Final Animatic, Tests and Part 2 Presentation

After Christmas and the New Year, the second part of our hand-in was not far ahead! The brief was to make a final animatic with better realisation of the final timing and look of the film as well as 30 seconds of animation tests and an example of a cleaned-up and coloured shot against a background to show what the finished film will look like and test its' feasibility and the time it takes you.

This is my result and what I handed-in and presented Monday morning.

For the past week, I have been constructing my animatic again from scratch, completely redrawing all of my shots and changing angles and adding pans to make it more dynamic and interesting. I added colour to it as well to give an idea of the final look and to better show the changes in seasons and clothes. I spread these drawings across several PSD's in Photoshop using a border to show where the margins of the 1980x1080 widescreen frame would be. It was difficult to export these though, the first I exported each layer as an individual PNG with a transparent background so that was separate layers for the character line and colour and another for the background and any foreground element. I used a script to do this automatically but there were issues with the time this took and I had to resave images for pans because the edges were cropped off. The next PSD's I imported directly into Premiere as individual layers which did not take as long so I continued this method but had to split my PSDs into smaller files as there were too many layers to import all at once.

The biggest change for this animatic is probably the ending, where the Spirit is 'reborn' from the planting of the acorn, rather than coming back to instruct Amber, so it is very much her own decision. I spoke to James Manning just before my animatic was edited together, going through my PSD drawings. I originally had a sequence where Amber kept her acorn necklace and planted them all with the first, but this distracted from the importance of her decision to plant the last acorn, so I changed the drawing before I exported them.

The colours I chose were selected from my watercolour studies earlier and from my pre-visualisation tests. I intend to collate them together into a comprehension colour guide and also a colour script by taking key story points and using watercolour to express it with vibrancy.

Most of all however, is that I now have a rough soundtrack for my film which is an original piece by my composer Benjamin Rusch. He has been excellent to work with and really pulled out all the stops to get a recording done for my deadline. We'll be working together in the coming months to finalise this sound and to make it as flexible for editing as possible. There are a couple of points that may change but otherwise I love the melody and it's definitely the right sound.

More of his work is available here: http://tv.benrusch.com

The presentation on Monday went really well, I was actually quite scared that I would be faced with changing everything after spending a solid week getting it together. Fortunately the feedback was very positive and I was happy to hear that my fellow students and tutors preferred my new version.

The main points to change was for the Spirit to become more angry when Amber breaks the tree and for the storm to roll in at this moment rather than later. There was also a discussion about my ending, some almost wanted the Spirit to die at the end rather than see it reborn, but speaking to my friends, they all prefer the idea of showing the oak leaves springing up from the ground and then ending the film on Amber's reaction, quite similar to the ending of Monsters, Inc. (2001), when Sulley reacts to seeing Boo again and we hear her voice but we don't actually see the reunion. If I end it like this, then it would mean taking out a few of the ending shots and the dance over the credits. While they are cute and nice to draw, it would shorten the film and reduce the workload for the same result and allow the audience to think a bit more which is always good!

In addition to the animatic, I compiled some of my earlier character tests (walk cycles and tail movement) and a test of the camera tracking through my background with rain over the top in After Effects. I also took two of my shots in the animatic and keyed them out. The first, shot 17, shows the Spirit hesitating after leaving Amber which is fully animated in blue Prismacolour pencils. Perhaps it needs some refining, but I may not have the time once I'm doing the rest of the workload. Then I scanned it and composited against a background in Photoshop, alpha channeled the background and colourised the lines a warm brown. I prepared each frame as a PSD and sent them in a zip file to my younger sister, Eleanor to colour. Her work is online here: http://edalie-chan.deviantart.com/

I asked her to use a brush with slightly soft edges so it wouldn't boil too much on the stills. It still does a little however, so it might be a better tactic to duplicate the colour layer to the next frame and edit it rather than repainting the whole frame. I also key framed a background pan for shot 36 where Amber runs up the hill in her Spring dress, this was challenging as it involves perspective in addition to a camera move, but it came out well.

