Self Initiated Project (Fictional/research & idea’s)

For this project we are to create a short fictional animation. we are given freedom to create our own original story in what ever style we prefer.

The Art of Storytelling.

What makes a story? firstly you need a story, in other words you need a beginning, a middle and an end. you need to start with something before coming up with characters and other stuff because while working on a story you will start imaging how it will look and even where its set so this is very important to do first. once you have a idea for your story you then need characters, ever story has a character in some form or another weather its human, a animal or even just shapes and sound. theses character’s or protagonist are what are going to help you tell a story.

I will start my researching a variety of different stories, ranging from original pieces to inspirational piece’s (stories inspired by other stories), i will also research some fan-fictional stories. I will also look at the different ways you can tell a story, for example a story where you only have the narrator telling the story and the characters don’t speak or even a story where no one talks and the images tell the audience what is happening.

Narrative’s and narrative structure’s.

I will research exemplars of narrative’s of other artist and screenwriters.

Joseph Campbell and “The Hero’s Journey”.

Joseph was an American Mythologist, writer and lecturer who wrote books on storytelling using mythology and religion and comparing the two in works of fiction, he is best known for “The Hero’s Journey” which is one of the many ways to write and create story’s and you can find this mono-myth in many film’s.

The hero’s journey is best effective in film’s that are a trilogy, the best example was George Lucas’s Star Wars trilogy (a new hope, empire strikes back and return of the jedi) with each film being the three acts of the hero’s journey. and other film’s tha show the hero’s journey aswell are Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises) and Percy Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Flash Fiction’s.

A flash Fiction is a short story created my ordinary people over the world. flash fiction story are normally no more then 100 words long and some leave on cliffhangers to make a series of short story. you start by taken three random words and write a story with those words, that all. it’s a simple and fun way of generating quick short story’s and it can be about anything depending on the three words you are given.

here’s a link to an flash fiction online page where people present they own flash fiction’s they have made for the world to see:

http://flashfictiononline.com/main/about-us/

I will attepted to try to make some flash fiction’s my self with the help from friends on facebook, classmates and family.

before shot of the facebook post. (13/02/2014)

and this is the after shot the next day.(14/02/2014)

I will continue to wait to see what other random words I’ll be getting and make a start on trying to make story’s out of the words i already have, and for the ones i had trouble make story’s with I’ll make concept art out of.

Brad Bird.

Brad Bird is a screenwriter and director who has worked on many animation’s and film i.e. Iron Giant, The Incredible’s and Ratatouille. Below is a link to the pixar page behind the scene’s, he talks about directing an animated film and goes into detail about some of the things you will encounter while in development and how you may come across a scene that would be great to have in the film but may ruin the film.

http://www.pixar.com/behind_the_scenes/Brad-Bird%3A-Directing#

Brother’s Grimm.

the brother’s Grimm are the creator’s of the fairy-tales that we all have grown up with i.e. Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, snow white and the seven dwarfs and many more, but the original story’s by the Grimm’s were far much darker not like how Disney portrayed these classic’s as light heart story’s.

just like any story by Aesop Fabel’s, some of the Grimm’s fairy-tales have a message, for example, Hansel and Gretel warns you not to accepted anything from people you do not know (or don’t take candy from Stranger’s).

Aesop Fabel’s.

just like the Grimm’s, Aesop Fabel’s is a collection of short story’s with a message/meaning, story’s like the Wolf in sheep’s clothing (don’t trust others or don’t judge people on appearance) or the Hare and the Tortoise (keep pushing and you will achieve) and the Fox and the Struck (don’t givewhat you cant take). just simple story that have a big meaning.

The dot and the line.

The dot and the line was a love story created by Chuck Jones in 1965. This is a great example of how to tell a story with characters that aren’t even a human or animal, it’s just a line and a dot two simple designs but express the story beautifully.

Changing Batteries.

A short and moveing piece of animation. The story starts with an elderly woman who revives a robot who is there to take care of her and over time they both create a friendly relationship, but we learn that the woman is not well and on the day of the circus she sadly passes away leaving the robot all alone and slowly his batteries start to die and as he closes his eyes he then opens them again and is reunited with his dear friend again.

it is a sad but lovely story with no voice acting or narrator just the animation and the music which together they give us a beautiful story.

