503 - Animatic 2

I showed Rob the animatic and got some really good feedback:

• Make sure the slow zoom is consistent throughout the same location shots otherwise it will look jarring and jumpcut-y
• When changing locations, make sure the character's on a different part of the screen to make the cut contrasting enough and thus not confusing (cutting from creep on balcony to hiding behind car, the girl should go from right side to left side which is good)
• When the creep is looking through his window, he will see his own balcony at the bottom - make sure to include that
• To help separate the transition from inside apartment to on the balcony, we could add reflections on the window to make it really obvious
• 2 shots at the beginning seem unnecessary
• to remedy this I could cut on action of blinds closing, as well as making that second shot more zoomed in to increase the contrast between the shots
• Rob likes the quick turn more than the slow one, as this seems like a better payoff. I agreed with this, as well as the fact that it will contrast with the slower part before where the girl calms herself
• When the creep is on the balcony, the shots need to be centered evenly on the girl's apartment so there will be a consistent zoom in rather than a zoom and then pan right.
• The shot with the creep on the girl's balcony could have the creep peeking round the corner, though maybe not as it's not 3d
• could have the wall closer to the FG, and have a pan instead which would give a similar impression
• When animating, always animate a bit extra to give wriggle room in editing, which will also be beneficial for cuts.
• Change the blink so it doesn't look like binoculars (in actual animation, it's fine in animatic)

I agreed with all of these points and learnt a lot from the discussion. Here's the edited animatic, the 2 things changed being the start with the blinds being drawn, and the shots with the creep on the balcony:

I think it definitely looks better this way.

503 - Animatic 1

After making the changes, and putting it roughly time, Kahenya sent me the storyboards:

(KAHENYA'S WORK)

In addition to making the changes we discussed, he also added in some keyframes which was really helpful. 

I then went through each frame, polishing it up and changing some things, as well as sorting out the timing for everything. One big thing I changed was adding in the creep's reaction to the girl at the bus stop, having him duck under the car in a flinch. I think this ended up working really well and alluded to the creep's personality more. 

I also added rough sound design to give an idea of the main sounds and how it'll play out. Part of that involved writing a short dialogue between the girl and the friend, and then recording some scratch dialogue for it. Here's the script: 

Yeah, it’s really nice. Shame I only have it for a year though.

Ah damn, at least it’s better than your old place.

(chuckles)Yeah…(keys opening door)... after you.

Oh thanks...Wow this is nice. Where should I put my-(stab)...

Here's the animatic:

I'm quite happy with how this turned out, my favourite bit being the creep's reaction at the bus. I was a bit worried with how it was looking, but after adding the sound it worked a lot better. It showed me how important the sound is going to be in this film. The lengths of some of the shots are subject to change when we start animating, I think they'll end up being longer than in this animatic. 

I changed the start (the blinds closing) a bit as I felt it looked a bit awkward in KK's cut, and I changed some of the camera timings as well. 

Also, I decided that it'll be best to take out the girl dropping her keycard bit when it comes to animating as that just confuses things now. I also wasn't sure whether to have the head turn at the end be a fast or slow thing, currently I've left it as fast. 

Looking at the animatic I realise how important compositing and layout is gonna be, as the camera's movements need to be very on point to convince the audience of the POV and to get that increase in tension.

2 other points that I thought about were:

• Include the girl's sounds but have them very quiet and get louder as the creep gets closer. This'll make the longer shots more interesting sound wise
• Play with gradual colour changes, maybe making the colours more vibrant as the short progreses until the point with the blood where the red is super vibrant.