I initially thought I would paint watercolour backgrounds, but the digital wash also produces the desired effects and is quicker so that is probably how I will continue my backgrounds.

After speaking to Matthew today, he encouraged me to begin production even if the animatic still needs changing. As an independent film, I don't need a solid animatic to secure the film for other people to work on, so the best thing for me is to start animating and see it evolve. So I will be posting again soon with animation tests as I finish them!

Also as a point of interest, I pasted the entirety of my blog into a word document to submit as my development and it filled 132 A4 pages with 15,596 words! That's more than my dissertation! If only I could use it...

Production Bible Presentation - 12/12/11

Last Monday, I presented my Production Bible to the rest of my class and tutors. My Production Bible was a collection of my art showcasing what my film and characters would look like and contained my latest animatic, synopsis, schedule, budget, storyboard and other information that is necessary to make my film. Basically it should be enough information about your film (visual + written) that if you were not able to make it, the bible could be passed to someone else to finish, so it has to be very detailed and really thorough.

The presentation went well, it was only 5 minutes so it was just enough time to show my animatic and go over my new model sheets. My main points of feedback were about aesthetics rather than story. The points raised were mostly about the look of my Spirit character, that it was too much like an animal hybrid rather than a spirit. However, my inspirations are Japanese and Celtic-based that use animals as spiritual creatures, so I don't think an animal hybrid has any inherent problems. I will need to clarify with my classmates and tutors after Christmas what their idea of my Spirit is.

My next step is to animate my Spirit moving in the current design to prove that, when moving, it will appear otherworldly. The main aim is to get it looking 'morphous' and plasmatic. One suggestion was that it could morph between different animals, but I think that is too confusing for a short film and would require further establishing.

Otherwise, I could have it so that the Spirit could fly, float or jump to high places (i.e. top of the tree) and that it can't leave footprints in the snow like many Gods can walk on water. I had another thought that the Spirit could morph from two leaves on the tree that then become the Spirit's leaf ears, so lots of fun to be had there.

The only story issue was to do with my ending. The Spirit returning so early to Amber did not make sense... it made more sense to have her plant the last acorn first, then the Spirit is reborn from the ashes, so to speak. I think this would make a better ending and a stronger emotion with the Spirit returns to Amber.

Also, James thought my pre-visualisation was a bit dark and that I should be using the more pastel-like colours of my colour tests, so I've made a lighter and sketchier version of my pre-vis (that I much prefer) below.

And good news for my soundtrack, I'm currently emailing a prospective composer, Ben Rusch, about creating the final score for my film, I'm very excited to be working with him and hope to have some rough sound for my next animatic deadline in January. So that's one thing out of the way!

Finally, as seen above, my working title has now changed to 'Acorns' thanks to a suggestion from Leonie.

Character Sketches V

Last Monday I spoke to James about making my Spirit look like a Spirit. I had been looking at Spirits/Gods in Japanese games that morning (i.e. Kikwi in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Amaterasu/Chibiterasu in Okami) which is in sync with some of the Japanese woodblock/watercolour influences earlier in my development. While he originally thought it should be more of a squirrel now, he agreed that the loose brush strokes and mist-like swirls implemented in Okami gave that impression of otherworldness that my Spirit needs and would be appropriate to contrast the Spirit's world with that of Amber's.

Later on, Matthew also agreed with the new direction for my character designs. He said that the Spirit should still be squirrel-like in movement in a quick and zippy sort of way so I should do some research on them at parks like Bute Park in Cardiff filming them and drawing etc. Basically my designs were all good to go with which I was very happy about as I had been stressing over them for a while

We also spoke about shortening my animatic and how I was going to go about going from a 5 minute film to about 3-4 minutes and how to convey a performance using dot eyes on Amber. He said he'd rather I spent more time focusing on good animation and less about worrying about clean-up: the rough, loose line I've been using for my sketches are fine. I thought back to watching 101 Dalmatians and The Jungle Book and how I loved seeing the construction lines popping up every now and then, so I think I will keep the rough style (which suits the natural, textured world of my film anyway) but experiment with how I colour it.

