Roles within Group task lecture

Executive producer – Ron and Andy. Very hands off, ultimate decision of what gets made – name attached to companies.

Producers – bean counters, control budget. Generally tell you, get everything finished on time or they get sacked. Producers are responsible for putting together the production schedule. Make sure everybody knows what they are doing all the time.  Its about co-operation and being part of the team. Book voice talent, studios, pulling together the crew, wages, tax, insurance. They sign things off.

Director – stands between the crew and producer, director is a nurturing role, a good director will keep the team on board, so when you need to ask someone to stay on they will do so, a loyal army. Be aware of that the project requires, and what the team are good at, the director takes a project and story boards it, or a camera script and give it to a story board artist. Director is there to direct the action with in the shots to insure continuity. It’s a tough role, not very glamorous,

Animators – doing the graft, its your job to animate, when the animators feel like they have a contribution to a film works best, more passionate. A form of negotiation between the animators,  directors and producers work best.  Negotiation and compromise is the key.

Production designer – person that designs all the sets, backgrounds, over view of the charater designs, someone needs to step into this role by negotiation of the director. Everything you see on screen needs to be designed by the production designer.

Layout artists- these people generally do backgrounds, not glamorous, but essential, more of a 2D role.

Sound designer – the moment our project gets going we need to think about sound – its 50% of the film. Those of you who have a interest in sound should put themselves forward. Talk to director, what sounds do you think we need. Record dialogue, Foleys etc. No copyright issues, as it isn’t going on the web etc. But normally you have to be aware of copyright.  Carefully lease with the producer and director.

Editor – the editor should be working with the project from the start, The director would be working with the story, and break down into a camera script. Camera script – break down the story into individual shots – what action takes place and how would you frame it? Make sure you have got a nice rhythm between shots. Next stage is so block – a plan view of the set or location with the movement of characters and set. As much of the responsibility as the director – gather up all the shots as and when the come in. mail it to them on a memory stick so they can drop it into the time line, the editor and director will then short the shots.  

Notes from Lecture - short hand

·      Plot

·      Character

·      Setting

·      Point of view

·      Style, tone, language

·      Theme

·      Symbolism, allegory and image

Give our character a personality – characterization:

Protagonist – the stories man character

Antagonist – character made to conflict with protagonist

Round character – a complex fully developed character, often prone to change

Flat character – one dimensional character, typically not central to the plot.

Fictional character – strangers to us until they become fully developed. Our impression is based on visual clues – genderm age, hair colour etc

Visual – charactes appearance

Aural – the sound of the characters voice.

Interrogate out character

The more we know about our character the more we are able to know how they would react to certain situations, etc.

Start developing a  Biography – give them a name, and build a relationship with the character. Create a short biography.

Personality outline –

·      temperament,

·      Morals

·      Political stance

·      Hobbies

·      Habits

·      Quirks

·      Likes/ dislikes

·      Short / long term goals

·      Long term dreams

·      Star signs.

Inspiration:

It sometimes helps to look through newspapers, maragines, internet to find pictures and photographs.

Keep that image with you are you work, complete a brief bio beneath.

Sketh some ideas for your character work..

Develop your protagonist points of view as much as possible, this builds a sense of empathy for each piece of information uncovred through the journey of your film.

There must be a obstacle.

Secondary characters should only have one fundamental problem to solve.they don’t need to be as in depth as your protagonist. Minor chracters do not have to have any problems to solve at all. However, this is only a one minute film so we don’t need secondary characters or minor characters.

Seven standard character types:

·      Confidante – someone who the central character confides, revealing the main characters personality, thoughts and intentions – marge Simpson perhaps

·      Dynamic – changed dueing the course of the film, the change in outlook or character in permanent. Sometimes referred to as a developing character.

·      Flat Character –

·      Foil – enhance another character trough contrast – Cinderella’s grance and beauty is opposed to her nasty self centred sisters.

·      Round – well developed character who demonstrais varied and sometimes contradictory traits. Usuall dynamic but different as they demonstrate contradictions. Snape from Harry Potter??

·      Stock – a special kind of flat character, instantly recognizable, businessman or shushing librarian. They are not developed or focused in the story. Mr. Burns.

Summary of standard characters:

Some characters are too opposite and therefore cannot be considered. There fore someone cannot have a character who is flat and round, or a static yet dynamic character.

Make them  special. They don’t have to be eccentric to be engaging but should have qualities and quirks that set them apart and make them memorable.

Behavior – the behavior of a fictional character should be based on your knowledge of human psychology and your work experiences. Every character you create will bea a reflection of some aspect of yourself.

Unique – you cannot make your characters act and be like characters from other films. At the same time characters inspired buy you or the people you know should have their own identities because you and the people you know don’t live in the world of your script.

SCREEN PLAY GARY PERVES –relys completely on movement – no facial movement just body movement.

Contradictions -   once you begine to write and set your character in motion your premise and the psychology you’ve invented for your character will determine their behaniour and actions.

Don’t say it – sometimes what is left unsaid in a conversation becomes the most potent part – screen writers use dialogue subtext or what is under the text to hint at a conflict with out actually identifying it.. 

Summarise – essential skill in creating rounded believable characters comes principally from the depth of research and background that you give them.

Look at pdf on uce

Go to library get a dvd – take a character with sound turned down and study the moment. Ask yourself why do I understand what is happening?

Notes from Lecture

Story boarding:

 What is the point of story boarding?