503 - Storyboard Tutor Feedback

We had a call with Mike, where Kahenya talked through the storyboard with him. Here is the feedback we got:

• Storyboard is just a rough thing for our group, so don't focus on making it amazing
• Reflection in binoculars is good
• Make sure there is a rhythm to the shot length, aim for longer to quicker
• The binoculars should be taken away quite early on
• The binocular overlay needs to be centered in the frame as it's offputting
• Sound design is really important for this film
• Credit Ceylin's mum for sounds
• Mike was confused as to how the creep got onto the girl's balcony - we need to make the fire escape thing more obvious (this will be done when KK changes the angle of the balcony shot, as a more acute angle will show the fire escape in more detail)
• It may be a good idea to have details showing how the girl realises the creep is in her apartment - could have the balcony door be slightly ajar, or have a wet patch on the carpet
• Mike was worried about how the closet door opens, as the creep wouldn't be able to escape, but we weren't intending him too. Also we wanted the door to open like that to reveal the blood trail.
• Mike's worried about the length of the short, it being possible too long
• Maybe add 3D lighting to the girl's room to make sure lighting is on point
• Make notes on how long things take for future reference

After this call, I asked KK to send me the storyboard file and I'll make those changes for the animatic. I also think that when the animatic is done we'll be able to see the flaws more clearly.

503 - Pre-production 3 - Initial Storyboard Feedback

We spent this call going through Kahenya's first storyboard draft. Here's the feedack I gave:

• Everything needs to be slowed down a lot
• Cut to title sequence with the towel just about to come off was a very good edit
• The girl shouldn't have headphones when she cooks
• During the bus scene, the creep could duck as if he was flinching in reaction to the girl turning and flagging the bus down.
• Ceylin said the bus could be a red double decker
• The binoculars shouldn't be there in the street scenes
• The angle of the shot where the creep is on the girl's balcony should be at more of an acute angle, to cut off the door. This would mean that the girl can walk out the frame and the sound can show her leaving the apartment. It also makes it creepier and shows the Creep to be acting more sneaky
• The wardrobe slits should be closer together so we can't see through them
• Add some cloaks in the FG of the wardrobe
• The door should open outwards, with the hinge on the right side. This would mean that as it opens, it reveals the blood smear on the floor before showing the girl

We also discussed the sequence of events of the girl at the end, settling on these:

1. She's kneeling over the dead body, slashing away at it
2. She slows down, coming to a stop
3. She then dips her finger in one of the gashes, and dramatically brings it up to her mouth and licks it
4. She stands up using just her legs, with her arms limp at her sides
5. She visibly slows her breathing down, calming and composing herself
6. There is a beat after she is calm
7. Then she turns to us

I recorded a reference for this, focusing on how I imagined the licking and standing up to look like (timing not accurate):

The next steps are for Kahenya to add the changes we made, and then I asked him to send me the storyboard pro file for me to polish and edit together into an animatic with the right timings and some scratch sounds.

503 - Pre-production 2

During this call, we talked about the girl's apartment exterior. I had drawn several options for the girl's window, as well as painted one option as another concept piece:

We had decided on making the girl's apartment much more well kept, modern and more spaced out than the creep's for contrast, so I focused on that for the designs, using both the room layout and moodboard for inspiration and reference.

I quite like the concept painting, however it lacks personality as I didn't paint in plants and the interiors of the windows. I'm also not sure about the colours yet, but that's something I can do in the colour script. I do like the feeling of it however.

When showing these to KK, we had some differences as he had started to block the room out in 3D:

(KAHENYA'S WORK)

He brought up how my balcony windows seemed like a person wouldn't be able to fit through them, and I agreed with that. With his version, he's also added in bathroom windows which is a nice detail. My problem with his was that it didn't look fancy and modern enough, the balcony windows seemed too squarish, and with my version I liked how streamlined it looked as a whole. Therefore, I suggested adding another balcony window, to make it a 3 panel sliding door, as this would make that look more modern and it'd give more light into the room (and thus more space to work with when animating). Kahenya also like the small balcony I gave the kitchen window as well, and wanted to add that in. Here's the amended apartment exterior that'll be the final one:

(KAHENYA'S WORK)

I also went through his room blocking as he was having trouble with scale. I told him to lower the height of the walls as that was what made it seem clustered, and then we added in a block at human height just to double check everything. Here's the balcony with the human reference on:

(KAHENYA'S WORK)

503 - Pre-production 1

We had a group call on the sunday discussing our work so far for pre-production. First, I showed my first BG concept piece for the creep's apartment exterior:

I quite like this as it clearly shows that there's something sinister about this guy, with the extreme perspective and blood like colour. I also finished this fairly quickly, taking about 2 hours for paint and 1 for the drawing, but I think the actual BG's will have much more polish to them than this, and will therefore take longer. Both KK and Ceylin liked this style and composition, so we're thinking of adding this shot to the short, despite it being different to KK's storyboard sequence.

