Conceptualization - Part 1

Good day!

I am writing to present two ideas of mine for two short animation movies. First I will write a short pitch for each idea, then the story plot, backed up with images to better explain the visual style of the story.

Movie 1 - Queues

Pitch

A busy day in the tax office. A regular guy goes to there to deliver some forms, but the queues are endless, and he has to wait a long time. While waiting, a succession of events happen, that make him regret being such a nice and respectful guy towards other people, since everyone just gets in front of him.

Plot

Charles, a regular guy, is waiting in the tax office queue. As usual, all of the open cashiers have an endless line. Suddenly, another lane opens, he looks to his back and everyone that was after him just moves really quickly to the open lane. He takes a deep breath and decides to stay on the same lane. A few seconds later, a new lane opens, he hesitates for a second, but then decides he goes for it, but everyone in front of him got there first, so he goes back to his place.

A minute or so later, he is the next in line to be attended, but the cashier just places a sign that the lane is closed. Starting to get angry he sees a new lane opening, and another lane almost empty, he goes for the new lane, but all of the people behind him get there before him, he stands between the two mentioned lanes, tries to go for the almost empty one, while looking back, and bumps into someone that gestures for him to go back to the queue.

Starting to get pissed of, he notices there is only two lanes open. He decides to be more aggressive, changing lanes every time he notices that one queue is shorter than the other. This goes on and on, until there is only him and two other persons, on in each lane. One of them leaves, and he rushes to the open lane, just to see that the person there left for lunch. He looks at the other lane, runs like crazy, and as soon as he gets there, the employee also goes for lunch.

Disappointed, Charles gets angry and walks towards the exit swearing and waving hands while looking back at the closed lanes, gets close to the door, and SLAM, hits the door hard, and falls flat on the floor.

The end.

Style

In this story it would be important to characterize the main character and leave the other people present in the room emotionless, only reacting to the queues variations. The whole movie has a typical cartoonish style, so that it can somehow add to the humor and funny parts of the story.

To emphasize the message of the movie, only the main character would have a defined face. He would wear light brown, or light blue suit, to make him stand out from all of the other people. The closest example of how I want him to look like, even personality wise, would be along the lines of the main character, Franky, in the movie "The Goon", by David Fincher:

All the other people would just be assets to better tell the story, being them faceless, wearing grey or close to black colors, not as basic as on the image bellow:

The scenario would involve a room, with close to no furniture apart from the counters, the people behind the counters would have faces, but with very dull expressions that never change. 

 Movie 2 -One plus One makes One

Pitch

A mathematician has decided to find a mathematical explanation for love. One night, after being closed in his office for weeks, his wife approaches him, begging him to come and spend time with her. He grunts at her, and goes for a last try in his equation on that day. With no success, he goes away. His pencil and rubber come to life and start writing on his book, to give his problem a solution that he had never thought of.

Plot

Hans, a mathematician, has spent the best part of the last four weeks desperately trying to find a equation that would explain love and what makes it bring two people together. 

One late night, his wife enters the room and tells him that he has not been spending any time with her, and that she misses him. Upset, Hans tells her to leave him alone, and delves again into his problem, only to conclude that he gets again the same solution he has been getting for the past weeks, for the equation he is trying to solve: 1+1=1. He does not understand why.

Frustrated he gives up, raises himself from the chair and leaves the room, leaving the desk light on. A few seconds later, his pencil and rubber, become alive. They stand in front of his book, looking at the equation. Looking at each other with a compromising expression, they decide to put an end to Hans problem, and solve it for him.

The rubber jumps onto the book, and starts erasing the best part of the equation. With a swift bump, the pencil pushes the rubber away and starts writing like there was no tomorrow. At this point the audience does not see what is being done in the book. Alternating between writing and erasing, the pencil and the rubber draw and draw until its morning. 

With a satisfied look in their "faces", they finish they work and congratulate each other with a affirmative nod and return to their lifeless states. Hans returns to his desk, to continue pursuing a solution for his problem, only to find something very surprising and unexpected: there is no equation any more in his book. There is only a sketch of his wife´s face, but rather being done with lines, it is done with the final result he was having all the time: 1+1=1. 

Hans understands then, that love, cannot be translated into numbers, and the solution that he was looking for, has always been right there, without him even noticing it. He closes his book and steps out of his office, feeling happy and with a sense of realization to meet his wife. 

The pencil and the rubber, standing besides each other, exchange a compromising eye blink and lay there with a smile.

