Informal Animation Lecture and New Synopsis

Last week, one of the third year animators, Benwyn, set up an animation meeting in A09 for yesterday afternoon (Wednesday 9th Nov) to present our work together for feedback and discussion where students may feel less inhibited.

The session went great, and I got great positive feedback on my synopsis as well as suggestions and I gave my advice for other films as well so it was a good opportunity to voice those opinions.

This is the synopsis I wrote after my tutorial with Leonie and what I presented (unfortunately without visuals) to the rest of the group.

SYNOPSIS - 9/11/11

Beneath an oak tree, a little girl (Amber) and a tree Spirit collect small acorns, unaware of each other. As they draw near, they reach for the last, and also the most perfect, acorn. After a brief struggle, the Spirit emerges victorious and scurries away with the acorn. Amber sulks. The Spirit hesitates and reappears to offer her the acorn as a gift. Amber is delighted with the present and the Spirit digs a hole for her to plant it, but Amber strings it onto a necklace instead. Although confused by the girl's actions, they play together until the end of the day.

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 gift to plant, but Amber continues to string them onto her necklace.

One Autumn, the girl is swinging on a tree swing and the branch snaps, sending her tumbling down the hill. The girl is hurt and upset, but the Spirit is angry at her for breaking the tree. Amber leaves, crying.

That night there is a terrible storm, Amber looks out of her bedroom window in concern. Outside, the Spirit tries to stay out of the rain and tend to the tree when lightning hits it, cleaving it in two.

The following morning, Amber returns to the tree to play with the Spirit, but it is too late: the tree is destroyed and there is no sign of the Spirit. Quietly, she sits by the charred tree trunk and cries.

The Spirit returns one last time, faded and sapped of energy, to firmly gives her the last acorn. Amber takes it slowly, and instead of threading it, she plants it in the ground. Taking her necklace, she snaps it to drop all the other acorns into the hole too.

Later they return to the hill to see a tiny green sapling growing from a huge pile of acorns! They dance around it and Amber accidentally steps on the little green shoot: oops! She takes her foot away and is relieved to see it's still ok, they dance happily again. 

END

I prefer it much more to the versions I had before and everyone seemed very happy with what I was doing with it now and how clear it was. They suggested that the acorns in the beginning be really small and deformed so that when Amber and the Spirit fight over the last one, it is the most perfect, shining example of an acorn that any child would fight over. It was a good suggestion and I added it to the synopsis above.

The rest of the week will be spent re-boarding my entire film and putting it in an animatic for next Monday (14th November).

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.

Story Synopsis - 5/11/11

After my Pecha-Kucha presentation, I took some time off to consider my story and allow my ideas some time to grow on their own. This did a world of good, as I was then able to re-approach it that weekend with fresh ideas.

I discussed my story with my sister, Emily, who is studying Documentary Film & TV, and she has learned a lot from Uni and college about Robert McKee's storytelling book, especially from one of our college film tutors who actually went to some of his seminars.

She told me about a simple flow chart that links up the Positive, Negative, Ambivalent and Negation of the Negation aspects of a story.

The Positive is the good things in a story, Negative is the opposite (bad) things, Ambivalence is inbetween these two and Neg of the Neg is the absolute worst possible thing that could happen.

For example,

Love>>Hate>>Indifference>>Self-Hate

and,

Truth>>White Lies>>Lies>>Self-Deception

and,

Maturity>>Childishness>>Immaturity>>Immaturity masquerading as Maturity

A superhero movie would be like this,

Justice>>Injustice>>Unfairness>>Tyranny

My film was written like this:

Arguably though, 'indifference' could be seen as worse than the loss of a friend, as you love things with a passion and hate them with a passion, but indifference is a total lack of emotion. For example, at the end of WALL-E (2008) Wall-E is rebooted in default, factory mode and appears to have lost all feeling and memory. This is far sadder than him disliking Eve, as it appears that his memories and personality have all vanished and those were what made him so likeable in the first place.

So, we re-wrote my story with a device to allow these positives and negatives to happen. At first my sister suggested a watering can as that can be used to feed the little sapling at the end of the film, but we eventually settled on an acorn that becomes a necklace for Amber to wear and features in the beginning (Amber and Spirit meet and befriend) the middle (the necklace breaks and the friends fall out) and the end (Amber plants the acorn necklace or places it around a new sapling). Therefore the necklace becomes a metaphor for their friendship.

Emily told me that each character needs a desire, whether it is conscious or unconscious. So the Spirit desires an unconditional friendship, but Amber just wants attention, but her unconscious desire (which she would learn to realise) is also friendship.

I noticed similarities to this and Lost and Found (2008) where the boy believes that the little lost penguin wants to go home, but in fact just wanted a friend because he was lonely and the boy realises this only after they have travelled to the South Pole together.