We then went through KK's storyboard (the first sequence up to the title card). I really liked his take on my script, and he added in a couple of things that made it better, deciding to go with a front on slow zoom into the creep's window, whilst rotating the camera to give it an eerie look. This would allow us to have the girl's apartment reflection on the binocular lense as well. 

One thing I noticed about his storyboard is that the jump from establishing shot to front on of the creep's apartment is a bit jarring, so we decided that we'll go from establishing shot, to the extreme perspective shot of the creep's apartment (as shown above) and then to a front on of the apartment with the zoom. We could use the blind closing as the transition to cut between them as well.

Other than that, I was very happy with the storyboard so far.

Finally, we talked about Ceylin's character designs. I noticed that her drawings were quite complex and too detailed in terms of both line and form, which is bad because it would be harder to animate, as well as not fit the style of the film I had in mind. I told her to really focus on the shapes and work on simplifying the characters.

501 - Sentient Space

In our next seminar, we looked at sentient spaces in animation. I found it quite hard to see how sentient spaces differed from anthropomorphism/animism from the previous week in the examples shown, as the backgrounds all seemed like characters themselves. 

To me, I took it that sentient spaces were more of a background role, an embelishment to the main animation, therefore I wanted my space to have very minimal movement to help push it back in viewing order. I decided on animating a sleeping hills environment to go with Treemo. Here's the background on its own:

I'm very happy with the way the animation turned out. It's quite calming. I had quite a bit of trouble with the colouring however, as I wanted to go for more of a traditional watercolour aesthetic. I don't think the colours are too strong, but they're good enough.

Here's the background combined with Treemo:

I don't think they work too well together, as Treemo's movements are sort of overshadowed by the hill's, which makes the overrall image a bit cluttered. I also could have spent more time incorporating Treemo with the environment, making him match it more.

503 - Idea Development 3

 script feedback, next steps, room layout planning

On our final call before we start the designing elemtent of pre-production, we first discussed the script as both KK and Ceylin need to understand this properly for the next stages. I talked them through it and the decisions I made with certain elements, such as why the girl gets off the bed and leaves the room in the scene where the Creep is on the balcony (to make it more digestible for the audience and to avoid confusion with where the Girl is). Kahenya was worried, as he said that now the idea is written down in full it looks quite long, and I share this concern. I think it'll end up being quite a long film, maybe 3 minutes long, however we can always cut things down or change them in the animatic. Furthermore, a lot of the shots need to be long for atmosphere, but there won't need to be too much animation within them, or the animation that is there can be looped. In this sense, I think it's going to be a challenge but still manageable.

Next, Kahenya shared his screen and we went through his moodboard and initial room layout. We discussed roughly how the buildings will look, as well as the style of the interior decor. The main focus was on the room layout however as this is essential for the storyboard. We spent about an hour on this, directing Kahenya and discussing what would work with the script as well as what would look the best. This is what we ended up with: 

(The balcony is on the bottom, which is the side the Creep will look in through)

We decided on making it a semi studio apartment, with the kitchen being a separate room with a doorway just to break it up and make it more interesting. We also made the closet a full-wall walk in one so the creep has enough space to crouch in there. The x is where the friend will be killed and then dragged to the pentagon/human symbol. I think this layout works really well, and has enough bare space for unique design elements but not too much.

Finally, I talked through the pre-production schedule with them:

I just outlined some deadlines in order for us to be finished with pre-production by the end of the month. 

