Acorns 5-Year Anniversary!

Can’t believe my student film Acorns is now 5 years old! I made this in about 9 months at the University of Wales, Newport with over 2235 drawings, 232 storyboards, many revisions and a small army of amazing colourists. 

Thanks to all my wonderful friends and family who contributed and supported me through this film. There’s still a few things I’d love to go back and make better, but I think I’m still happy with the film as is… although now I think it’s about time I made a new one! :)

—

Winner of the Royal Television Society Wales Centre 2012 Award for Student Animation.

“Well told and animated with just the sort of design and animation idiosyncrasies that tickle my fancy. Brilliant.”
Robin Shaw, Co-Director of ‘The Snowman and the Snowdog’ (2012) and 'We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ (2016)

Order the DVD now on my Storenvy online shop for behind-the-scenes and extras:
http://amberdust.storenvy.com/collections/211119-all-products/products/4751698-acorns-dvd-2012

Upon a hill grows a grand Oak tree, which also happens to be home to a playful tree Spirit. Amber, a curious youngster, befriends this Spirit and throughout the seasons they form the strongest of friendships. Every day the Spirit gives Amber an acorn to plant, but the little girl is naive and threads them onto a necklace instead. One night, disaster strikes and Amber must realise the importance of caring for nature.

“Acorns” (2012) is a short 2D animated film by Animator and Director Gemma J. Roberts and her final year film at the University of Wales, Newport.

AWARDS AND SCREENINGS:
Klik! Amsterdam Animation Festival 2013
Blackrock Animation Film Festival 2013
ANIMA - Córdoba International Animation Festival 2013
The Inconnu Festival 2013
The Mecal Festival 2013
The Royal Television Society Wales Centre 2012 - Animation: “Acorns” by Gemma Roberts & Team
Festival Noche de Monos 2012
Banjaluka International Animated Film Festival 2012
Newport Animation & Games Graduation Show 2012 - Won “Best Animation” and “Best Overall Film”

Music by Ben Rusch: http://benrusch.com/

Visit the Production Blog at: http://www.littleacornfilm.blogspot.co.uk/
Find us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/littleacornfilm

Copyright © Gemma J. Roberts 2012 and the University of Wales, Newport.

Acorns is now Online! DVD Pre-Order!

Guess what everyone? Acorns is finally online! Most of the festivals I've entered are over now so I thought it was about time I got it online! Hope you enjoy it :)

A year of very hard work, my sisters, lecturers, friends and a small army of colourists and my devoted 'scanner' made this film possible and I'm very pleased with what we were able to accomplish. A year and a half on, sure there are some things I would change but I think it's done well for what it is. :)

"Upon a hill grows a grand Oak tree, which also happens to be home to a playful tree Spirit. Amber, a curious youngster, befriends this Spirit and throughout the seasons they form the strongest of friendships. Every day the Spirit gives Amber an acorn to plant, but the little girl is naive and threads them onto a necklace instead. One night, disaster strikes and Amber must realise the importance of caring for nature."

Winner of the Royal Television Society Wales Centre 2012 Award for Student Animation.

“Well told and animated with just the sort of design and animation idiosyncrasies that tickle my fancy. Brilliant.”  

Robin Shaw, Co-Director of "The Snowman and the Snowdog" (2012)

Please watch/like/share/insert-social-networking-norm-here and most of all, hope you like it! I'd really appreciate any comments you might have so I can take note for my next film. :)

In other news, I also have a Pre-Order for the DVD on my Storenvy page! If you use the Early Bird code ACORNFILM2014 you can get 20% off at the checkout!

Acorns [DVD] Storenvy Pre-Order

I've worked very hard to get a professional product together with nice motion menus on the DVD and it will have a mini full-colour art booklet too so it's not to be missed!! I plan to have the DVDs ready to dispatch early this year! Also note that although the currency on Storenvy is in US Dollars, the DVD will ship from the UK!

Hope you enjoy it! :)
Love Gemma, Amber and the Tree Spirit x

Acorns Wins 'Royal Television Society' Wales Centre Award for Undergraduate Animation!

On February 22nd 2013, my graduation film Acorns was awarded First Place in the Undergraduate Animation category from the Royal Television Society (Wales Centre Student Television Awards 2012). The award was presented at the Ffresh Student Moving Image Festival of Wales Awards Show taking place at Glyndwr University.

Although I had attended the festival and volunteered there this year, I sadly was unable to attend the awards show, but thankfully my fantastic friends Bryony Evans and Zara Williams (also nominated for the award) were able to collect the award for me (and surprise me with it at lunch the next day!), thanks guys! I was completely unaware I had even been nominated for this so it's such an incredible surprise!

The RTS Jury had this to say about Acorns on their website:

Acorns was also very accomplished and felt a very complete animation project. It was classy, enchanting and sophisticated, providing a captivating representation of the seasons through colour and it also featured a stunning piano score. Overall, Jury Members were unanimously impressed by its sophistication and high quality.

