#fman402

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We had a private little exclusive "premiere" of Why Do Flowers Die? in one of my old professor’s class, presented along with all my past student films. It always humbles me to present both old and new work, because you see how much you've changed as an artist. I had one student ask me, "What advice would you give for someone starting out?" All I can say is, just keep at it. You'll get there if you dedicate yourself to your work. I've got a long way to go before I can call myself a master of my craft. Animation isn't easy, but if you like it, it's extremely rewarding.

Thanks to those who were at the presentation! You were a wonderful audience! 

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Colours!

So here’s the general colour palette I’ve been using for my characters. I kept it quite simple, using more vibrant colours for Rose and subdued greens for Rose’s mother. (She is still--and probably will always be--nameless.) To remind you of what the general colour scheme is going to be, here’s the colour script once again: 

For the characters, I picked the colours to contrast the backgrounds they would be put against; so in the daytime shots, Rose would be outside in her garden, therefore surrounded by greens. To make sure she pops out, I used a bright pink shirt and orange shoes. For the night-time shots, I actually wanted to mimic the colours the backgrounds would have (blues, purples, etc.). It would help emphasize the mood, and I wanted to give her a pyjama-look. For the mother, I actually decided to use the same greens I used to colour the flowers’ stems for her clothes. It’s symbolic as well as useful for making her stand out from the warm hues I used in the bedroom scenes.

Colouring is now around halfway done...we’re almost there, folks! 

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Here are some beautiful backgrounds done by Teresa Kuo! (You can follow her work at @tweedacaramel )

I’ve begun compositing the animation and backgrounds together, and boy is it thrilling to see everything slowly come together. I think compositing will be one of my favourite parts for this film! (Like it always is.)

Huge thanks to Teresa, for lending me her amazing water colour skills.

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Animatic to Rough Animation

Here I have edited together different versions of the same scene from my previous post. Even after the story is decided, there are so many ways to tell that story. This is why animatics are crucial for a smooth production, so that these changes can be made earlier rather than later. 

The first change was the composition of the first few shots. As mentioned before, the pan in the first version is unnecessary, and actually creates more confusion than it does clarify Rose’s emotions. There are a variety of different techniques to help focus your audience’s eye on specific elements, a pan being one, but a close-up and a cut to a wider shot serves this scene better. This way, we see the whole scene and not bit by bit, which allowed me to show Rose’s reaction more directly. 

In the same way, adding in close ups of the Rose’s face as she grabs the petal shows her emotion, rather than relying on the sigh to communicate all of it. Adding a variety to sequences of shots from close ups to farther shots creates more dynamism and keeps it interesting. For this particular film, I rarely use far away shots because of the intimacy of the story. We are always emotionally close to the characters. As well, a child’s world is rather like a tight-knit community, especially for a character like Rose who is still very naive and young. As they learn, their world expands along with their knowledge. 

The last change was to the action itself, where Rose is now humming the wedding march as she holds her flowers. This was more of a happy coincidence rather than a deliberate change, which is all part of the fun, too. When I began to animate this scene, I had Rose holding the bouquet with both hands and it felt robotic. I laughed to myself thinking, “It’s like she’s walking down the aisle.” And click, the idea came. Of course a child would pretend to be getting married as she holds a bouquet of flowers. Why couldn’t I think of that sooner? It added charm to the scene, and it made Rose more believably child-like. It wasn’t a subtle change, but it didn’t require more work (and was actually more fun to animate), and it kept the shot to relatively the same amount of time. Win-win. 

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Animatic - Storyboard to Final Edit

The animatic is key for preplanning shots and pacing. Its purpose is not only to see the storyboards in action, but it also (hopefully) eliminates the need to change things after production begins. Animation is different from live-action in that, while live-action films finish with editing, our filmmaking process begins with it. This is when the filmmaker will make decisions on which shots to keep, which ones to take out, and which ones need change. This way, they won’t be left doing unnecessary animation, or worse, having to re-animate a shot. Of course, things may still change during production, but crunching in last-minute animation when production is already tight on time is something all animators want to avoid. The main reason why animatics are so important is because it’s the first time the film materializes as a film, and that gives a very different feeling from simply looking at storyboards.