Finally, I wrote out our current tasks (and greyed out our previous ones) and immediate deadlines so each of us know exactly what we're doing:

My worries currently are with time, as we only have 18 days for the whole of preproduction, and it's something that I want to be quite thorough. I think our productivity and organisation is working well currently though.  

501 - Idea Feedback

 After presenting my main ideas, I got the following feedback:

After talking about these to other people it made me realise that I want to focus on the FX topic, as it's something that's newer to me. I got some good feedback, especially the budget point as well as linking the lack of handdrawn 2D fx animation with the lack of 2D character animation. 

In a way I could also link the two fx ideas together as well, talk about how different genres may need different styles of fx animation hence the need for it to be hand drawn.

I need to do more research and see if there is even enough information out there for it to be a viable topic, but for now I think my question will be:

• Is the art of classic, hand drawn 2D fx animation dying out?

503 - Script

 I don't know much about scripts, so I had to do some research on scriptwriting first to get the format and terminology correct. I looked at the script of Up and Into the Spiderverse. Up was especially useful as the first 10 minutes or so of it features insane storytelling without any dialogue. I also looked at these websites for tips and terminology: 

• https://www.bloopanimation.com/writing-a-script/ 
• http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/a-glossary-of-screenwriting-terms-and-filmmaking-definitions.html#:~:text=CONTINUOUS,without%20any%20interruptions%20in%20time. 
• https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/question-how-to-handle-pov-shots-c25c59d21ac3

Here's the script:

I found this quite time consuming as I had to get used to the terminology and formatting, but I definitely think it was worth it as it is very beneficial for Kahenya with the storyboarding, as well as for Ceylin as well so that we're all on the same page with the story. 

Writing it also made me think about some points that I wouldn't have thought about before, such as what time of day the shots should be at, when certain events should happen, and other logistics.

I may have used the wrong terminology or the right terminology in the wrong place, but luckily I'll be able to go through the script with my group, as well as the fact that there's only 2 of them rather than a whole production team.

503 - Idea Development 2

Following the tutor feedback, I wrote out some more bits on our group document, adding a project outline with all the tasks needed for our short. Our group then had another call as I wanted to carry out my "Next steps" section on the previous blog post. Here is the stage of the document after the discussion, with the changed points highlighted in red:

(Everything from "Tutor Feedback" is new)

I started this call by asking if I could be the director as Mike mentioned we really should appoint one, and Kahenya and Ceylin agreed. We then went through Mike's feedback with Kahenya as he wasn't there.

When the topic of sound design was brought up, Ceylin mentioned that her Mum is a professional dub artist, so she may be able to record some tailored sounds for us which would be very good.

I thought it'd then be good to start finalising details, so we went through the document, deciding on details. We came up with the location order, as well as the possible actions the girl could be doing while the creep watches. For the ending, we had 2 possible options. The first was that the girl could be killing and sacrificing a baby, where we can use baby noises to help sell it and make it more horrific. The second was to have a friend come in instead. Preferrably a male, as this would increase the tension due to their being a potential threat to the creep. This option could also show more of the girl's ruthless personality, as they could be having a normal conversation when his voice would suddenly cut out as he gets stabbed out of the blue. I preferred the second option, however this would need some strong sound design and 2 voice actors.

Once that was done, I went through the Project Outline section with them, showing the overall project broken down into tasks. We then delegated the tasks among us based on our interests. Finally, I wrote the Next Steps section, so that we knew exactly what we were doing for the next few days.

This planning made me feel a lot better about the project, as it gives us more focus and if we stick to the schedule we'll have a well developed project. I definitely think having a director works better, as it made tasks more definitive and wasted less time during the discussion.

The next steps for me specifically, are to write out the script, key dates for a production schedule, and finally add to the moodboards.

503 - Tutor Feedback

 Tutor Treatment Feedback:

• Sound design needs to be very strong

• Need to decide a director - should be one person

• There’s going to be a lot of creative compromise. Sometimes you’ll need to step back and allow the director to make the final decision.

