You Are Here. Day 9

You Are Here

I think that my animation would have turned out better if I had worked more on my character design. I will work on this for the final hand in.

I have been commended in the crit for the pacing of my animation, such as how it is slow and grey before he enters the ballroom and it is faster and more colourful  once he is inside. Also this flips the idea of ghosts and 1920's parties on the head (as when people think of these things they think 'black and white' because that is all that they were able to film in at the time).

My areas for improvement include improved character development (which I have mentioned before); the pacing of certain parts of the animation (such as when he opens the door it is too fast); some parts are slightly confusing such as when the woman trips, it s unclear whose foot it is over; also they felt that it ended to abruptly.

I aim to work to improve this for the final deadline.

You are here day 8

Animating walk cycles is a lot harder than I expected. It took me an hour to be able to do it confidently; and running is a whole new story(!!). I feel that I have over simplified parts of my work and I am very concious of it looking poorly made in the final crit. However I feel that parts of my animation are very well done and bring up my animation; such as the backgrounds of the ballroom and the hotel, i have also worked into the door of the hotel so that it doesn't look too plain and pull down all of my other detailed environments.

You are here day 7

More character designs. I want to work with a diverse set of characters however i have faced the problem of not having enough time and with using a new programme I am afraid that I will run out of time. so i feel that i have over simplified my characters. I will work on this for the final hand in.

You are here day 6

I finished the final storyboard today. not much is changed from the original version. I took out the first person camera angle and instead of her fading away I had them dancing and then she trips and fades away as he tries to catch her.

You are here. Day 5

Today I did some outfit and mood boards for the animation. I think that the ballroom will have a 1920's feel to it as the outfits and dancing of that time is so drastically different from now, so when the man goes in the ballroom the viewer will know that he has walked into a different time and dimension.

You Are Here. Day 4

I created the draft of my first storyboard today. The story follows a man who is walking in a grey London, but a light catches his eye as he walks past the Park Lane Hotel Ballroom. He is drawn in by a beautiful woman who tempts him towards her before she disappears into the ballroom. He follows her in and is faced with vibrant colours and dancers. He looks for her through the crowd and when he finally reaches her she starts to fade; and then disappears; along with the rest of the ballroom occupants.

I was playing with the idea of having the animation in a similar camera angle of a first person shooter game however I think that it would be too confusing for the viewers to grasp so I think I will abandon this idea.

You Are Here. Day 3

I plan to take this project and make sure that i exhaust all of my ideas before i choose what to specify my animation on. I hope that this will help me to not end up like i did with the last project.

Today I brainstormed some ideas about what a ballroom means to me. I thought mainly about the ballroom in the Disney production of Anastasia (1997) where all of the ghosts of people are dancing around and she is swept up in a beautiful flowing dress. 

I did research about ghosts in the area so maybe i could make some references to these sightings and what they are said to look like ect. However most of the ghosts were of creepy tall men in trench coats and pig-faced women. I feel that this would give off the wrong impression in my animation. If there are creepy men watching the main character dance in a hall of her dreams.

You are here. day 2

I did some research about Piccadilly, Green Park and the Park Lane Hotel today. They are as follows:

Piccadilly:

- Buildings of interest: Bram Stoker's Dracula owned a house on Piccadilly; Brideshead Revisited was set in Park Lane Hotel; the Golden Compas was filmed in there; Virgina Woolf's The Legacy was set on Piccadilly.

- Only called Piccadilly in the 16th century because a man called Rober baker started selling a fashion item called Piccadills (which were widely sought after). was called Portugal Street before

Green Park:

Park Lane Hotel:

You are here. Day 1

We were given the task of putting a pin in a map and then travelling to that location and making our animation about it. I got Piccadilly; (in-between Green Park and Park Lane Hotel Ballroom). i was not allowed in the ballroom so i decided to venture around Green Park and take some photos that i could use for reference. I tried to pick up some comments from passers by, but nothing made any sense and not many people were even speaking English. 

I plan to do my animation about the ballroom.