Through this process, I discovered it created a much more meaningful story, however it would be difficult to accomplish without making Amber too mean as both characters need to be likeable. In The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Jack Skellington is a very naive character who does lots of bad things, but because he makes a physical attempt to undo his wrongs at the end, he remains an entertaining character. His naivety plays a big part in this too.

I also toyed with ideas of a bigger message, like an environmental, spiritual or child's loss of belief/innocence, but it looked like it would make the story too complicated at that point if it were to be made obvious.

Here is the synopsis I wrote after our discussion:

SYNOPSIS - 5/11/11 

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 fashions the acorn into a necklace 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, the necklace breaks and Amber believes it to be the Spirit that broke it and is very angry. She runs to her bedroom, leaving the Spirit alone.

In her room, Amber hurls the necklace to the floor, plays with her toys and sulks in bed. Eventually, she picks up the necklace to fix it and writes/draws a message for the Spirit before going to bed.

That night there is a terrible storm, the Spirit struggles to stay out of the rain when suddenly the oak tree is struck by lightning, cleaving it in two.  The following morning, Amber walks out of the house with the necklace in order to apologise to the Spirit but it is too late: the tree is destroyed and there is no sign of the Spirit. Devastated, she cries in the middle of the charred tree until her tears stop.

She plants her acorn necklace where the old tree once stood to return it to her friend / OR / she spots a new sapling growing from the ashes of the old tree and puts her acorn necklace around the fresh green shoots.

I think the story structure works much better here than what I had before, it's clearer and makes more sense. My feedback for this from James Manning and Matthew Gravelle reveals some issues that will need addressing however (see next post).

I also may be showing my animatic to a local nursery near my home in North Wales where my Aunt works, but the children are only in a 2-3 year-old age range, so I will need to consider what I can show without upsetting young children. My Aunt won't have her after-school club of older children until February, so I may have to consider giving them a 'happy' ending for now to see what they think.

Rough Animatic I

I've put the storyboards from the previous post into an animatic using Premiere Pro CS4 with music from Pixar's "UP" (2009) by Michael Giacchino, which can be viewed below...




I'm happy that the running time is not quite as long as I thought it might be. Still, I have a lot of changes to make as I outlined in the previous post and hopefully I can get the length down to just over 3 minutes as well. I think it's reading fairly clearly, but I will be working on making it even better for my next rough cut animatic.

Storyboards [Rough]

Last week we were set the task of drawing a finished storyboard for our individual films for presentation today. I presented my traditional storyboards on sheets of A1 card, comprised of 141 drawings. I started with some digital thumbnails on the computer however. Unsure of what format to use, I started digitally to get it down quickly, with the intention of returning to it to tighten up for my animatic.

After getting this far, I wasn't sure where to go in my story, so I returned to my script to plan what needed to happen in words first. This helped me to structure my thoughts. Then I began sketching ideas for interactions between Amber and the Spirit of the Oak (see previous post for sketches).

Once I had regained confidence with story direction, I sketched out the entire film on post-it notes and stuck them on paper. I kept each frame incredibly rough to save time (this version would not be presented) and some drawings were probably so abstract they could only be understood by myself anyway, but that's the purpose of doing it this way.

Working on post-it notes allowed me to freely rearrange scenes and swap drawings around. I didn't have to do this very much, but it did help when I needed to. There were 119 drawings in all.

Although it was a lot of work, it really helped me to think visually about my film and to tackle elements of my story that weren't quite clicking yet. A week didn't seem like a long time to do this, but the deadline helped me get my thoughts down quickly.

I showed my first thoughts to friends and made notes. At this point, the climx of the film wasn't quite right, here Amber takes an acorn from the tree to give to her friend, the Spirit, but it is misunderstood and the Spirit sees it as harming the tree and gets angry. Because of this, Amber falls from the tree and it is struck by lightning. It all got a little confused and the motives don't read well, so I changed it for my next boards; taking Amber nailing planks of wood to the tree in order to climb it as the part where she harms the tree instead.

The following version of the storyboard was drawn in coloured pencils and stuck on A1 card so that I didn't have to do further processes of printing and so I could show a physical version to the group for feedback. Backgrounds/characters/seasons are appropriately colour coded to aid clarity.

I received very useful feedback from these today from my lecturer, James Manning and fellow students. Some were confused when the Spirit changes size, so instead of trying to make that work, I'm going to remove that aspect entirely as it doesn't add anything and is not important later on. James told me that the climax of the film is still not the drama and conflict I need to make it work. He said there needs to be some sort of barrier between girl and Spirit to create the worst possible thing that could happen to them, so that the ending means something when hope is restored.

In addition, Amber will not plant a second acorn, but instead will see the acorn that the Spirit plants in the beginning, sprout into a tiny sapling. I also hint that the Spirit then becomes the squirrel, but I will take out that suggestion too so that the emphasis is on the acorn/rebirth of the Oak Tree.