Style

The environment for this movie would be only one: the office at Hans house. It would have a wood desk, a picture of his wife, pens, books, papers, etc on top of the desk. The ambiance is heavy and dark. Only the light on top of the desk and the light from the moon coming inside from the window would light the scenario. 

Character wise, Hans would be close to a real person, but distorted in a way. In my mind I can see him slightly distorted as in Chris Landreth movie, Ryan. Well not so altered but representing a broken body, controlled by obsession. 

The pencil and the rubber would be something along these lines:

This is it. I hope you enjoyed reading and I will be back soon!

Concept Art - 3D Pre-Viz

Howdy!

Yesterday I finished my first 3D Pre-Viz of the Trash Can Rebelion Story, and I have to say that it felt good to have a "camera" in my hands.

When I wrote the story, I had a lot of images, poses, and ideas for some shots that I wasn´t being able to visualize on paper, but with the production of a 3D Pre-Viz, everything just got easier and I managed to represent most of my ideas on it. And it makes it possible for other people to see my ideas in a clearer way, with some color, movement, perspective. It´s just perfect to quickly see what works and what not.

For the Pre-Viz, I decided to use my favorite parts of the story: the moment that leads to the inciting incident and the speedy action that follows it. For this I modeled a simple trash can, a modest park scenario and a boxing ring. I used Max rig since I am familiar with it, to be able to work with ease.

So let´s start at the beginning: the inciting incident. It all starts when the trash bin explodes with anger after six days in a row being hit by the coffee cup that the same guy never seems to be able to throw inside the bin. I created all of the six days actions, so that I could also experiment with video transitions, and see if they gave the correct idea that time was going by after each shot. At first, I had thought about doing these shots with some sort of counter in the top of the screen, indicating the days going by, like "day 1, day 2, etc", but following my teachers advice, I used video transitions and I found that it was not necessary to have any indicator at all. 

The only thing I did differently from what I had planed in the storyboard was to change the camera position as well as the light position slightly in each shot, to achieve a certain chronological difference in the shots. It worked well, although I am still unsure about whether or not the idea that a day went by is achieved, but for the moment I don´t think that I need to change it.

Another shot that I want like to talk about is the moment when the trash bin goes wild and grows immensely, covering the character in shadows, scaring him.

In this scene I went for a Full Shot, with a slightly high camera angle, to emphasize the powerless situation of the character as well as diminishing his presence and strength. In this scene I tried different camera angles, such as a Close Up of his face, a Medium Shot with a low camera angle, but I realized that this was the perspective that would represent what I intended in the best way.

One thing that I would do differently is to have his whole body inside the frame.

Moving on to the transitions between scenes in my story, when the character is thrown up in the air and lands in the boxing ring, is where I feel I could have done things differently. The action is too fast in the beginning and one can not really see what happens to the first scenario. The High camera angle and the Dolly Out followed by a Dolly In to emphasize the greatness of the jump he takes, give a different idea of what I intended. It seems the character is falling rather than jumping. It doesn´t look bad, it just doesn´t look like I want it.

The last part of the Pre-Viz contains another one of my favorite shots: when the character finally sees the trash-bin and really gets scared by it, but only for a brief moment. In this sequence I used a Medium shot right after he landed, so that the audience could start seeing where he had just landed, see him wondering where he is, and finally looking at something that scared him. I then changed the camera position, using a Reverse shot, so that the audience could see what my character was seeing, and with a low camera angle to emphasize again, the weakness of the character regarding the power and greatness of the trash-bin, having both characters in the frame (Two Shot).

After this, and to complement the previous shots, I used a Dolly out with the same camera, when the trash-bin reveals the chalk board. I feel this gave the scene a more dramatic feeling.

It would be nice to block the whole story in a 3D Pre-Viz, because it really is a powerful way to block camera action, position and to see how the storytelling process is working, If one is achieving what is intended.

All in all, I was really nice (once again, I always say this -.-) to fulfill this project. I believe that my story makes a lot more sense when its visually represented that when it was just on paper.

 So here you have it, my final 3D Pre-Viz:

Concept Art - Activities

Good day!

Today I am to comment on a video about two guys that have some problems between them, take their differences and solve them on a Shootout.

I was presented with five different versions of the same story. The difference is the way the cameras are set to tell the story. In my opinion the clip that tells the story the best way is actually the first one:

Although I don´t like the way the first camera is set, in a low position revealing only the lower part of the first introduced character, it actually makes a lot of sense with what happens next. One has the feeling that this character is being revealed little by little, first with a low angle, then a medium shot and finally a tracking shot that reveals the character identity.