• Make some moodboards ASAP

• Include subtle elements in BG to foreshadow the twist so that the audience understands it

• The more the short goes on, the more distorted the perspective gets maybe? (on 3D, change focal length of camera to get that effect)

• Pay attention to how we can achieve that flip from normal girl to psychotic 

• Think about workflow as we’ll be on different animating programs

• Do an animation test

• Keeping consistency is important in group work, different style will make it look out of place

• Do character sheets

• Make sure everyone can draw the characters

• Brush size needs to be the same

• Colour needs to be consistent - hex numbers

This is the feedback we got from discussing our idea with Mike.

He found our idea very clear and straightforward, which is good as it settles our fears of making it too convoluted. The main takeaways from it were:

• Make sure we show the flip from normal girl to psychotic girl effectively
• Choose a director to help with coordination and have a more cohesive film
• Figure out how exactly we're going to work as a team, making sure our animation is consistent above all

My next steps are to:

• Discuss this with the Kahenya in a group call
• Decide on a director
• Go through the idea and finalise all the points such as locations, who the girl is killing and what the girl is doing throughout the film
• Create a next steps section and go through it with the group
• Delegate the tasks to sort out who's doing what and when
• Make a production schedule 

501 - Study Task 1

 I started this task by answering the WWWWW and consideration questions:

I found this quite useful as it got me thinking about what I already know about the subjects I'm interestd in, as well as what more specific areas I could look at. It served as a very initial plan for me. 

I then used the topics I'm interested in as headings and started writing out potential topics and ideas within these:

I found out that I had more ideas than I thought I would have, and once I started writing general points down it allowed me to branch into more specific areas. I've done a fair bit of research into backgrounds in animation in my own time so I found I had a lot of ideas for that section, and knew what topics could be quite interesting to look at. 

FX animation on the other hand is something I'm interested in but don't know too much about, so I did some research. I found a couple of very interesting articles from ex-disney 2D FX artist, Joseph Gilland, about his stance on the current state of classic fx animation. How it's almost a dying art, instead being replaced by more technical digital renderings. I found I agreed with this, and also remembered that a current 2D FX animator, Quentin Cordonnier, talked about how theres only a handful of them in the current industry in a Q&A on instagram. 

I think out of all the topics, I like these the best, both for the actual topic as well as the potential practicals I could do for them:

• How backgrounds change with target demographics
• How much style affects BG art
• How camera movements can be done with 2D backgrounds (could look at history of that as well)
• Is the art of classic, handdrawn 2D FX animation dying out? 
• How does 2D FX animation change with different genres?

Here is the diagram I put together for easier viewing of my ideas as well as to help me organise them more:

Sources:

https://www.awn.com/animationworld/animated-scene-classical-hand-drawn-special-effects-animation-facing-extinction

https://www.awn.com/animationworld/animated-scene-elemental-magic-classical-art-hand-drawn-effects-animation

https://www.awn.com/forum/thread/1011643

 

503 - Treatment

 In preparation for the feedback, and to help organise our ideas, we made a treatment presentation:

Out of these, I just wrote the Character slide. I found this quite useful as it helped me simplify and communicate the core story, as well as the basics of the characters. It also made sure that our group are all on the same page with the idea.

501 - Treemo

In this session we discussed animism - the belief that all objects, places and creatures posess a distinct spiritual essence, and what that means in animation. Looking at the animations shown during the seminar, I found the ones that were most successful were when they gave the non-human character very human personality, making them come alive a lot more, so for the task I wanted to focus on the personality more than the action.

I was also very inspired by the short "Onions" by Anna Scott, and that illustration style. In it the trees had faces and were all sleeping, so I wanted to take that idea and give my own tree (called Treemo) a personality:

I found the character design section for this challenging but very fun, as you can be very creative with the anthropomorphising process. I think this was quite successful as this tree definitely looks like a character, yet not too human. 

