Concept and first look at Possible Narratives

Once I had collected all the ideas from my brainstorms, I collated the most common, interesting and favourite ideas of mine that I wished to continue looking at. I also used the 3 descriptive words and put them all together to help create a concept for my animation.

Using the ideas I had come up with I begin to simply create some short ideas for sections or possibilities to be extended. I looked at using the main props/items I had already considered and applying them to the descriptive words, the idea of continuous movement - walking along the beach. Fluctuating, moving up and down with regards to the umbrella, the bee, the bird. However to meet "positive" as one of the descriptive words I need to create a much more positive ending to each of these short stories as at the moment they all have negative endings.

I feel keeping the ideas simple will be more effective in the long run and prevent over complicating and confusing the animation. I want to keep it punchy and clear with a sense of humour too.

IDEA 1. The concept of this idea is very simple; it involves the idea of walking along (continuous theme) and then the characters hat blowing off due to the wind. I would like to develop this sketch by involving the character chasing the hat, which could incorporate the 'fluctuating' theme due to the hat moving up and down through the air. 

IDEA 2. This idea involved two of the initial 'props' I had considered important/usable in the short animation. The idea of the character walking along eating an icecream (continuous theme) and then a bird flying (fluctuation theme) across the screen and knocking/stealing the ice cream.

IDEA 3. Here I have used the iconic red and white umbrella, which was one of the main images I had in my head during listening to the soundtrack for the first few times. The walking, once again is the continuous theme and then the being lifted into the air is the continuous theme. Obviously it would be much further expanded on if it was an idea I chose to develop. 

IDEA 4. This idea created a much more summer/happy/ positive theme I feel due to the rubber ring, although the bee is a large negative image. The continuity here is once again in the walking and then the fluctuating can be found in the movement of the bee. 

I feel I have unintentionally ignored the positive descriptive word which should be running through my animation. This however could become very prevalent if the short ideas became connected in some way. For example if idea 1 and 2 were put together:

-Hat blows away (negative)

- Character chases hat

- Hat falls right in front of an ice cream van/stall 

- Character buys an ice cream (positive)

This could end here or it could continue onto the next sketch and so on so that each negative ending leads onto a positive at the beginning of the next sketch. I would intend to end the entire movie on a positive note - (perhaps ending back where it began to complete the theme of continuity and humour??)

Mood Board

Using just a few images of Google, I selected some of the images that were coming into my head through my development of ideas. As crude as it is I feel it would help me communicate to others the sort of images I am seeing without using words. 

I feel it includes some of the main props and imagery I can see being included in the 20 second animation, whether they are used literally or not. It may be the case that I will be making these props out of clay and other materials, or simply using existing purchased items depending on the media I choose to use. 

The two main things that stood out to me through listening to the music were the trombone and the red and white umberella. Firstly the trombone/trumpet; though this is a very literal translation I just couldn't get the idea of a brass band playing at a traditional holiday resort such as Scarborough out of my head. Secondly the red and white umbrella. Through listening to the piece I could continually see red and white in my head and when I tried to apply this to an object I found it applying itself to items such as sun chairs, parasols, gazebos and the like.

Brainstorming

My piece of music is called Babel by Nortec Collective, I played my music on repeat and began to write down any ideas and words that entered my head, I found this piece of music quite difficult to describe and didn't find it particularly motivating at first, finding it difficult to describe through colours and images and so on. Below is my initial, general brainstorm for the piece of audio given.

Once I had created this I began looking over the words and chose the three words which I thought best described the piece and which also left some room for ideas and scope; i didnt want to be too specific such as colours, simply focusing on describing words for now. My three words are:

CONTINUOUS

FLUCTUATING

POSITIVE

I then moved on to creating a brainstorm for each of these 3 words, still listening to the music in the background to keep focussed on the piece of music.

I found common themes which seemed to be running through the 3 brainstorms, the idea of humour, a possible beach/promenade/holiday setting, birds/sky and perhaps a repetitive reoccurrence. The idea of a circus is still running around in the back of my head, although I don't think I'd like to do this as my main theme.

The pieces of information which I would like to focus on, as well as keeping to the 3 main descriptive words is the idea of:

- A traditional beach setting (British not foreign e.g Brighton/Skegness)

- The character moving up/down and moving continuously throughout the slide

- Perhaps elements of humour

- Birds flying (Seagulls may be more appropriate)

Research

To get some inspiration and some context of what animation was all about, I have began to look at some existing pieces of animation work, one that I can across which i absolutely love is "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie. I love the narrative of it and how a simple room can be turned into such a journey, I couldn't take me eyes off it when watching it and felt it fitted beautifully to the music.

In this video I particularly like the use of a person, most of the other videos I have come across involve drawings or small animated characters. I feel that using a person makes it easier to relate to and would possibly be the direction I would prefer to look down, lets see if my mind can be changed...

Another piece of stop motion that I came across was "Deadline" I was really impressed with this piece and can begin to appreciate the time and effort people put into these short videos. One thing I have noticed is that the use of a small room can work really well, and a limited budget. Apart from the set up of a desk the only other cost is a large supply of sticky notes. Time here is the key element and spending a lot of time and a high amount of frames creates a highly polished, quality piece.

For my brief, I need to focus on the piece of music I have been given and my 3 key words which will be my next step now I have looked at some existing pieces and feel I understand the process a little more. I then need to focus on a beginning, middle and end for my story before deciding how many frames per second I will use and so on.

Stop Motion Animation Workshop

Using Software 'I Can Animate' I worked in a pair to grasp the basic principles of stop motion animation. Although the outcomes are very crude and simplistic, the main purpose was to learn how to use the software and understand the principles of this method. Below are the 2 short animations we created.

Although they are both very simple and the fact that the hands get in the way alot due to the unstability of the characters, I felt I learnt a lot during this session and it opened my eyes to the possiblities for this brief. 

Rayogram Workshops

In the first workshop, located in the Dark Room we were simply introduced to the method of taking photo's and creating Rayograms, learning about how to use the camera's and machines as well as the order to fix the photographs. During the second workshop we brought in some pieces of our own material that may be relevant to our project or some pieces simply to experiment with. Here are my first trial outcomes:

Above: Here I created a test strip (believe it or not) using 5 second intervals, however the paper had been fully exposed after 10 seconds as you can see the only area which is slightly lighter in the bottom section which only had 5 seconds exposure, whereas the above strips had more (10, then 15, then 20 and so on). However, although this didn't create the test strip I had hoped for it created an almost x-ray feel for the sunglasses and defined them well. Although I was pleased with the outcome I felt the final image was too literal and wanted to move onto something more intricate and delicate rather than continuing to develop this idea. Below is my second set of prints.

Above: I began by creating a test strip in which I exposed the piece at 5 second intervals, so from the left - 5 seconds, 10 seconds and so on. Although I think I accidentally didn't expose the far left strip at all. I decided to increase the contrast from a 2 to a 5 for my second run and expose for about 12 seconds which I hoped would create a high contrast between the black and white, with a minimal area of grey, only to create depth of the image. 

Above: I tested my calculations out on the remaining paper from the test strip I created and was pleased with the overall finish, although slightly grainy in places I really like the effect it created. To makes sure the black areas were solid black I decided to expose for a further 1 second for my third piece, which would be as far as I'd have time to develop it during this session.

Above: Personally, I prefer the position of the feathers falling out of the jar on my second attempt however, the image quality I feel is higher on this piece due to the concentration, the picture is frames much better here too, and I think I prefer this angle of the piece, rather than the jar being bottom right?