In between, we have the introduction of the other character, first with a long shot, and then a close up of his face, completely revealing his identity and also, in a way, indicates that he is aware that his rival has arrived. The introduction is followed by a two shot, which unleashes the action. 

One of the things that made me choose this clip above the others, was the way the action was shown to me. A medium shot of the first character calling the other character out, followed by a simple two shot with a low camera angle facing the second character, which is the one that wins the shootout. This low camera angle is very good to emphasize the power the second character has, it induces some respect for him...powerful! 

And then the story ends with a dolly out of the face of the dead character, emphasizing his loss in the shootout. I think it was very good camera movement for an ending of this particular story.

The story pace is really good. It starts slowly, but with the development of the story, it starts speeding up, with everything happening faster, which transmits a feeling of a certain anxiety towards whats gonna happen next.

The assets present in the clip, compose the story so that it feels that we are in the middle of a western. I don´t have that much to say, other than it was a good choice and that they complement this simple scene.

With this said, I will soon post my own version of this story!  

Write ya soon!

Trash Can Rebelion - 2D Animatic

Hello!

So it all comes to an end, with the completion of the final project: production of a 2D Animatic of my story.

I added sounds, and experimented with them, which gives me a different perspective on how will sound affect certain key scenes in my movie. I think it´s looking kinda funny :)

When making the animatic, I could clearly understand that it is a vital step towards the pace of the movie. In my Storyboard, I had defined an estimate amount of time for each shot, but when producing the Animatic I saw that I could make some shots shorter, and some others longer, even though my Animatic does not have every single action in the movie, which is something I need to consider on my next storyboard: more shots, to have a clearer understanding of the pace of the movie.

The good thing is that, according to my calculations, the duration of the movie is under 60 seconds, so that would give me room for the necessary changes and eventual shots I would need to add to the movie.

From an editor´s perspective, I can definitely see that this workflow is such a time saver towards planning of the movie´s different shots, plus it allows the editor to either exclude or include more scenes without having to "film" them all. Cost and time effective process.

One thing that I could have added to the story board is color. Although it may not be necessary, it would definitely emphasize the dimension of certain scenes, characters, etc, . But on another hand, it can also make things more confusing and might not be so practical. I would prefer to have a stage in my workflow where I draw characters and scenarios focusing solely in the design aspect of the movie.

All in all, these three projects were very productive and knowledge full. I must say, that for the first time, I feel myself looking at my ideas with a production point of view in mind. And this experience is invaluable in my professional future.

Thanks for reading!

Trash Can Rebelion - The Storyboard

Good Day!

I am presenting the storyboard for my short film idea, which I published in my previous post. 

This storyboard content is not so much about key poses, or beautiful drawings, but is directed at visualizing the essential and ideal camera shots for the primary actions and any camera movement that it requires, and is also useful for me to have an idea about the duration of each shot in my movie. 

This is a completely new area for me. Before I started these projects, I had zero idea about how to develop my ideas into concrete stories, how to present them and how to decide, organize and apply the required camera shots and positions. I have a better idea now, or better said, I have the knowledge, but as with everything in life, this process requires a lot of trial and error and a good deal of experience to be able to use it with all the potential it has, towards planning a movie.

This following link will lead you to the PDF that contains my complete storyboard:

Trash Can Rebelion - Storyboard

Having had some time to reflect upon my storyboard, there are a couple of things that I would have done differently. 

 

Simple Storyboard example.

To start with, I would definitely draw my shots a lot more simpler and with more precision regarding the camera position and movement. Some of them are not exactly as I pictured them in my head. That might also be because I can not draw so well in perspective, and even though I can see every shot in my head exactly as I want it to be, it is still hard to draw it correctly. So, simpler drawings would be better. 

 

Camera angle example.

One other thing is me being unsure about what camera angles, or camera movement work better. I for one, am not a very big adept of too much camera movement if not necessary, so I try to keep my shots still unless they require movement to emphasize the action. As an example, on shot number 05, I decided to go for a Close Up of Frank´s (the kid character) face and them to make a Zoom Out  to a Low camera Angle and reveal what was the shadow that came upon him.

However, it then came to my mind that maybe if I had just had changed to another camera, with a Low Angle, the scene would work better and emphasize much more the dimension of the Trash Can, and the fear sensation that Frank feels, instead of a perhaps confusing (for the audience) camera movement.

