house, just so we know where she is etc. I found it harder to cut scenes from this part of the story board, as this part is where the plot twist/secret is revealed and the different shots play an important role in setting this up to surprise the audience, so I did end up keeping most of the scenes- however stayed within the limit. 

This would be my final shot after the friend is grabbed. The front door would slam shut and a wide shot of the house would be shown before it cuts to black, however I'm thinking of getting rid of this shot as well as it's not really needed. I think the shot of the friend being grabbed is enough on it's own to create a little bit of a cliffhanger and some suspense at the end. A benefit of getting rid of this shot would be that I would have an extra shot left for editing other scenes.

Formative submission

This is my storyboard for my formative submission, I didn't change anything except swapping some scenes around and making the drawings neater.

Feedback:

Your story idea works well, but you have too many images.

Your images are well drawn, and have some good interesting framings but there are too many similar quite wide shots of the phone.

Be more selective in showing the phone, when scrolling images it’s fine but intercutting the conversation on the phone will be too fast or waste a lot of screen time.

To get around this make more use of facial expressions when the people are  looking at the phone.

When the friend visits the guy, we don’t need to see much of the journey at all, you could almost jump from her punching yes on the phone to her being at his front door.

Make use of any frames you “earn back” from editing the end and opening for fine tuning the set up of the story.

The feedback I got from the assessment suggested that I had too many frames, as I was supposed to be making a 40 second animatic and I had over 30 frames, meaning some frames would have to last less than a second and the whole animatic would be very fast paced. Before moving forward with any new ideas I would need to cut any scenes that were not absolutely essential to the narrative. Also to make up for any lost scenes/information I should make more use of body language and facial expressions in order to show reactions and thoughts about things that are happening to the characters. 

Script

Little Red Ridding Hood- Girl A, The Grandma= The friend, The Wolf= The guy

Scene 1

Ariel shot: panning forward over a city scape which gradually transitions into a residential area and begins to zoom whilst still panning

Mid/wide shot:  The camera ends up outside the window of a house.

Scene 2- Inside girl A’s room

Close up shot: A phone on a table flashes up with a notification, cuts to and over the shoulder shot where girl A picks up the phone to look at the notification. A close up shot shows the girls finger scrolling down a list of pictures on a dating site; All the pictures have a question mark inside them.

Mid shot showing girl A holding the phone with a surprised/happy look on her face. 

Finally she stops at a picture of an attractive guy and presses the like button on the left on the profile picture.

Scene 3- In a dark bed room

Mid shot of a phone on the edge of a bed, the phone flashes with a notification, a close up shot shows a hand picking up the phone and swiping open the notification, he sends a message straight away with a house icon-as if he’s asking her to come to his house.

Scene 4 - A’s house/living room

The scene cuts to a mid shot of girl A reading the message with a confused look on her face, the shot cuts to a close up of girl A’s phone where the conversation continues. A tries to steer the conversation, however the guy keeps insisting that the girl comes to his house.

Mid shot/high angle shot

Girl A’s phone is on a table, she keeps getting message notifications from the guy and is ignoring them. Close up shot shows her Finally picking up the phone. Shot changes to a mid shot, showing girl A and her friend. An extreme close up shot shows the picture of the guy, and then cuts to a close up of the friends face; she has the same love struck/surprised face as girl A previously had. A wide/mid shot shows both the girls hands, holding their phones, the friends phone is closer to the front of the screen and you can see she has found the guy online.

Over the shoulder/mid shot shows the friend asking girl A if it’s okay to talk to the guy, but despite her suspicions the girl doesn't warn her friend and allows her to talk to the guy.

Extreme close up shows the friend liking the guys profile.

Scene 5- Guys room

A long shot shows a phone on the end of a bed, it flashes with a notification. The shot cuts to a close up where just a thumb is shown swiping open the notification and typing a message to the friend.

(Still the guys POV)

The guy and the friend begin talk and agree to meet at his house, and the friend is quick to make her way without any questions.

A close up shot shows the phone being locked and put down.

Scene 6- The friends house/by the front door

Mid shot: The scene cuts to a clock on the wall, which shows the exact time as the time shown in the conversation between the guy and the friend. The camera pans down until it reaches the friend who is opening the front door and about to take a step outside.

Scene 7- Outside the house

A mid/close up shot shows just the friends legs and feet walking down the path from the side.

Scene 8- On the street

Shot cuts to an over the shoulder shot from behind, showing the friend walking down the street.

Scene 9- Outside the guys house

Long shot from below shows just the girls legs and feet stood outside a gate with her long but faint shadow in front of her.

Scene 10- At the guys window

This shot is shown from the guys point of view

A long/wide shot shows a view from the upstairs window, we can see the friend opening the front gate, there is also a hand pressed against the window as if she is being watched.

Scene 11-Outside the guys house

A wide shot shows a full view of the house as the friend walks down the path towards the front door, there is a faint dark figure in the upstairs window, however the girl does not seem to notice.

Scene 12- At the front door

A close up shot shows the friends finger pressing the doorbell.

Overhead shot (behind the guy) shows the door swinging open and reveals that the guy is not who he has said to be, the friend has a scared and shocked look on her face.

The shot cuts to a mid shot  (side view) where the guy grabs the girl and pulls her into the house, the door closes behind them.

Wide/Long shotThe scene then pans out from the house back down the path and blacks out.