503 - Idea Development 1

Our group had another session yesterday, where we discussed our chosen idea more, and started to develop it:

We organised our ideas into categories, noting down every idea we discussed so we have more options to choose from. Our goal for this animation is to subvert the viewer's expectations - make them feel like the Girl is the victim and then change that around, therefore we started thinking about the design of both the characters (making them almost stereotypes so the audience automatically assumes who the bad guy is) as well as the backgrounds, thinking about adding elements in to suggest their natures. 

Adding on to that is the idea that the Girl's apartment should look very homely and cute from afar, but the closer you get the more things seem off.

The locations for the story are also very important, because we need to move the Creep (with cuts) from his apartment to her apartment across several location jumps during a long period of time, and make it flow nicely and so that it makes sense. The locations will also determine what actions the Creep sees the Girl doing.

 

Finally, we also started planning how the story would unfold, splitting it into start, middle and end. Our ending is clear, however we spent some time discussing the film's opening scenes. The problems we were having was that we wanted an establishing shot to show the location where this takes place (the apartments), however we then needed to transition into the Creep's POV. To help communicate the idea to Ceylin and Kahenya, I did a quick storyboard: 

It starts with an establishing shot of the Creep's apartment building, zooming in on his window where you can see inside. The creep then moves in front of the window, silhouetted by the light behind him. The camera then cuts to his POV.

My group liked this idea, however Kahenya argued that it may be better to not show the Creep at all, as it'll be more mysterious and more fitting with the film's goals. I agreed with this, as we want the audience to exaggerate this guy's creepiness in their minds, and showing his silhouette would ruin that somewhat.

Kahenya also suggested that in the establishing shot we show both apartment buildings facing each other, like this scene from The Witness:

 

We agreed that this would be better as it would show the Creep's apartment in relation to the Girl's, so that the audience would be able to understand it better.

I went and thought about how we could achieve this later on, and came up with this sequence:

I quite like this as it allows us to cut to the Creep's POV without revealing his aesthetics at all, and it shrouds him in more mystery. It also reveals more of his personality and makes him seem creepier due to the act of him closing his blinds solely to watch someone across the street with binoculars. 

With that sequence, the title card appearing could be in two places. This would have to be figured out in the animatic stage to see which one works better.

The next aspects we should focus on are coming up with an exact script and finding a sequence of events that will work for the main bulk of the short, and then storyboarding the scenes to come up with interesting shot compositions.

503 - Initial Ideas

I started this project by forming a group with Kahenya and Ceylin, as I really wanted to work in groups. This would allow me to focus more on my area of interest (backgrounds) as well as give us the oppurtunity to be more ambitious with our animation.

We spent a bit of time discussing our roles within the group:

• Me: Background paint, colour scripts, compositing
• Kahenya: Storyboarding, 2D character animation
• Ceylin: Character design

We decided that we would be "head of's" these roles, so would be in charge of that section, however we are all going to chip in for each section. 

Once we'd established that, we then pitched all our ideas and discussed them. We did this over a call and using a shared Google Docs document:

On one hand communication was a bit harder through just an audio call, however on the other, the use of a shared document made it seem very collaborative and easily accessible. I thought this session was very successful overall, and we spent a lot of time discussing the different ideas and adding things to them as a group, getting each other's opinions. 

One thing we talked about was making sure the core idea is simple. Kahenya noticed that where a lot of films fail is that the idea is too complicated and thus is not communicated very well (an aspect where I failed within my last project), so we should really focus on keeping our idea clear, and the best way to do that is to keep it simple.

Another benefit of keeping it simple is that the other big problem we have to look out for is the time constraints. We don't have enough time to make a 6 minute short film, and although 2 minutes takes a long time to animate, its very quick in terms of watching. Therefore if we go too complicated we can't tell the story properly.

After discussing all the ideas, we settled on the Voyeur idea (highlighted in red). Our next steps are to develop that more, fleshing it out and making a script.