The first prize winner in each category will also be submitted for judging at the UK final of the RTS Student Television Awards, to be held in London during April.

For a full list and breakdown of the nominees for the award, please visit the Royal Television Society website.

I was absolutely astounded to have received this award for my film and am so thankful! Months and months of constant hard work and dedication went into realising it as well as the invaluable help of my crew without whom the film would never have been finished! 

As such, I give a huge thanks to Co-Writer and Colourist Emily Roberts, Lead Colorist/Additional Art Director Eleanor Roberts, a beautiful musical score by Ben Rusch, production scanning by Alex Huxley and Alex Brewer, additional compositing by Cosmo Wallace and Michael Alfred, my army of Clean-Up Artists and Digital Colourists, Nadine El Kheshen, Cassie Austin, Gemma Ursell, Ying Sun, Kojo Acquaah Harrison, Emmanuel Viscarra, Victoria Clark, Zara Williams, Nina Ashill, Sarah Huxley, Paul Littlefair, Eva Wagner and Stephanie Walker, my fellow film makers Rob Morgan, Jess Leslau, Zara Williams, Bryony Evans, Claire Spiller and Vikki Clark, my Uni lecturers for never-ending feedback and tutorials and of course my Mum & Dad, grandparents and friends & family for their unwavering love and support. <3

Without further ado, here are some pretty pictures! 

And then our family cat, Mila wanted to get in on the fun!

Thanks to my sister Emily for my fab photo!

Thanks everyone for this amazing award, I still cannot believe it! :)

Acorns Official Trailer

At last, here it is! I finally found some time this afternoon to edit a trailer for my graduation film, Acorns. It's a short 30 second mash-up that hopefully establishes the story enough to keep you interested! Enjoy!

It was difficult to edit to say the least as I needed to keep it very short but also cohesive. Other short film trailers just have an excerpt from the very beginning of the film, but I felt that didn't work here so I had to experiment with different shots and kept cutting lots out until it worked (which hopefully it does!). Expect the full film to make its' online debut sometime next year! :)

Comments and feedback welcome as always!

Sample Business Cards

Just wanted to post up some sample business cards I got over Easter from Moo.com where I tried out some new artwork. I think I prefer the one with the tree for the back of the card, as it looks more professional. Though I wonder if the front of it looks like I'm a children's book illustrator rather than an animator. I'll have to try some new designs soon!

"Acorns" Skipping Shot Progression

For the past month I have been getting production on my film well under way. At the moment I have animated a quarter of the film and those shots are currently going through the various stages of clean-up/colour/compositing. Needless to say I will be very busy getting it all done!

As I haven't had the time to put together the line tests of my animation yet, (and also unsure exactly how much finished animation I should be putting up online) I decided to edit a special video to show the shot progression of a short scene. This is Amber and the Spirit skipping together in my montage sequence. The final example shows the shot as it will appear in the film.

It is also available here on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBIsJdQC4Lk

The music is by Benjamin Rusch who I will be working with again in a month or two to re-record the final soundtrack.

I am extremely excited with how the film is turning out so far, it's just a case of getting it finished on time! At the moment I have a few animation students from other years helping me out, two clean-up and colouring artists, one colourist, and two in-betweeners. Hopefully I will get more assistance after Easter as first and second years have less work to do in order to help third years. It's more than most people get but this film's production is huge!!

Now that my dissertation is finished and handed-in (that took place on the 15th last week) I have turned my full attention onto the film and aim to have as much animation done as possible for our rough hand-in on the 23rd April.

That's all from me for now, I'll update occasionally with animation and promotional materials, but otherwise it's full steam ahead!

All the best,

Gemma

Another Rough Animatic

The past week and a half has all gone into redrawing my storyboard from scratch working from my new synopsis and shot list, which has been roughly edited into my third animatic, see below. It's much longer than what I had before (199 drawings instead of 174 and 5:10mins instead of 3:44mins), which will be a problem if I don't cut it down!

I showed it to James Manning yesterday for feedback and we agreed it was an improvement from the previous animatic. The structure makes a lot more sense with the acorns as a device. His main comments was to give the right moments more space, specifically drawing out the ending so that there is enough time for the emotions to play out. The middle montage segment also requires sharper editing so that we don't spend too much time on what's not as important.

James also noticed that the Spirit is not acting "Spirit-like" at the moment and performs so much like a squirrel that it might as well be a squirrel as a metaphor for the spirit instead of a spirit acting as nature. I will consider this as an option, but I did want to express a magical/mystical side to the story and Amber's imagination, so I will also see about making it more spirit-like in movement and design. This is not the final design for the Spirit anyway, but was a temporary solution for my storyboard.

