Process and Production - Week 7

Backgrounds and The beginning of the animation.

As I mentioned in  my last post, I wanted to take my drawn background and put it into Photoshop so that I could colour, which is exactly what I did. Unfortunately for me, there was a little hiccup and my file corrupted and deleted. Luckily for me I'd done the line work in another file so that I could just re do the colouring in. Granted it was a little frustrating, as the colouring took longer than anticipated but I did manage to re do it much quicker the second time around.  

I've also begun the animation this week, so far I have a second done, which I have coloured and I'm happy with how it looks. I've also begun another background for the opening shot of the actual restaurant.

 Here is the sketch the restaurant, I'm not sure if I'm 100% happy with it yet, but I will colour it and most likely use it for my animation.

Process and Production Week 6 -Looking into Backgrounds.

I've been wanting to better my backgrounds, so I took some imitative, and went and had a look in our library. And found one to perfect for I was looking for.

This book is filled with images of backgrounds. and development pages.

Here are some scans of the book, as you can see the detail that has gone into the backgrounds are amazing. I aim to better my ability to create detail in backgrounds during this brief and have more colour, I will study these backgrounds so I have some learning tools.

So after looking at this book, I went into a little more detail on the background, as I planned to, and I am actually happy with how its turned out. I've drawn it out on a png so that I can colour it properly in photoshop.

Animation History - Capturing Motion

History and Animation.

Animation may be on of the oldest forms of art, excluding that of drawing its self. It dates back as far as the Palaeolithic era, when man kind was at its most primitive state. I can say this due to a pot, a pot with a painted designs where a goat jumps, each images around the pot has a slight change giving the look of movement.

Here is the animation actually in a video format, as you can see it does actually work. This pot date almost 5,200 years ago, which is an astonishing amount of time.

Tombs filled with images of fighting sequences show another study of movement, this shows the fascination man has with the ability of capturing people or objects or anything for that matter in the state of motion.
This sequence dates around 4000 years ago, found in the tomb of Khnumhotep.







Even Leonardo had a go at capturing movement, using different angles to show anatomy. This around 1500 AD. As you can see he changes the position of this person gradually, showing how the anatomy of the arm and the shoulder works, but he also gave us some very detailed versions of early documented form

Reference

I had a look at some restaurants for reference to the shot of the outside to the restaurant I've drawn for the animatic. I wanted it to be a large building, and have an hare of poshness to it. So I had a look at some real restaurants to see how they are usually presented. As my animation is set in France, I wanted it to have a quietness about also, so a mixture of both traits, which lead me to look into different kinds of restaurants.

The Animatic

Here is the animatic for my project. I've sound, so that it has more depth to the story. I have found though that the timing is all wrong, and I may need to fix this problem, as it makes to comedic value to the idea drop considerably. But aside from that, I am relatively happy with the animatic its self.

Class Crit.

We recently had a classroom critique, where we stood in front of a group of our peers. I found that this was really helpful activity, hearing what other think of my work really helps put where I am in this brief into perspective. I should them my animatic, and some of my developmental work.
It was good to hear feed back, as they had some very good points regarding my animatic, as the timing was all off. Which is extremely true, has the pan takes like 5 seconds too fall which isn't true to real life in the slightest. There was also mention of the placement of the kitchen, as I'd put it onto the top floor, which isn't a normal place for kitchen to be, and my piers gave some good advice on how I should change this.
I did thought find making the presentation a little nerve raking but it was beneficial.

Process & Production - Week 5

Week 5 -

I began this week with the refining of my story board, as I mentioned in my last blog post, I wanted to change the idea. Which I have done. I haven't made them overly detailed, but wanted them to be a little more refined compared with my last attempt at a storyboard, as this one I might use to create the animatic.

Instead of the ending where the chef forgets how to cook, and sets a piece of broccoli on fire, I have changed it, so that the chef is still  hit on the head with the pan but instead is presumed to be drunk by the waiter, who then stomps away angrily. Which gives the animation more of a conclusion.  I will make some character sheets, more detailed compared with my last attempt at developing a character, and hopefully add colour to the designs.

I feel this idea is targeted at an older generation, following more of a slapstick comedy. I wanted this to have a similarity to the show Fawlty Towers. As the sense of humour I've used in this idea has similarity's to the type of comedy that Fawlty Towers uses, and It also is aimed at an older generation.   

Process & Production - Week 4

Week 4.

This week  I continued to develop my ideas, creating some more storyboards. I made a basic idea, where a chef gets hit on the head with a frying pan and forgets how to cook. A waiter enters hands him a list of dishes he needs to take and then leaves, instead of the chef cooking real food, he sets a piece of broccoli aflame with a lighter. Granted not the funniest or the best of ideas, but It has potential to be something, as this is only the beginning of an idea.