These are sketches I did of my new character direction that day:

I'm using Okami, guinea pigs, rabbits, foxes and squirrels for my main point of reference. Here's Amber interacting with him and more dot eyes:

The next day (Tuesday) I met with Leonie for feedback on my new designs. She also preferred my new sketches and enjoyed the lively poses and clear silhouettes. She said the dot eyes encouraged a triangular formula for 'cuteness' that is almost equilateral between eyes and the nose. On animal toys, the more squashed this triangle the cuter and the longer the triangle the more wise and 'knowing' it becomes. This is difficult to achieve on humans as they can start to look alien very quickly. On Amber's face this triangle is between her eyes and mouth with the nose in the middle, which is fine but I will have to keep her eyes small to avoid the 'lifeless' look that bigger eyes can encourage when highlights and glows are not compensating for the size of the eye (e.g. anime).

As long as her eyes are small and stay in line with the mouth/nose, it will focus her gaze and allow me to do the dot eyes, but I can always do very small eyes that show the pupil and the lids like Joanna Quinn's Charmin Bear. Leonie's favourite drawing that summed up my girl's character was this one from my previous post:

Simply because it shows her carefree and somewhat selfish attitude in one drawing. She pointed out others that demonstrated her personality and said that the shy/sad drawings are best saved for the ending where they will be more effective.

Finally, Leonie was much happier with the Spirit drawing which looked like a guinea pig with the fox-like tail that flows and breaks apart like water as it is enough to suggest it's spirit-ness. She liked the vagueness of the feet and angular eyes and the bottom-left most drawing of the first image in this post in which the Spirit looks angry and has the deer-like leaf antlers and the orb of light... however that may be too difficult to do against light backgrounds and it is perhaps too serious...

Finally I need to make it absolutely explicit what's going on in the beginning of my film, so that the montage in the middle can be made much shorter. I've uploaded my newest animatic, so I will post that up next.

And here's an image of my Spirit design references looking at lots of animal art and spiritual creatures!

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.

Story Feedback 7-8th November

Before I go into my tutorial feedback, here are comments that I received from friends from my last animatic.

• Eva W.: That's beautiful! but very detailed and 3:44 is a long film! depending on what style you re thinking of finishing it off you might want to think about cutting down the detail and the plott :S i love the little spirit character! but to be honest i think the squirel at the end is a very quick replacement for a friendship that the viewer gets attached too. I think the ending might work better if she gets attached to the new acorn tree instead :) - 31 October at 18:18

• Jessica-L.R.: Such a cute animatic! But Eva's right if you're not a fast worker, 3:44 will be a killer to finish. Hope it all goes well for ya :) - 31 October at 18:36

• Pablo Parry: Reads really well jealous, it is very long for one person The intro feels very strong. I was kinda concerned about the ending and meaning of the piece however. I'm a bit confused on what the girl learns? , Is she meant to be growing older as she plays though? that is a bit unclear. - 31 October at 19:23

• Charlotte HP.: Sorry Gemma but I really don't understand it. I got a different story & didn't quite understand why the spirit was upset about the acorns or why the little girl & the spirit have a little tiff? - 31 October at 19:54

• Sinead Oram: Hey Gemma, First off I just wanna say your art style is really lovely in the animatic I like how fluid and lose the drawings are. Also there's no technical issues unlike us lol. I didn't get a chance to say in the presentation yesterday how much I liked the spirit design you had on the slide the little guy with oak leaf ears and a long tail. He looked like a marmoset and I could imagine him being very sweet and playful. Overall I think the story reads very well and I really understood the beginning perfectly. I got a little lost at the end of the play scene but apart from that I understood it all. She did seem a little old but I didn't question her age until Leonie mentioned it. A little younger could work but I do think if its about growth or the circle of life she needs to be old enough to understand the concept she learns. I can see the Ghibli inspiration like the love of nature and spirits coming through. But it does make me wonder where the story takes place? To me she seems American. Though I associate tree spirits with places that have more of a tradition in folklore such as japan or the UK and Scandinavia. However if you wanted the piece to seem timeless place-less then perhaps that doesn't matter. - 01 November at 18:35

• Adam C.: Hey Gem, well done for this ... I really enjoyed it, but maybe the relationship between the girl and the lil spirit character could use some extra definition somehow? But like Sinead says, he's totally cute and appealing, and I think the whole piece has got plenty of warmth and energy. :) - 01 November at 19:35

• Deborah Jane Price: Can't wait to see this finished! I love the transition to the snow man :D - 04 November at 10:39

This helped me gather feedback from fellow students who had seen my presentation and friends who know very little of what my film was before seeing the animatic, so I was able to figure out what was clear and what wasn't.

