Unit 4 Story-Telling Crit Presentation 02/03/2012

'The Art of' The Concluding Escapade

Final Storyboard

Here is my final storyboard that I used in my animatic, I included the transitions even though I'm not sure we have to. Just thought it would be more complete and understood easier.



Animatic without Sound

Well I've finished my animatic but here it is without sound to show the difference :) I am over the 1 minute by 5 seconds if you take off the intro and credits but there really isn't a way to cut it down more without it feeling rushed in parts. I would have dragged the ending out a bit more but that would have made it even more over.

The Concluding Escapade 'The Development'

The Concluding Escapade 'The Development'

Prop development & Final Concept

When it came to designing my prop of the grappling hook I was well aware that it is just that, a grappling hook and some what limited with the design. But there are ways that you can change it up and I took advantage of this. I kept in mind my pirate Deleo when designing as in my Act 2 the hook starts off as his but is then used to defeat him. He is highly extravagant and I wanted this to be apparent through my grappling hook. I thought a long necked hook would simulate this like when people stretch their necks in boastful expression. There was then the hook ends, I played around with curving them and #6 looks a bit like a bird which I really liked because there is a lot of relation of birds with nasty characters. There are also parts of #6 which I got a bit carried away with but were happy accidents adding a some what frilly quality to the design.

Grappling Hook Concept

(Side view & top view)

I decided mid painting to make the hook metal a golden colour as I felt this would make it correspond even more to Captain Deleo with his outfit design and gold fastenings/cuffs.

The Concluding Escapade Final Script

Just a few tweaks here and there such as changing of dialogue, taking out the second ship resulting in the clunk then the thud straight after adding more rhythm. Also decided I would like to have the sound of the waves and seagulls playing as the second act finishes. Reminds me of the beach and actually ghosts/ death so would foreshadow what has happened to Thomas.

The Concluding Escapade Final Script

Cellar Concept

For my cellar it had to be dark anyway because of the setting but I also wanted it dark to reflect on Thomas' mood, he isn't happy, made even unhappier when people are trying to take him away so he wants to escape, the furthest he can go is the cellar. He has reverted back to his childhood, playing hide and seek, what better place surrounded by your goodies to hide! There is also the contrast I want to create between what is an unhappy life for Thomas and the way of adventure so my pirate ship would be quite bright in comparision. The rays of light illuminating from the lamp onto the chair are meant to represent hope for Thomas.

Without light

Light added

Browny colour added to show depth in house and suggest boredom.



Character Concepts & Biographies

When putting together my character concepts I wanted a theme to go through them all linking them all some way. I thought about themes/ ideas that come up in my story itself and the idea of memories stuck out. There is one part of my story where we are taken on a journey of Thomas' life through his hallway of photographs so I thought it might be a nice finishing touch to have my concepts become photographs in a way, framing them as a part of Thomas' life. I put a segment of one of the scenes they feature in to really set the atmosphere but didn't go into too much detail with this as I want the characters to stand out in these paintings not their surroundings.

Thomas Hanford

 

Tom Hanford

Captain Deleo

Tom & Captain Deleo Character Sheets and Height Chart

When thinking about Tom's outfit again I wanted something that went with the high fantasy pirate world but that also resembled Thomas in his normal world. I originally had Tom in a long pirate coat but after some discussion with some of my course mates we decided the reason he looked too old (more pre-teen) was due to the outfit so I thought of a pirate waistcoat instead and baggy trousers. The example below was just a tester but I did notice it would be too wide and tall for Tom.

Captain Deleo

I was experimenting with the use of lots of pear shapes like in the Andrew Loomis book Fun with a Pencil, to create Deleo, eventually getting to something I like. His large bulk but then his small head and small legs just make him to me even more unlikable and give him a weakness...which will eventually lead to his fall.

Character Height Chart

I think an aim over the Easter holidays for me is to change up my blog template so that my pictures are displayed bigger without going outside the template!

Care Home Worker Dialogue Experiments

After uni today Steven and I got cracking on creating the dialogue for my animatic act 1. There was so much playing around and it was a lot of fun. Something we noticed after just a few records was the length of time the dialogue lasted for, 15 seconds is just too long! After some cutting it down so that only the really necessary things were said (I have a shot of the care home leaflet in the bin anyway) we got it down to 5.5 seconds which is sooo much better.

We eventually narrowed down the tone on the dialogue to something we both thought worked pretty well and then went about attempting to muffle it as its coming from outside the front door. The only thing is that the knocking also had to be muffled so we kept the original and I'll crop the audio clips and paste in in the right place in Premiere Pro.
Just thought I would post the clips we got together at the end.

Dialogue while in hallway



 

Dialogue while showing Thomas in cellar

 

Characters: Tom head development & Expression Sheet

My final expression sheet for young Tom! He proved to be a tricky one to be happy with, trying to get him to resemble old Thomas but look high fantasy like Captain Deleo as contrast is a big element to my story. The boring dullness of Thomas' life about to be made even duller but then bam! into a world where pirate duelling takes place and the inhabitants are ever more extravagent and dramatic. So I asked myself, how can Tom be high fantasy but still Thomas. I took reference of the eyes, his face and the hair line (which isn't as visible now that he has that wild hair) and gave them child personality, so the bigger eyes, rounder and pinker face, smaller ears and then added the fantasy on top.



Characters: Deleo head development & Expression Sheet

Next up my evil pirate character Captain Deleo. I felt I had a lot more refinement to do with his face than Thomas' one so I went back to the books for help and ended up with quite a mixture. Some of them like #3 were too cartoony for my liking, especially as my Thomas character isn't cartoony in that way. I wanted Deleo to have real human personality like Thomas so that he would fit in the story but be fantasy as well as in my story he is in a dream sequence and things can be exaggerated in those types of worlds especially if your character has gone back to his childish memory and so that's where the dodgy teeth eventually came in.

I had got to number 5 at this point and seen some promise in there but there was something still wrong and that's when I seeked out opinions of my fellow course mates.

I had settled on something like this, the nose had been changed on some advice but the eyes were still wrong. I liked the largeness of them but they weren't real enough.

Captain Deleo Expression Sheet. I did sort the eyes out, evil, extra large but more realistic than before and I gave him a tall hat with extravagant decoration to go with his 'ohh look at me' pirate bigheaded personality.



Characters: 'Thomas' Expression & Character Sheets

I started off refering back to Andrew Loomis' Fun With A Pencil to help me develop my character of Thomas. I had already found one of my early drawings that I was happy with using as a base to work on so I tried using several techniques in the Loomis book including the "blocky" treatment. I thought this may help show Thomas' age better than the earlier drawing which now that I need some photographs of him when he was in the Navy and getting married will come in useful for a younger adult Thomas. The block method really did help show his age better especially around the jaw. I did eventually take away some lines though because to me he now seems easier to empathise with.

Some sketches with the help of Loomis' book trying to add age to Thomas and find his neutral face.

Thomas Expression Sheet. It was especially useful working on this in photoshop as it allowed me to use the neutral face as a base and just work over it.

Thomas turnaround/ character sheet.

I was originally going to create a pose where Thomas would look older, bent over as such but then I thought that would make him look like he needed help and really I want him to seem like he's fine, he doesn't need to go into a home, instead going there is bad for him and the care home workers are just judging him sterotypically so I actually used my own grandad as an example. Thomas isn't hunched over but he isn't standing very straight either because of my want to stop the stereotype but show his age.

Experimentation with pose and getting the joints/body parts in the right place.