Serial Taxi.

Another short animation. the story for this one is a young woman gets into a taxi which is driven by a shady looking man, while this is going on we learn of a taxi serial killer and so does the young woman who starts getting paranoid and thinks she is the next victim and hits him on head causing him to loss control and crash the taxi and die with the woman escaping safely, after she watches the news on the TV in the store and we see that the taxi driver that just died was one of the victims.

instead of a short horror story we are given something completely different where the serial killer is the young woman who accidentally kills taxi drivers because she gets extermly paranoid.

Flowers for my Valentine (Fanfiction animation)

Warning: strong language!

this is a fan made animation of a fanfic thatsomeone wrote with the narration and voices by Pewdiepie and Cry (the protagonist’s of the fanfiction). the animation has a bole effect though out with not much movement but this does not take away anything from the  animation.

Vocaloids

Alluring Secrets. (English Sub)

A song that tells a story of a angel who falls in love with another girl and felt the same way but both could never have a relationship together so the angel decided to give up everything to become a mortal man to be with the one she/he loves but then another angel takes the young girls life and the formal angel is filled with sadness and gives up her/his own life to revive the person they love.

Servant of Evil. (English Dub)

a story of a brother and sister twins, with the sister becoming queen of the country and the brother becoming her butler and as her butler he must do every thing the queen orders but because she is his sister he would gladly do anything to keep her happy and safe, and when her life is threatened by the towns people he makes her swap cloths with him so she can escape (being identical twin) safely and have him be taking by the people and be headed. this is the second part to a three part song (Daughter of evil, Servant of evil and Regret Message).

Kokoro (Heart). (English Dub)

this tells the story of a android that was created by a scientist who spent all of his life to create her a heart (kokoro) and its after he dies she watch’s the message he leaft behind and uploads the program of the heart he was working and after it’s installed she starts feeling all these new emotions and fully understands why he worked so hard and what it means to have a heart.

Idea’s:

firstly I will start by making a list of different idea’s think of many stories and decided what kind of story is it, is it a sad story, a happy story, will the story have a mean or a message ect…these are things i will have to think about when working on my story.

Story idea 1.

the scene opens with a teenage girl in her bedroom with a sad expression on her face then lays down and closes her eyes. we are then in a dream with the girl standing in a dress, she looks around and then we see a teenage guy far way smiling, we see the girls face brighten up with a smile, see starts running towards him and runs straight into his arms as he hugs her tightly.

we see them both enjoying a love and romantic time together, they look into each ofter eyes and lean in to kiss just before their lips meet she is awaking in her sleep by her mother and told it time to go, later we see her standing in a crunch full of people in a black dress in front of a coffin, tears start falling down her face as she kisses her fingers and places them on a frame photo sitting on top the coffin she then turns and walks away we then get a close up of the frames photo and we see it’s the guy from her dream. end.

the way that i created this story started with “girl at a funeral” from here i started ask “why is she there?” I then made a list of reasons why shes there and the main reason you go to funeral is to say goodbye to the one you love, next was to ask who is she saying goodbye to? is it a family member or a friend and that lead to it being her boyfriend.

from there i worked backwards having the above be the end and i needed a beginning and that lead me to a dream that she has about him in a lovely way and the two reunited once again even if it’s just a dream she is happy.

Idea 2.

Character Creation

for this project we are giving the task of creating a character.

we were given four cups each labeled character, personalty, action and location. we each took one out of each cup and now have a character and a scenario.

for me i got “A classy spy, celebration  at a restaurateur”.

for most of us when we think of a spy we mostly think of the guy with the licenses to kill James Bond who is seen as the ultimate British secret agent with the skill’s and knowledge to complete his missions, but then you get the opposite which are usually more comical like Austin Powers and Johnny English.