Storyboarding workshop

For this workshop I was asked to produce a story board for a short song of choice that visually summarises the lyrical content. The idea being we would have to tell the story in pictures as only the instrumental would be used.

The song I chose was When The Sun Goes Down - Alex Turner (2006)

The Arctic Monkeys 

Lyrics:

Who's that girl there?

I wonder what went wrong

So that she had to roam the streets She don’t do major credit cards

I doubt she does receipts

It's all not quite legitimate

And what a scummy man

Just give him half a chance

I bet he'll rob you if he can

Can see it in his eyes,

Yeah, that he's got a driving ban Amongst some other offences

And I've seen him with girls of the night And he told Roxanne to put on her red light They're all infected but he'll be alright Cause he's a scumbag, don't you know

I said he's a scumbag, don't you know!

Although you're trying not to listen

Overt your eyes and staring at the ground She makes a subtle proposition

"I'm sorry love I'll have to turn you down"

He must be up to something

What are the chances sure it's more than likely I've got a feeling in my stomach

I start to wonder what his story might be

They said it changes when the sun goes down Around here

Look here comes a Ford Mondeo

Isn't he Mister Inconspicuous?

And he don't even have to say 'owt

She's in the stance ready to get picked up

Steve Bonnett 20 9 2016

Bet she's delighted when she sees him Pulling in and giving her the eye Because she must be fucking freezing Scantily clad beneath the clear night sky it doesn't stop in the winter, no

Around here

They said it changes when the sun goes down Over the river going out of town

What a scummy man

Just give him half a chance

I bet he'll rob you if he can

Can see it in his eyes that he's got a nasty plan I hope you're not involved at all 

Visualisation Workshop 2

This next brief was a follow up from the previous, however wanted us to look at ways to visualise more complex images and scenes. It looked at understanding of eye line, simple one point and two point vanishing points, scene composition and staging, gridding, showing scale through perspective and drawing basic 3D shapes.

1. A long curving road with telegraph poles going to a distant horizon

2. A giant stone type logo of at least three letters pictured in a desert setting viewed from in front – one version from a low angle one version from slightly above. 

 

3. A mobile of 3D shapes hanging from ceiling consisting of cubes, spheres, cones etc. viewed from below.

4. The pyramids viewed from the air. 

5. A distant city of skyscrapers, on a curving river.

6. An aerial view of a city block with cars in the streets. 

Storyboarding

After producing an idea for my narrative I went on to produce my initial story board to visualise my ideas for the animation.

It starts off setting the scene by panning over a city and ending up at the window of the protagonist (Red Ridding Hood), she receives a notification on her phone and begins scrolling down a list of pictures on a dating site.

Finally she stops at a picture of an attractive looking guy, and taps the like button. The scene cuts and on a different phone (supposedly the guys) a notification pops up. They start to talk, however the guy seems persistent in getting her to his house so she stops talking to him.

The girl keeps getting message notifications from the guy and is ignoring them, however her friend notices and seems really interested, so she sends the guy a message.

Despite her suspicions the girl doesn't warn her friend and lets her continue to talk to the guy.

The girls friend and the guy agree to meet at his house, and the friend is quick to make her way without any questions.

The friend turns up at the house and walks down the path. The point of view changes and someone is watching the girl from the window. She rings the doorbell and is confronted by a completely different man from the pictures, she's grabbed and pulled into the house.

The scene then pans out from the house back down the path and blacks out

Narrative: A story retold

The brief for this project asked me to re-interpret a classic fairy tale and place it in a contemporary environment, without magic or fantasy; but still demonstrate the key narrative and moral conclusions of the original story.

The fairy tale I was given was Little Red Ridding Hood.

I began by taking apart the key components of the story so I could outline the basic plot-line, this would help me when planning my own narrative.

Perrault's intended moral was : Children, especially attractive, well bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say "wolf," but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all.

Which in short teaches children to never talk to strangers, it also seems to warn young girls about sexual predators; The wolf being the predator, as towards the end of the story the wolf invites Red Ridding hood into bed with him, she then takes off her clothes and does so, which I found a bit weird for a children's fairytale. However this does imply there is an underlying darker message behind the story.

Next I looked into how I could implement this moral into my own narrative and I came up with some scenarios (shown below)

My favourite idea was the story of someone being catfished.

A girl (Red Ridding Hood) meets a guy (The Wolf) online and they begin to talk, everything seems fine until he begins to ask weird questions and pesters her about where she lives/if she will come to his house. Eventually she stops talking to him, but her friend (the grandmother) see's a picture of the guy and asks the girl if it's okay to talk to him instead. Despite her suspicions she allows this and doesn't even warn her friend. The friend and the guy get talking and the guy begins to ask similar questions, however the friend agrees to meet him. When she arrives at the house she knocks on the door, only to discover it's not the guy she thought she was talking to. He grabs her and slams the door shut, and she's never seen again.

I feel that my version of the story gives across the same intended moral as the original story, as the girl began talking to someone she met online and did not know their true identity, and ended up in  a bad situation due to this. I also added my own twist whereby the first girl who talked to the guy had her own suspicions, but still allowed her friend to go ahead and meet him. This is similar to how Little Red Ridding Hood told the wolf exactly where her sick Grandmother lived without a second thought, if she hadn't of done that they could've both survived.