On the other hand, on shot 07, I do believe that the Zoom Out really does work, because in this shot the important aspect is that Frank is physically lost, and the Zoom out reveals the environment surrounding him. If this camera movement is fast, it works even better. Of course, I might be completely wrong, although I really do believe it works.

And, as with shot 07, the shots I did not mentioned satisfy me, because they express my idea and the way I want people to see my story. I like the sequence of the intense "coffee cup hitting the Trash Can", and I believe that sequence will be a fun part of my movie!

 

 

Storyboard template example.

About the Storyboard template, I made that one myself, and comparing to the ones I found around the internet, I believe that it works well, is easy to follow and has all the necessary information to allow for a fast and understandable reading.

That´s it for now. I will soon complete my 2D Animatic and post it here. Stay tuned!

The piece that was missing.

These last few days, while drawing some sketches of certain key scenes, I could not stop thinking that my story lacked something. It lacked the reason why the trash can would go berserk. It was not funny enough and my inciting incident was being to simple and not "inciting"enough.

And then it occurred me: what if instead of just throwing away one coffee cup, Frank (the character) would be repeating this action for six days in a row? This would give strength to the point i´m trying to make with my story and make it more understandable, while adding much more humor to it. And it would also emphasize the fact that lead to the rebellion of the trash can.

I have now added this to my story, as well to the treatment. It is looking like this now:

I believe that the story is much more complete and it strengthens my message!

Back on track!

Hello world!

I am now back from some super summer vacations, huge computer problems and lots of work, to start with my school projects again.

Getting closer to the final project, I am now introduced to a more detailed process of thinking, editing, presenting and creating our animation film ideas. In my previous post, I used different techniques to allow my creativity to flow, and I had some nice ideas for short films that came up in the process. One of them, I decided to use as a base for the three projects I have to do, which all complement each other, and I would now like to start writing about my story, and explain a bit more what is going on in my head, and how I plan to complete all of these projects.

So, my story is very simple: it is about a young guy that does a very common think among us humans, he throws most of his trash to the ground, without much thinking about the consequences of it. But this time, there will be a consequence, involving a trash can that got fed up with this attitude. Therefore, I decided to name my short story "The Trash Can Rebellion".

At first I had made the above draft of the treatment, and after much thinking about of it, I decided to alter a couple of details that, in my opinion, will make my story easier to understand. These details were things like the boxing gloves, which I could not really see how I would fit them in the story, or what kind of relevance or emphasis it would add to it; The way the story ends. This was a major change, because the end I had previously chosen was based on a moral lesson, and as I learned later, this is not that good of an ending, so I decided to have a funnier ending with my message being sent to the audience anyway, but without ending in this moral issue.

Here is the final treatment of my story:

 

I think it is important to write about why I chose such a weird (?) plot. In my view of the world, I think people in general, everywhere, are a bit careless about this particular issue. They throw every single crap to the ground even if they are just standing near a trash can or something of the likes. I also understand that this might be a very wrong idea for a short film, and it might not make any sense, or it can be really wrong in a cinematic point of view.

However, I prefer working on a project that stimulates me, and shows a bit of my ideals, and that can have a useful message to who ever might end up seeing the movie. Plus, I thought of this idea with a specific target group as an audience: adolescents and children. Working for the greater good.

And even though my idea might seem wrong in a cinematic point of view, let me take a couple of lines more to show why I believe it is not that wrong (or maybe why it is right).

My story follows a three act structure:

-Act 1: Introduction of Frank; the environment where the action starts unfolding; introduction of the second, but not secondary, character The Trash Can;

-Act 2: The inciting incident that will unravel the plot and lead to a conflict between the characters: the moment when Frank hits the Trash Can with his coffee cup. 

The pursue of an objective is not directly related with Frank, but with the second character, the trash Can. He is the one that will pursue his objective: change the way Frank acts towards the world, more specifically, Mother Nature. Everything that happens in Act 2 will lead to the ultimate moment in the story, the climax: when Frank realizes he has made a mistake that might have had different consequences, had the Trash Can not been so friendly.

-Act 3: A breakdown in the action intensity, when Frank looks up and sees that he is still in the same place and is not really sure of what has happened, but still will pick up the coffee cup and throw it into the trash can, just in case what he experienced might happen again if he doesn´t. The action flows again towards the end, when the Trash Can comes in a big plan and shows a "mission accomplished" expression, mostly revealed by his eyes.

In the three Acts described above, I tried to include the most possible animation acting principles, such as conflict, pursue of an objective, doing something until something happens that makes you do something else...

