Character & Narrative- Storytelling Through Cinematography

Storytelling Through Cinematography

A Cinematographer calls the shots on how the film is going to look. This would be how the camera shots are placed, like rule of thirds. This helps sow the narrative and aids in telling the story.

Staging

Stage the scene in geometric shapes, you don't need to make cuts to create a scene, try to create squares and triangles for the characters together. Tony Zou does many of these videos so i will have to research further with them as i had never considered this in animation to create interest from the character placement.

Camera angles (High/Low)

Incredibles- scene with boss in insurance office and how he is in power even though he is much smaller, the way the camera shots are done it makes you think its looking down on Mr Incredible.

Camera angles

The overall angle of the shot can create a jarring effect for the audience. Past about 30 degrees it tends to be showing intoxication and violence.

Lighting and Colour

Think about colour scripts and how you pour the light upon the scene, Isolation shots to show specific character or focal point. It can show personality of character or how mysterious the scene could be.

Memories tend to be awash with colour and lighting, shows the important things.

Make important decisions on the look and feel of the film: Shot framing, colour, lighting, shot angle

Learn from old world cinematography

Break rules (vertigo shot)

Its about teasing the audience and savouring what is to come, not just about the fight scenes. 

"Theres beauty in darkness"- Insight-Brad Bird

LEARN CINEMATOGRAPHY- read book and pay attention in movies

Character & Narrative- Meet the Puppet Masters

Meet the Puppet Masters

Since I am doing a stop-motion for this project, I felt getting more information about the field, people currently in the industry and how they started out would be of great use to me when it came to filming and production. This is why I went to a convention talk with "Puppet Masters" from different experienced backgrounds.

These names included; Chris Tichborne, Barry Purves, Brian Cosgrove and Merlin Crossingham. Each have worked in the industry for many years therefore have built up quite an understanding of how it works and have an amazing portfolio to talk about.

First up was Chris Tichborne who had worked on all of the Tim Burton stop-motion animations and showed some of the scenes he actually worked on. He started out talking about how he found his way into the field and how he started out doing little lego animations in his room. This is really something I need to do more of as it all adds to a portfolio at the end and builds up more of a substantial body of work under my belt.

Next was Barry Purves who had been in the industry for many decades and worked on more niche productions of his own as he focuses on acting and how it can be shown within the characters and how the animator is only great if he can show emotion not only on the face but within the body. He also made me think more of the eyes. Eyes are the window to the soul as they say so the same much be for characters as the audience must feel for the character. He gave a tip on using Vaseline on the eyes so they add an extra sparkle when filming. When filming he also said pay attention when there is dialogue so he zooms into their mouths so it feels more like a live action as the voices must be heard so the camera cant be too far away.

Between breaks we went to the museum as they were showcasing some of the Aardman characters and their concept art. This let me see them up close and understand the process they take more. It also showed the concept art and how it was turned into the end result which all let me understand the industry more and see the possibilities, as i've always been interested in concept design as a job.

This was Merlin who still works at Aardman and does the Shaun the Sheep movies. He was one of the most inspirational to me as he posed the most hints and tips to me as well as insights into the Aardman studio and how he got into the job. As you can see from the image behind, he started out doing basic characters when he graduated and grew from there so it gives hope for what is possible for the future.

Charactrer & Narrative-Script and Story Development Seminar

Script and Story Development Seminar

Suspension of disbelief- you believe and suspend the audience in the world you have created. This is a point proven by Aadman and Tim Burton as you don't question it, you believe and everything fits together.

Das Rad
An Object at Rest
Both films were about the passing of time, told in the eyes of rocks. These both dealt with the struggle of showing time rushing by. One of how a rock could be used and where they get used and shipped to, the other dooming mankind on their technological journey.

Story telling can be harder for stop motion as you only really have one set most of the time, whereas with digital animation, the only issue is your skill of drawing backgrounds.

The Art of OOO- Book i should look into

Logline

• Show focal character, plot line, villain 
• Try not to use names, use names to tell personality
• Maybe explain the ultimate goal
• The antagonist should show aim or personality
• Don't give away the ending too much
• Don't tell the story, sell the story

Tagline

• Sum up the movie as a whole
• Slogan 

Synopsis

• Brief summery of it all

Final Script

• Thinking of character
• Set
• Personalities
• Doesn't give anything away
• Sound so sound designers can go forward with it
• make sure storyboard artists can understand what is happening

These are all very important in how the overall animation could come out, think about it carefully and plan each section out.

Character & Narrative- Intrim Critique

Intrim Critique

The intrim crit is done to see what progress has been done in the last few weeks as well as letting me be opened up to peer feedback on how to improve my idea and go further with it.