After thinking over the idea, I decided to change the idea somewhat. As personally I don't think it has a very conclusive ending, and needs to be refined. It lacks a punch line, which I need to come up with soon, and hope that It will be better suited for the brief. I'll show the development in my next weekly post.

I've also created a character for the animation, I wanted a rounded character, as I wanted him to have a jolly demeanour. I wanted him to have the typical chef attire, but also wanted him to have some of his own traits, so I've given him curly hair, and a slight lean to one side.

Week 3 1/2 - Types Of Comedy.

I've been doing research into types of comedy, and have found that are so many. Usually I tend to find puns to be my favourite form of comedy but there are so many kinds. I've decided I'll make a list of some kinds of comedy, and then elaborate on them further.

Slap Stick - 

This is a type of comedy is more on the physical type. Some of the most Iconic comedy duo's that used this form of comedy where laurel and Hardy. This is a from of clumsiness done in a way to make it come across as funny. Commonly used by clowns and other things like that.



Farce -  Ridiculous circumstances, over the top reactions, unlikely scenarios with mad results. Faulty Towers is a good example for this form of comedy.    



Stand Up - This is one of the most well known form of comedy. A form of a person standing on a stage telling jokes and funny stories live, in front of an audience. 

Self Deprecating - Make fun of your self in a humours manner. 

Blue - This humour is on more of the risque side, off colour, hence 'blue'.

Dry - This is more of the british humour, focusing on the more depressing or more matter of fact. 

Puns - Puns are my favourite form of comedy. Its the use of a play on words. Either by taking two words that sound alike and putting them together or replacing a word with another.

Dark humour - Focusing more on the morbid side of comedy, this focuses on grim topics, and the depressing  side of things.

Surreal comedy - This kind of humour use nonsensical stories to get laughs. Usually it goes along side slap stick, but usually focuses more on the bazar.

Deadpan - Being funny, only with out change of emotion or any change in facial expression.

Process & Production - Week 3

This week was an independent study week, so I took to thinking about some ideas, and characters I could use for this animation. I wanted to try a range of different kinds of body's, to see if they could inspire anything. I wanted to have different shapes, sizes and positions, as having a range never hurts.

From the initial shapes I developed some characters, each having its own style and personality. I will think about whether I'd like to use any of them in a storyboard/idea. As now it will be easier as I have something to work with.

I've also done an idea for a story board, but am not really very happy with the idea. The topic I chose was the party idea, and it would use adults throwing tantrums instead of the children, so there would be some form of twist to the idea. I've decided not to go any further with this idea, as I'm not very passionate about it, and frankly  think the idea is a little cliché.  But this is just one idea, out of several that I thought of during the first week. I will think about other ideas, and keep up with my work, thinking of different forms of comedy. 

Process & Production - Week 2

We talked a lot more about Target audience and types of comedy this week. I have to think about who I will target my animations comedy towards, whether that be young people, children or older.
Children's comedy has to be a lot happier and a lot jollier than anything targeted to ages upwards. Another thing to take into consideration is whether the animation should be educational, as a lot of the time comedic entertainment for children has some form of message hidden in it, or some form of educational purpose. If it is targeted towards a child, there should be no form of crude language, and  extremely dark aspects to the story, and no graphic content. 

The target audience directed more towards adults on the other hand is the polar opposite, foul language, bloody, graphic scenes, innuendos, darker story telling as a whole really is targeted much more for the older generation. Animations like futurama, South Park and Rick and Morty explain my point very well. All though, there are somethings both audiences find funny, bodily functions, falling over classic forms of comedy really appeal to most people.

Teens on the other hand, tend to like most forms of comedy, being one my self, all though not for much longer, I do have some experience with understanding what teenager find funny. Being such an online community, my generation seams to find almost everything to have some element of comedy hidden into it.

I feel like I'm more inclined to do an animation for children, as I like to keep my animations up beat, but I may do something for adults, as I'd like to challenge my self a little, and step out of my comfort zone.

Process & Production - Week 1

This module we have been given the brief of  creating a 25 second animation. The animations should be centred around making people laugh, in other words it has to be funny. I will to create a story and animatic, and a character to fit into the animation. The animation its self needs to have sound and a title. For this first week we had to look into more of the research aspects of the project, so I can come to a rounded conclusion as too what my target audience will be, what kind of comedy I should use, and the topic I will centre the animation on.

Choices :-
First contact, A cunning Plan, A birthday to remember, Blind Date, The Restaurant, Neighbours.

I like the sound of Neighbours, First contact, A cunning plan and the Restaurant. I nationally thought of doing an idea using Neighbours, planning on something to do with mail, and resaving the wrong letter in the post. But decided to scrap that idea.

Here are some images from my sketch book of some initial ideas I had after hearing the ideas. I wanted to have at least considered every title for my animation, so I had a go and thinking up some ideas for each. I found that I've struggled with coming up with ideas that I am fully happy with, but I still have time to think about ideas.