What I explained above, coupled with some nice shots I have in store for the movie, that will be featured soon when I complete my storyboard, might make a simple story achieve something more than just being another animation short movie: to make a difference on other peoples attitudes.

Up next, the storyboard!

Idea creation - Several ways to start exploring your imagination.

Good day.

This time around I am asked to explore different methods that may help an artist in developing ideas for short films. As ideas are something that don't show up on demand, this is being a nice experience so far and will surely be a good set of tolls in the future.

First of, I have been pitching for 60 minutes random ideas of one sentence only for short films. I have to say that in the first 15 minutes I was taking some time to write them down, but things started to speed up the more I wrote. I came up with some nice ones, others I already had them in my mind. I wont post my ideas here because...well because this is the internet, and yes I am keeping them to restricted eyes only !!!

Another task was to use text generators, such as FILL IN THE BLANK, SEVEN SANCTUM and DADADODO. These were fun to play around with, I even made a couple of stories:

 

As fun as they were, I found them rather limited and repetitive, and after a few tries I started seeing the same text over and over again. I conclude that it may be a funny and easy way to find a simple story, but I would rather sit down and take my time to think and write them down.

Gladly there is also that task, of sitting down and writing stuff. Although with a twist. I had to write down whatever words I would think. I came up with two blocks of text. Maybe they don't make much sense, or maybe they do. I'll leave that to you.

 

I was also asked to write down the sequence for a couple of questions starting with "What if":

After this I was supposed to try some techniques for writing down ideas from this website. I didn't try them, I preferred to read them, understand them and imagine how could they all be useful. That being, I don't have a favorite one but I like to think of them as different approaches for different problems. They can help me write ideas down because each and single one of them is a different method and for an artist it is not so uncommon to be stuck in a moment of lack of inspiration. So they can all be useful at some point, ones more than others.

Two more activities to go, but those will have to wait.

Until then, enjoy!

Digital Acting 2 - Lip Sync Comments

Good evening.

I would like to make a post talking about which principles of animation have I used on my own animation, as well as enumerate differences from my own animation to other students projects.

First of all the animation principles presented, is that my character has an objective in the scene. He is making a satirical comment to the economical situation in Portugal.

The second animation principle present is that he is playing an action until something happens to make him play a different action. He is acting as a reporter, he was going to tell the news he was supposed to, when he got to the local, but then something happened, something went by him and that made him change his action. In this particular animation he changed from his secondary objective to the primary objective in the scene.

Another one is that my character is reacting to an emotion, and he does something about that felt emotion. He expresses the emotion by being completely surprised with what went by him, and then he does something about it: what he saw was unknown so he tried to find out what surprised him.

All actions begin with movement. This principle is present all over the animation, and especially notorious when he notices that something is going by him, moves his eyes first towards it, then moves his whole head to follow the movement of the unknown object passing by.

Empathy. Maybe this particular scene has a unique humor not understood by everyone. But for those who understand the joke, the scene is empathic. The fact that he acts so surprised because he could not identify IMF at the first glance, and then when he does, he just smiles. He smiles because he, as well as many others, thinks IMF is a two sided solution and should not even be considered as one viable way out of an economical crisis. Bear in mind this is a personal opinion which I am not going to deepen any more.

Thinking leads to conclusions. This is present when my character glances at the object and interrupt the news report, is present when he tries to figure out what it is and when he makes his conclusion of what it is. He thinks about it, feels something about it, and reacts to it.

Regarding the differences between my work and the other students work...well I will not refer to any one in particular, because most of the workflows are similar. As well as the things everyone has in mind, with paying close attention to be able to have, if not all at least some, of the animation principles present.

The only real big difference is that I had myself to observe, to hear, to practice with. I was able to repeat my text in front of the mirror I have on my desk so many times, that I have to admit it was a much greater help to act the scene than to just write down on paper every single mouth movement.

I will be honest, when I have to do this again, I will use an exposure sheet of course, but I will definitely act out loud and observe myself expressing the emotions of the scenes.

That's all for now folks!

Digital Acting 2 - Lip Sync Final Animation

Good morning!

I have finished editing my animation. I felt it still needed two small sound clips to emphasize the "woowww mannn" part of the animation, to give the idea that something really went by my news reporter.

I never thought I would say this, but I am now tired of listening to myself! So here it goes, my final animation:

It was very hard to find a background video located in Lisbon, with the right light, the right duration without too much movement. So I had to use a few seconds of one big clip from someone talking about the Comerce Place in Lisbon. I had to slow it down so that the person which is behind my character didn't show. I think it turned out ok. 

Hope you enjoy it :)