Having written a new synopsis (see previous post) I took it to James Manning and Matthew Gravelle the following day, here are their comments.

James Manning - 7/11/11

I asked about the comments made about my film, i.e. the saccharine qualities, and he suspected it was due to the obvious 'cuteness' of my Spirit's character design, which I want to change. He thought that if it looked a little ominous or untrustworthy, then it would be more surprising when it has this lovely, friendly personality. My Neighbour Totoro (1988) immediately sprung to my mind. When you first see him, little Mei is sat on his belly and he yawns with such a huge mouth as an audience you are slightly unnerved (one wrong move and Mei is breakfast!) but the little girl is completely trusting and in awe of this magical creature, who turns out to be friendly.

Overall, there were aspects he liked from my new synopsis and my old animatic. I think he wanted me to keep the squirrel in at the end so it wasn't quite so sad and to show what is beyond her loss, but I had a lot of confusion from people who watched it that the squirrel was either the Spirit reincarnated (which it wasn't) or a replacement for their friendship that comes too soon so I took it out completely.

We also suggested taking out the acorn necklace and using the tree for the metaphor of their friendship, but then it's a case of figuring out how to use the tree in a similar way. Our discussion was mainly about how to address my feedback so that I know what I can take as someone's opinion and what should definitely be done about my film. We also talked about condensing a script into 12 points (sentences) and then seeing how much further you can narrow it down. My synopsis was 5 paragraphs long, so already looking quite short which is a good starting point.

Matthew Gravelle - 7/11/11

After this, I spoke with Bryony Evans about her storyboards and how she can use establishing/wide shots to create certain moods and feeling with her swamp creature. Her story ended quite abruptly so I explained a couple of ways she could lead up to it by adding more slow, quiet shots to show her character's decision. (You can see her blog here: Utopia of the Pond)

Then I met up with Matthew for him to read my new synopsis. His main focus was on how I was tackling emotion. He learned a lot about emotional storytelling through making his own film about his childhood and his dog, and said that cliché expressions are not how you show a character is happy or sad. He used UP (2009) as an example when Carl Fredricksen is looking through the scrapbook left by his wife and in the scene he doesn't bawl his eyes out (like the audience might) but instead just has little subtle head and eye movements (and perhaps a tear) as he realises.

He explained that head-down crying and hunched shoulders would just over-sell it and I should be more subtle and show the characters going through the thinking process more. He also used The Snowman (1982) as an example of a sad story told through character animation with a gleam of hope at the end.

Matthew also suggested the end to be just a shot of the girl looking up at the dead tree, a fade to black and she comes back after some time to see the new sapling. We agreed it will be difficult to tell this kind of a story in 3 minutes as it tends to be done over longer periods of time (Father and Daughter = 8 minutes, The Snowman = 30 minutes, the beginning of Up = 4 and a half minutes) so it will take some work for me to cut it down.

I decided to give it one more shot before scrapping my storyline completely.

Finally he said I should continue to go to life drawing to relax and clear my head, which I will go to the next chance I get!

In the meantime I drew some new designs for Amber inspired from family photos of my sisters and I in the 90's and shot ideas to improve my film language.

Leonie Sharrock - 8/11/11

The next day, I had a tutorial with Leonie, which went very well. I had written two further version of my story by this time so presented her with all three for her feedback.