The UK is not the only country that has spy’s and agents from shows like Archer and American Dad’s Stan Smith who is an all American stereotype CIA agent. The one thing I see that all these agent all have in common (except Austin Powers) is that the are all built the same shape and smiler hair styles usually a military short cut with a suit.

but not all spy’s are male there are some female agents too

From the hit film and marvel we have the Russian, scarlet haired Beauty Black Widow and others like Totally Spies! and Kim Possible. Now we have something different to male character’s where instead of suit’s and ties and clean cut hair styles we have skin tight survival suit’s for all kind’s of tasks and mission’s.

these are quick sketch’s of spys. Stan Smith (American Dad), Archer, James Bond and Austin Powers.

these are a couple of different designs i came up with for my spy. the first sheet is of a female spy in a skin suit ready for anything. The next image shows a rat in a hat and coat and a mole in a suit playing of the names given to spy’s like “there’s a rat in this room”. the final sheet is of a basic design for a typical spy.

This is the final design for my spy. I wanted his design to suit the tasks that he does i made him slim for two reasons, first being a spy he needs to be able to get in and out of any area and because of his slender body he can fit down narrow gaps and air-vents and second a lot of designs i found of spy always have them being big and muscular so i wanted to try something different and more bratical.

these are the storyboards for my spy animation. The scene start’s with a far of shoot of the restaurant which then zoom closer, we then find our-self inside as we see a giant  cake with a waiter and the chef pushing it to a room as they enter we see the room is empty…after the waiter and chef look at each ofter all the spy’s appear from different places in classic spy style then cut to the waiter and chef in awe we then see the main spy hanging from the ceiling upside down act as nothing is wrong after he comes down all the other spy’s start clapping for him, then a bang is heard and the main spy falls to the ground with the chef behind him holding a gun…the chef then removes his face and reveals that it s the main spy in disguise the whole time.

this is all the storyboards made into an animatic.

 

 

Self initiated project one (Non-fiction/documentary)

For this project we have the task of creating an animation that tells a story based on factual dated event’s, people, inventions and so on.

we can take inspiration from things like news report, lectures, tutorial’s/hot to guides, podcast and many other forms of delivering information to the public.

I started by watching some of the videos that were suggested to us from the brief along with other that i find online…

“I met the walrus”

this was a recorded interview with John Lennon by a 14 yea old back in 1969 and many years later some one came across this and added a video using images to portray what the conversation is about.

“The Lego story”

in this video we are told the story of how the famous building blocks “Lego” came to be today using  3D animation with the story being narrated by the grandson of the company.

PodTaku (Highlights)

Warning: not suitable for kids.

these are clips from a podcast called “PodTaku” where 4 people talk about anime’s that they been watching. in this video one of the members takes the funniest parts and added vides, text and images for comical effect.

“The surprising truth of what motivates us”

this is a video that has an illustrator adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.

“Draw My Life”.

A while back a lot of people on youtube created videos that have them telling us their story using a ordinary white board and pen to draw. these videos are their way of a biography about themselves. these video are (in someways) similar to the RSA’s videos but instead of a lecture it’s a story.

at this point i do have some ideas of what i want to do for this project and the things im going towards are on the lines of either an autobiography, biography and one of the ted lectures.

If i did go with an animated biography, it would be on someone that i am insteaded, like an artist, writer, animator and so on.

Jarrett J. Krosoczka: How a boy became an artist.

while looking throw some of the TedX lectures I came across this piece, and while i was watching and listening I could already imagine how i could show this in an animation, I may use this as the final piece.

Tim Burton on his life and movies coming full circle.

This is somthing that i found that well influence my piece for tim burton.

Self-Initiated Project (Non-Fiction)

The Proposal

By Ross Martin

I will be creating a mini biographical Documentary of the life of Tim Burton. I chose Tim because he is someone who has both interested and inspired me to study more then just art and animation along with storytelling and style, and to also show that to be a creative indervisoral that all you need is something to inspire you. Just like me and many other Tim Burton was inspired to become a filmmaker because of works by Ray Harrihosen, the old Godzilla films and even Bob Kane’s Batman. I intend to tell Tim’s life story from when he was a child through to he’s teenage year finally to his adult years now.

 

these are a collection of design’s for a teenage/young adult Tim Burton. The first lot of images are design inspired by Tim’s gothic/chaotic style, I was trying to create a very slender looking character that in some way matched his art style. the last image is a design of Tim in my preferred art style (anime/manga).

The Scene:

it starts with us see a very young tim burton

this is the animatic for this project.