Freedom and Liberty Day 6

In my final crit I was given the improvements of having a hand appearing at an earlier stage so that the audience could see that the land was always controlled by humans. This i feel is not really relevant to my work as the whole point was that he was in a place that was untouched by humans and then he passed over into a land that was dangerous and void of happiness and make-believe. Some people did not understand what had happened but I feel that it is just perspective, as all of the people that I have showed my work to previously could explain the storyline to me without being previously told, there were also people in the crit that could understand it; which shows me that the story is clear to most people. but i will work on the animation so that everyone understands.

Freedom and Liberty Day 5

Finally I came to an idea that I was interested in, things that are perceived to be better than reality and have as much freedom as they want as they are make-believe. For this i looked at children's shows, where everything was happy and sunny all of the time. 

 I drew the storyboard where there was a toy who was in a make-believe land who then passed over a line into a lad that was controlled by humans.

Freedom and Liberty Day 4

For my research i have looked at Adbuster, a propaganda magazine which raises issues about various events and important figures ect. I thought that looking at this and propaganda art would give me some ideas for my work, however it just gave me more ideas and not any of them were or any interest to me. 

I finalised two storyboards that I will choose between to animate. The first one is very similar to my original idea which i mentioned before. the second is about the difference between two country such as the UK and North Korea (the county are not mentions i am just using them as an example) It shows how in one county you have the freedom to wear what you want and watch what you want; where as in another county you are controlled over what to watch. 

I also want to address the concern that even in 'free' countries, maybe the are not as free as they first think.

Freedom and Liberty Day 3

Character designs and mood-boards for the animation. I am still using the story about Russia at the moment however i plan to change it so that it is more general rather than about one country.
Crit today was not very helpful, they suggested lots of ideas that i could follow to look at racism and brainwashing such as looking at Disney (not from a controversial point of view). I do have a Disney reference in my work, where the missile goes over the St Basil's Cathedral; this is a nod to Disney (how Walt Disney was a Nazi sympathiser ect).

Freedom and Liberty Day 2

Today i spent the whole day thinking up storyboards that might interest me enough to animate them. I felt that the one at the bottom connected with me and interested me the most; it is about the lack of freedom in Russia. I am slightly concerned over this storyboard though as i do not know much about communism though so i feel that it wont be personal enough. tomorrow i plan to expand on this and hopefully come up with a final idea for the  project.

The fist story board is where i addressed the obvious connotations of 'freedom and liberty' such as the freedom of movement and to say what you want ect. I looked at this by juxtaposing a cave man and a present day man next to each other for side by side comparison. however i felt that i couldn't get as stuck into this animation as i wanted to so i scrapped the idea.

Freedom and Liberty. Day 1

The title of 'Freedom and Liberty' really confused me. It was the fist title where i did not have an idea straight away of what to do for it. To help myself get started the first day i brainstormed some ideas about what freedom and liberty meant. I tried to look at it from other peoples point of view as those words do not mean that much to me. maybe because we (the public) are told so many times that we are free, that it no longer means anything to us. 

I then watched  '12 years a Slave' which i felt showed the opposite of what freedom and liberty meant. I hoped that in watching this film it would give me more ideas (as i was more fixated on the opposite of freedom and liberty than the obvious meanings). Even though racism, sexism ect usually interests me, this time i felt that i was still without an idea.

Inventive Titles Day 5

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

I feel that this title sequence is not as strong as my Bollywood one. There was a lot of criticism that i got for it which i will take on-board and change for the final deadline. Such as changing the music so that it is sound effects instead. Also changing the text colour to white so that it stands out better and changing the brightness as the picture is too dark. I have also been criticized over it looking too much like a film trailer instead of an opening credit; however I did anticipate this criticism because as a hobby I create my own trailers for films.

Bollywood Title Sequence: Yaadein

In the final crit I was advised to change certain aspects of my video, these were that at one part the background went completely white and gave a 'jarred' effect to the video. I changed this so that the colours flow throughout the entire video. There are still a few aspects of  the video that I will work on and change such as the pixlated the middle girls; also I plan to remove the box around the girls as they are brought closer to the screen as in hindsight I feel that this looks really amateur.