End of Project Overview Post - New Learning & Creative Decision Making
A chunk of the pre-production work I put into the development project ended up needing quite a bit of revision. This brought me to a point during the pre-production phase of the final project where I could really reflect on the kind of film I was aiming to create. While the previous animatic had its merits, it lacked a solid second act and a clear plot direction. Many of the shots I had carefully developed still held value and would find their place in the final project, alongside the world logic I had built.
The animatic had a charming English vibe that clicked with me. But it was evident that I needed to up the stakes and inject a quicker pace. Also, I had a hunch to make the film longer, which turned out to be a bit of a misstep initially, given that I was targeting around three minutes. The pacing issues cropped up, but amidst all this, I sensed something great within my work and decided to push harder.
The Frenchman character started as a plot device, it dawned on me how good of a vessel for comedy it could be in my film. To make the jokes hit while maintaining a grounded feel, I realized I had to harness his comic tension against Glenda's sternness and the quiet demeanour of Hugh and Wilf. This nudged me to elevate his role, almost on par with the central "Team Fox" characters.
I started rewriting the script and storyboarding with a fresh focus on stepping up the Frenchman's role and minimizing Glenda's presence. A surge of inspiration led me to sketch out comedic scenes of Alexander taunting the foxes in a classic Tom and Jerry style. Oddly enough, the writing process went smoother than I expected, likely thanks to the continued practice influenced by Katy's writing seminars. Drawing insights from various films, deciphering their plot rhythms, pacing, and driving forces, proved pivotal. This aided in shaping my characters' roles and establishing the cinematic tone I wanted.
At this stage, it struck me that I needed to zoom out and assess the whole project from a time management perspective. A few weeks in, I finally had a clear grasp of the story, though some fine-tuning remained. A revaluation of my goals was in order. It was time to prioritize what truly mattered, considering the effort I was ready to commit.
Making the film a reality required a substantial pivot in both vision and art style. While I yearned to highlight the strengths of traditional 2D animation – think physical comedy, distorted perspectives, and quirky visuals – reality hit; these aspects are incredibly time-consuming. However, my resolve to craft something that genuinely reflects me remained steadfast.
I wanted to make some things for my reel that would help me stand out, the van shot was one of these, and the phone call was the other. After asking animators and filmmakers what the best ways to break into the industry are in my professional practice module, I knew focusing on making the best work possible in the time I have would be more constructive than rushing decisions that needed more time to be made.
I had made plans to collaborate with a sound designer early in the project and this meant I had not included sound design in my plan, they seemed keen to get started, I sent them the work and they said they'd let me know once its done. Then a month passed and I contacted them about it asking what was going on as i was ready to start production and they apologised saying they had sent an email which never arrived explaining that they had too much work and had to back out. I stood outside my flat blocks asking strangers if they knew anyone that did sound design or anything for about an hour and managed to get a number, I sold them on the idea of the film and we recorded within a week. The first recording had issues as the computer equipment in the professional studio we booked was not functioning properly but we managed to get an hour and a half of foly recording time which wasn't enough but was a great start. I knew I would not have more time to do the audio myself so did another session over a Zoom call while I worked and directed the session. I did not plan to mix or edit the audio as one of the two audio guys offered to do this for me.
The whole audio thing made the project incredibly stressful for me, I found it hard to find my comedic timing for a little bit while i was dealing with it but having it seem to be dealt with allowed me to get back on track. As this was happening and by my Gantt chart I was also producing the stills and background for the shots I had planned to do first while I was sorting out audio. I had also made some changes to the character designs.
I found my visual style coming out of the development project was a little bit flat, there were some drawings where I had it down but there was something off. I tried to break down what I didn't like and it was that all my characters couldn't express enough. In my time dedicated to practicing drawings I found the character's design limiting when trying to push poses so I looked at films like Ponyo, Kitbull, and Gassy's Gas and made changes to the Frenchman and the Fox - and even Glenda as they felt too stiff to animate and pose. The change that made the biggest difference was changing the design of the Frenchman to have a more identifiable silhouette. I also made his face a lot bigger and gave him eyes that had skin around them that was signified by lines rather than just having dot eyes. As I've not worked with this many characters interacting with the language before nor have I animated foxes of quadrupeds I found it difficult to adapt my art style at first but eventually, I became familiar with the character's designs, through many iterations of the designs with slight changes I came to the final version.
Along with refining my character my world also needed work. The art style of the films in my forefront posts made a huge differance and gave me the idea to play with a day night cycle in my film, I wanted this to be a narrative tool to build tension but unfortunately as I have not completed my film this has not yet become a very big part.
While I do like the style of my film, I think some of the backgrounds need redrawing and I thought about flattening and grayscaling my colours but keeping a hue layer, and then colourizing the scenes to each have different limited colour palettes, I thought this might help speed up my work going forward but also give me more stylistic choices to play with when it comes to the way the world is established through colour.
I animated some nice sections in this project, its hard to write about something like animation once you get going but I think the key changes ive made is that now I understand my characters enough to create a mental caricature which I use to brainstorm body language etc. Then through studying my poses in my sketch practice I learn which ones work and which don't and then I time my scene, add my pose keys, do my roughs, in-betweens and colour etc etc. The big change is in the performance and part of what makes a good performance is knowing what type of show people want to see. My analaysis of my own work and the work of others, as the feedback from my class mates friends and tutors are what guide my own perception of if my work is good or bad, and seeing people laugh or smile when they watch my work is what tells me the work I'm doing is good. I need to keep going and finish it.
Learning to analyse films allowed me to better understand the components that make them great. Kitbull is a film that made a big impact on my project as discussed in my blog post about it, I will continue to analyse the work of other filmmakers and reach out to filmmakers who are more locally available to me as I would like to collaborate with other creatives.
My sound designers did not manage to get their work finished in time but I don't blame them and I am happy with where my film is at. The parts I wanted to be at that professional level based on my analysis of other films but the volume of work I need to do in order to maintain that level with this style is huge so it was just not realistic for me to finish, especially given the setbacks I faced.
It would be nice to have the finished film ready to go with everything I want already done but as is the case with both the sound design and the completion of the film as a hole good work takes time and I plan to take the time needed to make the right decisions and make my film as good as it can be. I am hopeful that this does not effect my grade but I do believe it will help me get a job.
Catopolis (2022). YouTube. 6 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYnv8tHyOJE (Accessed: 01 August 2023).
Gassy’s Gas ’n Stuff | adult swim smalls (2023). Adult Swim. 13 May. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahf8KjDeZ3I (Accessed: 12 August 2023).
Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. London: Further Education Unit.
Hendrickson, K. (2019) Kitbull. Pixar. 18 February. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZS5cgybKcI&list=PLq7v-7lLXBPEFJTrhqND8dfFZI8r73ihs&index=1&t=280s (Accessed: 27 October 2023).
Ponyo (2008). Studio Ghibli.
