DDD Evaluation - 502 words

Over the course of the second term I attended lectures held by Andy. The main area’s we focused on were story boarding, characters and plots, roles with in production and realistic scheduling.

First of all we concentrated on making a good plot, this includes various factors like settings, point of views, style, tones and languages, themes and symbolisms. We mainly focused on creating well-developed characters. There are seven standard character types, the confidant, dynamic, flat, foil, round, stock and static which all bring different attributes to a story and ultimately keep it interesting and vibrant for the audience. We mainly focused on a protagonist and antagonist. The more the audience know about the character the easier it is for them to relate to the characters, anticipate their reactions, emotions and emphasize accordingly. The best way to start doing this is by making a biography for the characters. As essentially, the only way to come up with a believable developed character is principally the depth of research and background we have given them.

The next thing we concentrated on was storyboarding.  This is the first time we draw out the key scenes, this helps us create a structured narrative that makes sense, but to do this to a high standard we need to do some essential work before hand which include; initial concept – the theme of the animation/film, what is it about, some times it is easier to start with a seed and then layer up everything else. The synopsis comes next, which is a summary of your film or animation. Story development is the next stage, as you should have a clearer idea of the direction of your production, this means you have time to check and change anything that needs to be altered. Next comes, camera scripting, this is when we turn out story into a script this is mainly the directors job, as this is where you start to think about the different shots and how you want them to be framed. Blocking is when you turn your idea into a plan, plotting the key parts of the environment and also the positioning of your characters, its so important to make sure that the geography is consistent. Once all these stages are done it leads onto the story boarding.

I mentioned above about roles with in the development of a project. Executive Producers are Andy and Ron they make the ultimate decisions and are rather hand’s off. Producers are the bean counters. The make a production schedule, make everybody aware of roles and gets everything in order. The Director plays the nurturing role, they create a loyal army of followers it’s a tough role and requires a lot of work. The animators do the graft, when they feel like they contribute to a production it works better, Negotiation and compromise is key to make sure they everything runs smoothly. Other roles in the production process includes, product designer, layout artist, sound designer, editors who all individually contribute to a project.