Core Idea
When I have been planning my work and ideas. The anamatic was done as well as the storyboards telling the story of the male zombie, losing his love when he comes out of the grave but after searching around, finds her. As I am a lot more confident with the female character compared to the male, I am going to switch the roles.This means the story can in essence, stay the same but with switched characters. This means the woman will come out of the grave, find her husbands arm on the grave instead of the flower. She will then go to find him and when she done, re-attaches his arm and he gives her the flower. I will storyboard this to i can see what the new story is going to be so I can follow it when it comes to making it.

The Set
As I have been struggling with how to actually assemble the set, even though i know what will go inside it. I asked everyone if they had any ideas. Most thought it would be overall easier and look more effective if the background were to be a green screen. I dont really know how to do this so it looks effective so I need to research further into what it could look and if i could make a better background in Photoshop than painted which I think I would be more confident with.

List of what i need to do now:

• Character sheets
• Individual objects to draw for the set
• Draw out the finalised set
• Turn around
• Colour pallet tests for the characters
• Build characters + set

Stop Motion Research
One peer told me about how the Corpse Bride characters were made which i will have to look at as i will be using fabric for the female and male characters so I would like to see if there are any tips I could take from the behind the scenes.

Character & Narrative- 7 Essential Acting Concepts Seminar

7 Essential Acting Concepts

1. Thinking leads to movements and emotion
2. Acting is reacting, acting is doing.
3. A character needs to have an objective
4. A character should play an action until something makes them play a different action
5. All action begins with movement
6. Audiences empathize with emotion
7. A scene is a negotiation 

Narrative couldn't be more important in creating a captivating story!

From this i realise how important it is to plan out the characters with emotions when animating as it is key in creating something the audience can believe. I have always used references when creating animation so i can really see the movements and what the character needs to be doing, but i have never thought about the emotion of the person and how it could effect how the audience perceives my character, so i really need to think of this in the future.

I have always wanted to work with actors or dancers for animating so i will try to do this in the future so i can see how they flow and show emotions, which need to come across in the final characters.

I need to watch old movies and skits like Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy as i grew up watching them and i really need to see how they managed to get their emotions and actions across to the public with no words present.

Character & Narrative- Short story design

Short Story Design

This seminar was to make us think about how to do a short story animation with a script and thinking into animations narrative's.

Explicit Narrative- Plain to see (Normally what younger viewers take from the story)

Implicit Narrative- Hidden/ mature meaning

Cordell Barker's-Runaway

This fully animation is 9minutes long, yet clearly shows its Implicit message to be about classes and how the lower class and poor folk, sell whatever they have for money. Yet the rich con the weak and poor for their own gain. This really made me think of how much can be accomplished with no words and a short story's narrative.

What a story needs; A well thought out world, a main character or two that are clear and understood, and a problem that much occur for it to be interesting.


RoughCut BirdBox Studio's are a studio i am looking into more for narrative, as they dont normally use words yet their world and idea's are plain to understand. Their backgrounds, which i also like, are very plain and simple, yet aren't needed for it to have characters that stand out, and draw you into their environment.

Character and Narrative- Getting a project idea

Ideas and Thoughts

Titles to work with:

Happy Days

Predator Pray

Leap of Faith

Opposites Attract

Road to Nowhere

The Message

Last Chance

Adrift

Rivals

One the first day of getting the brief, I did some spider diagrams of ideas for the titles and which stood out the most to me for potential. These ended up being, The Message, Rivals, Opposites Attract and Happy Days. I really want to work with stop motion this year as i didn't manage to do it last year so i'm thinking of ideas that i would be able to make, build and film that wouldn't be too complicated.

I was originally thinking of working with someone for this project but when talking it over with people who i were also going to do stop motion, I didn't feel confident enough to work with them with the ideas they were going for, but I will defiantly have to work with them in the future to get used to being with others as in the industry your never working alone.

The idea i've had has changed and progressed through the week of when it was set. Ive been storyboarding along the way to show where my ideas have been going and what they used to be compared to the final idea i have thought of. I did these as thumbnails in a note book so i could jot down ideas quickly that i didn't need to take too much care with.

These were in a graveyard where a zombie was coming and discovering a skeleton who's head had fallen off which he was going to correct (left) or a zombie breaking out of his grave (right)

First Idea

The briefs, my ideas work into would be The message, Opposites Attract and Happy Days. The environment and scene will be in a gravesite so, Im thinking of a zombie coming out of his grave, struggling and pushing his way out, before finding the grave next to his being empty like something else had come out of a grave too. He will look worried before walking around the site and finding the female zombie sat on a headstone looking at the moon. When he walks up and she turns, the audience will realise she has one of his arms as her own, connecting them together.

Im hoping to be able to build all of these as stop motion characters and set, but i would like to experiment with paper cut out and digital so as i progress i am needing to be thinking of how i would like the overall piece to look. My tutor suggested looking at Paddington Bear, I had not realised until searching it that the set used to be done in pen, Paddington was an actual bear and the people around him here paper cut out and some digital so it was really interesting to see how all the different elements look in one animated story.