We also spoke about introducing the Spirit into the story first instead of the girl like in my previous animatic as it was a more interesting perspective. I changed it this time around because I thought it would be better to show the ordinary and then the extra-ordinary, but then it might be seen as odd.

I will also need to look at films such as The Sword in the Stone (1963) for their squirrel scenes and begin pre-vis tests in soft, pastel colour like in my animatic.

After seeing James, myself and Jessica Leslau went to Leonie Sharrock's lecture for the MA animation students to show them our animatics. We caught the end of their lecture which was about composition in Cinderella and going from written scripts to visual storyboards. It was similar to a lecture I had in first year, but was more detailed and very interesting.

Jess showed her animatic first; Leonie wanted each of us to play them without preamble, so the MA's had no idea what our stories were about so they could judge them visually as outsiders. The students understood Jess' film about Babbit (http://arabbitcalledbabbit.blogspot.com/) pretty much immediately. There were some film language issues (crossing the line, continuity etc) but these were minor and can easily be addressed.

My film was not as instantly apparent as Babbit, the message (caring for nature, not abusing it) was confused, and I think this is largely because my Spirit reacts differently to Amber's selfishness... sometimes it is angry, other times forgiving and will switch between giving her acorns, having her take them away and reluctantly giving them to her. The Spirit is supposed to give them to her willingly to teach her and is exasperated with her abuse of nature. So that needs to be more obvious.

The characters came across well, the students agreed that Amber needs to be very selfish and greedy but still very young, so the audience sees her as a poor naive girl, rather than a mean one: "Aww bless her".

Finally, the tree needs to definitely be destroyed: completely burned and in pieces, rather than still standing and with leaves still on. I also need to redo my character designs still, playing with style and proportions of Amber to make her more interesting/likeable and the Spirit more spirit-like.

I've been compiling an image of character art and film stills that inspire me for Amber, particularly with younger girl characters that are more like Amber now that she will be 5-6 years old. I found it very difficult to find 5 year old female characters in the leading role of a film or series in Britain. There's Mei in My Neighbour Totoro, Ponyo, Aisling in The Secret of Kells, Boo in Monsters Inc., Bonnie in Toy Story 3 and Lilo in Lilo & Stitch, but these are all American, Japanese or Irish so it will be tricky to find a point of reference to make Amber feel more British. Here's the compilation, I'll be using it this week to redesign my style and characters. I'll make another one for my Spirit and for style/colour shortly.

Amber Walk Cycle II

Another walk cycle of Amber in more traditional British clothes inspired from some of my family photos in the 90's. She's still about 9-11 years old here, and I want to make her younger for my film, so perhaps this will be more relevant at the end of the film, but even then she may be younger than this!

I had some difficulty with the back of the dress, I wanted it to drag and float behind her but haven't achieved this at all... I'll need to shoot some reference for that next time.

More tests to come soon!

Walk Cycle Test

This is a walk-cycle animation test I did of Amber for my Pecha Kucha Presentation last Monday. It's a 12-frame cycle (12fps) with very rough keys/in-betweens. I think the side-to-side sway needs more exaggeration and her arm 'pops' a bit on one of the frames, so it will need re-addressing. For now I think it expresses her character, but I will be changing her design in my next drawings. Speaking with other animation students, we agreed that her dungarees give too much of a 90's American film impression, even though I wore dungarees as a child also, I want to make her more British and traditional.



For December's Production Bible deadline, I'll be doing a final revised walk cycle for Amber and an animation test for how she moves within a scene of the film.

Ideas Pitch

Hello and welcome to the production blog for my final film at Newport University. :)

Today was the pitching session for my fellow third years and I. Overall our ideas were well-received but there is still much to do to make our films stand out from the crowd!

My film is about an unlikely friendship between girl and tree spirit, how they grow up together and eventually move on from the loss of that friendship.

This is the synopsis that I presented today:

Upon a hill grows an ancient Oak tree, which also happens to be  home to a playful tree Spirit. Amber, an imaginative and curious youngster, befriends this Spirit and through the years and seasons they form the strongest of friendships. Eventually Amber reaches adulthood and although her personality is no different from the little girl she once was, the Spirit knows it’s time for her to grow up.

One night, the Oak and Spirit that was once the centre of Amber’s life is struck down by lightning. Heartbroken at the loss of her dearest friend, she breaks down. But when she sees a tiny sapling tree rising from the destruction, the seed of change starts to grow inside her.

And here is some of my initial concept art for my main character, Amber, and the grand old Oak Tree.

My feedback basically suggested that I put limitations on my animation to reduce the workload and avoid the "full" Disney-style animation that I'm used to as I'm working individually on this. Possibly even animating mostly in silhouette... all these decisions will be worked through in the coming months. All my progress will be posted here so do check back for more updates.

Thanks for reading, see you again soon!
Gemma