Along with other tweaks to shot sizes/angles and simplifying/cutting down action, there is a lot to do for next week, when I aim to have a revised storyboard and possibly an animatic. We are doing a walk cycle exercise next week too, so I will need to prepare final concepts/model sheets for Amber.

Storybook Inspiration: Natalie Russell / Kristiana Parn

I found another author with a lovely storybook too, this one about a little white rabbit.

"Moon Rabbit" by Natalie Russell

I love the style, I think it's adorable and the simplicity really lends itself to the story and cuteness of characters, even without expressive faces.

Because of this, I stumbled upon another artist (Kristiana Parn) who paints on wood using acrylic. She paints lovely little woodland critters!

Kristiana Parn - http://www.kristianaparn.com/

I think they tell such poetic tales of passing seasons (through the use of the trees and colour) and the relationship between animals and nature. I find them very beautiful in their use of shape and colour and will be referring back to them in the creation of my film.

Summer Ideas

Over Summer I had several ideas for the film I wanted to pursue before I settled on "Great Trees from Little Acorns Grow" (Working Title). First, I would like to surmise my aims and goals for this coming year.

My Final Film will be very important to me, it will be the first narrative-based piece of fully animated work that I have created. I have made half-and-half film/animation before, abstract animation and animation snippets and some animatics, but not to the scale I want this to be.

My main goals for this film are:

• Entertaining characters and story
• Personal meaning to me
• Fun to work on so that I can stay enthusiastic/passionate about it
• Makes a statement that appeals to my demographic
• Displays my abilities as a character animator, designer and storyteller to interest potential employers

To begin with, my issue was not coming up with enough ideas, the problem is coming up with the right idea.

After writing a couple of shorts that would work well as storybook animatic videos (but not my final film) I came up with a short animation idea about the creation of Earth, but from the perspective of twin creation students (or Gods-in-training). One (sister) is creative and passionate, while the other (brother) is wise and logical, so, naturally, they bicker and everything goes wrong. I also dabbled with the prospect of them creating humanity too, but eventually I decided against this one as the characters just aren't involving enough. Perhaps I will reattempt it at a later date.

Michelangelo's Adam and God

It would have been a part Science-Fiction, part Creationist take on the creation of the Universe, taking inspiration from Greek myths, but in the end it just wasn't that personal to me.
After this, I watched a DVD of Pixar shorts with the Director commentary on to discover the creative decisions behind the shorts and also their meaning. I wrote a list of what I thought each short was trying to say, for example, For the Birds is about the injustice of bullying and peer pressure where the bullies get their comeuppance and Day and Night is about envy (the grass is always greener on the other side) but also reconciling your differences with one another. After this I wrote a list of my own messages that I want to say, such as self-acceptance and letting go.

Eventually I realised that the kind of story that would most connect with me and my intended audience would be a sentimental one. I'm a very nostalgic person and the loss of treasured possessions or even friends means a lot to me, which is why films like Pixar's Up and Toy Story 3 get me very emotional. Thus, I wrote a story that is centered around the sentimentality of youth and the loss of something/someone dear. Here is an image illustrating  three of my ideas following my "Creation Students" story. 

• The first, Princess-in-Waiting is all about a short-tempered Princess who is fed up of waiting for her Prince so she travels on her very own pet dragon to seek Mr. "Charming" for her revenge! She's a modern, independent girl who much prefers black glasses and leather jackets to her embroidered dress and tiara! It's a bit of a joke short as just when she thinks she gets what she wants (peace and quiet) suddenly there are Prince Charming's everywhere, all desperate for her hand in marriage. So this is a fun short, but it's not particularly personal to me and a little too "Shrek-like" for my liking, so it's more of a back-up

• Second is an untitled film where I was thinking about self-acceptance through physically destroying your inner demons. This would take place in a surreal world, perhaps in this girl's mind, where she has trapped herself with her own thoughts and fears. I thought a series of trials would be interesting to see her tackle them in different ways until she at last realises the answer lies in eliminating the negative aspects of her personality, rather than killing the demons her mind has conjured around her. Not a lot of development on this one, but might be interesting at some point to do a crazy Alice in Wonderland/Labyrinth style tale.

• "Great Oaks From Little Acorns Grow" or "The Girl Who Won't Grow Up". This is my favourite story so far as it's personal and has an emotional character arc. It's about a little girl, Amber, who grows up in and around this majestic oak tree, it's got a tree house, a swing and her friends would go there to play. We see snapshots of her life as she grows up, but she remains as childish as when she was young. It's gonna be all about growing up, letting go and moving on, but in an emotional and maybe touching/heartwarming way if done right.

I also had an idea about a lone traveling nomad but I think that's a film for another time. The rest of this production blog will cover my development on my final idea, "Great Oaks From Little Acorns Grow".

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