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Character Performance Influence

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1920s Fashion

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Creature Comforts

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Acting for Animation

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Overlapping Action Tutorial

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Logline

A big time composer discovers a new, enhanced version of himself and becomes addicted to it despite losing his senses each time he does something wrong.

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Tragedy Plot

For my screenplay, I have tried to stick to a tragedy plot and use the common tropes of a tragedy. These include: a story about wealthy, important people (Luc) , moving from joy to sadness, ending with a catastrophe, a temptation nagging at the protagonist and having a divided self.

Christopher Brooker’s ‘The Seven Basic Plots’ (2004) looks at the tragedy plot and divides it into 5 stages which I have tried to follow in my screenplay:

Anticipation Stage: Luc finds the song book with a mysterious song in it.

Dream stage: Luc lives a dual life as Luc and Vide

Frustration stage: Luc starts to lose parts of his face

Nightmare stage: He is unable to resist and keeps turning into Vide

Destruction stage: He loses his hearing and can’t change back into Luc.

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Setting/colour inspiration

I have changed my setting slightly for my screenplay. I still want it to be set in Paris but I don’t want it to be set in the 1940s due to world war 2 or the late 1800s because it’s too old and cars were only just being invented. I have decided I want it to be set in the 1920s instead because I still want it to be set nearer to the time of famous composers like Debussy but also at a time where there were cars. My inspiration for the look and colour palette of the exterior of Paris is the film Ratatouille. I really like the blues and oranges/yellows of the lights in the first image and the dark, cobblestone streets in the second image.

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Live References

These are some live references that I recorded with a group of other animators for their character performances. This session with Sarah Perry was very useful and helped me think more about the character performance and how to make the animation more interesting. We thought about the personal kinosphere, contrasting speed, height and weight, functional and expressive movements etc. Helping my group film these references made me think of all of the different things that the character reacting can do as well as the character who’s talking.

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Stepped 1

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VIDE Outline

Paris, France. 1920

Luc stands at the door of his chateau as he says goodbye to his daughter, Elodie who is now going back home with his ex-wife, Melanie. They drive off in a car as Luc watches.

That night, Luc goes up in the loft to look for one if his old notebooks to help him write a new song but as he is up there he stumbles upon an old, dusty songbook that belonged to his father who was also a composer. He finds a song in the book that interests him called ‘Vide’ so he takes the book down with him from the loft.

He sits at his grand piano looking at the book as his butler, Claude walks in asking if he would like anything to which Luc replies “Whiskey please Claude, thank you”. Time passes as strong thunder is seen outside the window. Luc has learnt to play the song and as he finishes the song, he physically transforms into a being with long, thin arms, scruffy black hair and white pale skin known as ‘Vide’. Exploring his new capabilities as this new form, he runs out into the night.

As he is climbing and swinging through the city like a spider, he smells some food from nearby. Vide then steals this food and runs away but after he escapes, his nose vanishes and leaves nothing but skin where it once was. Vide then rushes back home and plays the song again on his piano changing him back into Luc who still has his nose in place.

The next night, Luc plays the song again and roams the streets again as Vide. This time, as he is walking down a dark alley, a child bumps into him knocking him off balance as he falls to the floor. Vide retaliated by shouting horrible things to the child making him cry and run off back home. This causes Vide to lose his mouth. He returns home, plays the song and turns back into Luc.

The next night, Vide goes out again but with no nose or mouth. He over hears a conversation between two men; one of the men talks about how the famous composer “Luc” is a “talent-less and arrogant man”. When the two men split up, Vide follows the man and attacks him. Vide then loses his ears from this action.

When he returns home and plays the song, he can no longer hear it meaning he can not transform back into Luc. He panics as he tries to wrap his head around the situation before looking up and seeing a picture of Elodie on the fire place.

Vide leaps across the rooftops of Paris and stops at the house of his former wife. He glares through the window of his daughters bedroom and as he realises he can never see her ever again, he sheds a tear from his eye. His eyes slowly start to disappear before a fade to black. The End.

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Final Thumbnails

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Character Modelling

I have tried to make the hair in Maya for my character just by using multiple octahedrons. I chose to make it look like this as I wanted the hair to look sharp and pointy to help my character look more menacing. I also used octahedrons to create a tie.

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Character Modelling

Jon suggested in an individual tutorial that the posture of my character doesn’t seem to fit with the position his hands/arms are. We try doing it ourselves and put our hands on the floor and I realised that the back arches quite a bit when you put your arms in this position. So, I have gone into Maya and edited the shape of my characters torso so it is more curved and arching over instead of straight. I think this has greatly improved the pose and look of the character as it looks more balanced.