The first is a re-written synopsis from the version I wrote with my sister and showed James and Matthew:

SYNOPSIS - 8/11/11
Beneath a great oak tree, a little girl (Amber) and a tree Spirit collect acorns, unaware of each other. As they draw near, they reach for the same, and also the last, acorn. After a brief struggle, the Spirit emerges victorious and scurries away with the acorn. Amber sulks, angry and upset. The Spirit hesitates and reappears to offer her the acorn as a gift. Amber is delighted with the present and they play together. 

Amber returns to the tree every day to play with her new friend, through snowy winters, blossoming spring, scorching summers and golden autumns. One such autumn, they are playing in the tree and a branch snaps off and plummets to the ground. The Spirit rushes to inspect the damage. Amber tries to get the Spirit's attention back, but fails. In a sulk, she runs to her bedroom, leaving the Spirit alone. 

In her room, Amber plays with her toys and sulks in bed. Eventually, she draws something on a piece of paper before going to bed. That night there is a terrible storm, the Spirit struggles to stay out of the rain and tend to the tree, when suddenly the oak tree is struck by lightning, cleaving it in two.  

The following morning, Amber walks out of the house with the piece of paper to give to the Spirit but it is too late: the tree is destroyed and there is no sign of the Spirit. Quietly, she sits by the tree trunk and looks at the wreckage around her. 

She spots a new sapling growing from the ashes of the old tree and places the piece of paper by the fresh green shoots. The paper shows a drawing of Amber and the Spirit together. / OR / She returns to the tree later (weeks or months) and spots a new sapling growing from the ashes of the old tree and places the piece of paper by the fresh green shoots. The paper shows a drawing of Amber and the Spirit together.

The second is a new idea I had to simplify the story and remove the death of the Spirit.

SYNOPSIS - 8/11/11

Beneath a great oak tree, a little girl (Amber) and a tree Spirit collect acorns, unaware of each other. As they draw near, they reach for the same, and also the last, acorn. After a brief struggle, the Spirit emerges victorious and scurries away with the acorn. Amber sulks, angry and upset. The Spirit hesitates and reappears to offer her the acorn as a gift. Amber is delighted with the present and they play together.

Amber returns to the tree every day to play with her new friend, through snowy winters, blossoming spring, scorching summers and golden autumns. 

Each day, the Spirit gives her an acorn as a present, but as Amber grows up, the Spirit teaches her to be less selfish and she starts to share more with it, until eventually she gives it a present (a toy or something personal to the girl).

The next day, she returns to the tree to find that the Spirit is no longer there. Quietly, she sits by the tree trunk and breathes the fresh morning air.

Later she returns with all the acorns the Spirit ever gave her and leaves them by the tree in memory of their friendship.

After Leonie had read them, she asked me what the point of my story was... after circling around the question a couple of times, saying that the tree was a metaphor for their friendship, I finally realised with some help from Leonie that it was for the Spirit to teach Amber to care for others and nature around her instead of being selfish and using it, so it's actually quite an environmental story. Then she thought it best to combine all three of my stories (including the one I wrote with my sister) and scribbled on one of my sheets like so:

She said in that case, the tree is probably a little too old for the story and should be slightly younger.  In addition the girl needs to be younger so that when she does naughty/selfish things she can be forgiven because she is too young to understand.

Like this, Amber is an 'anti-heroine' but not in a mean way, but does the wrong thing out of misunderstanding rather than intention. It's going to be based on her ignorance of nature, as the Spirit tries to give her acorns to plant, the girl threads them onto a necklace instead and when the tree is destroyed by the storm, the Spirit returns to Amber, faded and drained of energy, to give her one last acorn to plant, when she finally learns her lesson.

I also thought it would be quite cute to have her not quite 'get it' yet too and you see the growing sapling later on, emerging from a huge pile of acorns rather than being planted individually and Leonie pushed that further to have her dancing around it and accidentally step on the sapling, but she takes her foot away and it's still ok. I thought that would be a really funny ending.

At the end of the tutorial, Leonie said this version was what she thought I should do with my story and that other people may have different opinions; if I get similar feedback from other people then there will be no contest but if I have lots of differing opinion then I need to weigh everything up and decide for myself.

I decided to write up this altered version myself and email it to everyone for feedback and to present it at the informal animation meeting in A09 the following day.