The first video you see here is an excerpt from the first animatic I made. It is basically the storyboards that I’ve drawn in video format with only the most important parts of the audio included. I showed this scene to a colleague of mine, and he pointed out that the reframing of the camera was unnecessary. Instead, I should fix the composition so that the eye goes to where I want the audience to look. My intention was to focus on the vase of flowers first, see the petal fall, and then focus on Rose as she enters the screen. The problem with panning up to Rose was that it cut off the most important part: seeing Rose’s reaction to the fallen petal. This will be what foreshadows the second time Rose sees the petal fall off from, this time, her new flowers. In the final version of the animatic, which I will post next, you will see how I decided to change the composition and cutting. Another feedback I got was that the passage of time was a little abrupt between Rose taking out the flowers (during the day) and Rose and her mother talking in bed (at night). A simple solution was to add a cross dissolve. 

Most of the feedback I got for this version of the animatic was how to cut down the length of the film, which I think at this point was a little under 4 minutes. There were some suggestions about the last scene (not included in this clip), where Rose and her mother talk about why people give flowers when they will eventually die. I had simply shown Rose and her mother talking on Rose’s bed, and was encouraged to cut away from showing that they are talking and instead show what they’re talking about. That was the most important and consistent feedback that I got from more than one person, so I knew it was something I would need to further develop. It was challenging to deviate from the obvious and think of more creative solutions, but the result is always much more emotionally engaging. 

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Hey everyone!

Believe it or not, I literally had no idea how many people were following this blog until now. (We’re almost at 150 now!) I’m glad that so many people are taking interest! This blog was intended to be an assignment as part of my grade, but I knew I wanted it to be more than just that. If you would like to see more of something, please let me know by sending me a message! I would love to hear your feedback. And never hesitate to reach out and say hello! :)

More posts coming soon~! Two more months till the film will be finished... *dun dun dun* 

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Final Storyboards

Storyboarding was a tough but exciting process. It is where you have to answer the hardest questions about your work and completely hash out the story before it goes into production, after which will be too late to be making major changes without losing vital time. What is necessary? What can be taken out? What is the purpose of each element/character/scene/shot/etc. in the film? I think for any filmmaker, the hardest part is to find that happy medium of including everything essential and still staying true to the original goal. It’s an introspective challenge to not overestimate yourself and to avoid being overly ambitious in the amount of work that’s needed to complete the film. 

It was a long process of going back and forth from the original story. As I’ve mentioned before on a previous post, I decided to focus the story on the relationship between Rose and her mother. Initially, there were so many other elements that I wanted to include, like making the mother have an occupation as a nurse. This was to add even more depth to the message that nurturing and caring for others is more important than the fact that these moments may come to an end eventually. Originally, Rose gets injured while gardening and her mother gives her flowers as a get-well-soon gift. Unable to look after them because of her injury, all while her mother barely has time to look after Rose because of her job, Rose watches helplessly as her gift dies. This was changed to Rose giving the flowers to her mother as a gift instead, to truly make this about their relationship, rather than the death of the flowers. The mother’s occupation became insignificant in comparison to her role as Rose’s mother and caretaker. She became much more present in Rose’s life instead of being a neglecting parent. 

Overall, storyboarding this film was very rewarding. It is an exciting time to see the story be laid out piece by piece, while trying to figure out the world that these characters live in, their motivations, their fears, and their desires. Slowly, the story formed to be what is shown above. 

(The notes for each board, such as the dialogue, were taken out because of the lack of space and the many pages. Many panels were redrawn as I placed them in an animatic, which I will also post soon, so a lot of them are actually not in storyboard format, without any notes.)

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Colour script is finished!

Making the colour script was a very enjoyable process, and it’s very satisfying to see the entirety of the film laid out in this format. It’s exciting to see the film come together slowly! 

Finding the right colours was a challenge, since I’m not too experienced in colour theory and pretty much had to learn on the job. The idea was to start the film with bright greens and warm browns, to evoke that happy spring feeling when flowers start blooming and the birds are chirping. This is the beginning of Rose’s journey, while she is still innocent and optimistic for the fate of her flowers. When we venture inside the house, it is full of golden yellows and oranges, with a cozy, analogous colour scheme. Once it’s nighttime and the lights are off, we shift to the cooler tones of blues and purples. This marks the start of Rose’s loss of faith. As the story progresses, we see dark shadows surrounding Rose after she injures herself and, more importantly, shatters (pun intended) the idea of eternity and never-ending happiness. When Rose and her mother have a conversation about it, we are back to the warm comforting hues of home and her mother’s caring love. The final shot is again with cool colours, but optimistic with light streaming onto the flowers.