·      The storyboard if the first time you draw out the key scenes, and movements in your film. Without one you can never hope you have a structured narrative that makes sense! So what do we need to start?

·      Follow these basic steps to get the point of storyboarding from idea to paper:

1.     Initial concept

2.     Synopsis

3.     Story development

4.     Camera script

5.     Blocking

6.     Storyboarding.

·      Initial concept: the initial idea of a few ideas you have, it’s the theme f the film – what is it about/ from this you can take your ideas & then write it up as a story, and from there divide it up as a series of theoretical shots. For our films however, this will be a ‘seed’ of your story. Don’t try and build your film too quickly, rather start with an initial concept and then layer it up.

·      Synopsis – summary of your film

·      Story Development – once you have completed your synopsis you should have a clearer idea of the direction of your story. This development should be somewhat organic as you go back over and make alterations.

·      Camera scripting –this is a process of turning your story into a basic script which in turn you will turn into a camera script. Put simply, a camera script is where you as a director make the decision on where to cut from shot to shot based on the action and dialogue that you have written. You should start thinking at this stage about how these shots will be framed.

·      Blocking / staging – this is where you turn your idea into a plan In it you plot the position of characters and key parts of the environment. You plan where the characters move to and from. Most importantly though this is where you decide from which angle to film, or to draw your subject. You should stretch cameras looking at the subjects.  Blocking gives you a clear sense on geography.

·      The story board:

·      You should now be ready to finally produce your story. By following the stages mentioned you will arrive at this point with a clear idea as to the structure of your film, as well as how individual shows will look.

Story boarding: draft story board consist of little sketches and thumbnails, Then this is developed to a standard to present to clients and 

Martin Etienne - his work and blog

**MARTIN ETIENNE BLOG LINK**

MARTIN ETIENNE WEBSITE

Martin Dessin a talented French artist and designer has very kindly allowed me to post some of his work onto my blog to share with you all! (I spent two hours writing a email in french to receive a lovely reply in English)! The link to his own personal blog where you will find more gorgeous drawings  and design work is above! Please check him out!

I was surfing the internet for interesting blogs that took my fancy and i stumbled across Martin Dessin, his blog is all in French, and my French is a little rusty now, however, my translation is Martin enjoys to spend his time drawing and listening to music. For me, music can have a large influence on the way you draw, it can put you into different moods, the different tempos can make you work quicker or slower etc.

I particularly love Martins charcoal life drawing's, i have only put a few on here do the rest of you feel inclined to take a sneak peak on Martins blog above! The way martin has created movement in the drawing below is very effective, the curves in the back and the positions of the legs create the illusion the model its moving forward. If i was to imagine this walk from a characters perspective, i can imagine it to be slow and smooth with minimal movement in the arms. The up right arches back to me creates a feel of confidence. The movement has a meaning. I also enjoy the way Martin has cleverly picked out certain aspects of the model to  shade which creates depth, and the strong contrast between the back of the charcoal and the white of the paper making it stand out more.

The use of charcoal carries on through out Martins other life drawings.

Here are some more images of Martins work that are different to his life drawing pieces. I particulary loved the two designs below. I love the use of negative space and the pastel colours. I tend to focus more on bright vivid colours, but you can create a classy look using pastel colours.

The image above is brilliant! Its clever, witty and a good bit of fun, i love the consistent colour pallet. I will be using Etienne's style as inspiration for my future animation.

Check him out!

Evaluation for Drama Workshops

Overall I found the drama workshops to be most rewarding. We looked at a range of areas regarding acting and animation. We learnt all about Diaphragms, how we breathe, the right way to breathe and miming characters. We learnt about using signs to get your message and ideas across to an audience. Miming took a lead role in the acting classes. Once we had got the hang of breathing deeply and using our full capacity we then went onto miming and acting out scene with no sound or mouth movements. For me, it was to demonstrate how simple movements, facial expressions, and posture etc can get across a lot of information to the audience. We should take this idea into our animations. Actions, expressions and movement are like the heart in your body when talking about acting. The heart pumps blood around to keep you alive, similarly you need expressions, mannerisms, body language to make a scene convincing. Expressions and mannerisms make it visually interesting and challenges the audience to make their own twists to our mimes. On the whole, the mimes were pretty self-explanatory.

We looked at various theorists like Rudolf Von Laban, a Hungarian central European dance artist and theorist. Laban’s work laid the foundations for Laban Movement Analysis and other developments in the art of dance. We looked at the stereotypes within movement that Laban created for example, a low heavy character would do punch, slice, and wringing movements, all disjointed, and uncomfortable movements and a light happy person would use gliding, flicking, dabbing movements. Laban did this so when he wrote a script the actor would act his words and then know the action he had to do, but due to their being no confinements, interpret it in the way the actor felt their character to take it.

We also looked at Cicely Berry an incredibly influential lady. Cicely Frances Berry CBE (born May 17, 1926) is the voice director of the Royal Shakespeare Company & is world-renowned in her work as a voice & text coach. We started off the lesson by doing some of Berry's warming up exercises for the vocal chords.

Once we had completely Berry’s warm up we had to show and tell our individual performances that we started the previous week. We had to sit in the 'hot seat', say our name, age, what we do for a living, and then answer questions from the class. This task was to challenge our ability, and how we could adapt under pressure. It was also to see how involved in our characters we could get, as we need to get inside our characters when creating character animations. Overall I found the acting classes to be an inside into a different world, a world that will holey benefit my animation work. I am more relaxed to lose my inhibitions to get immersed into my characters I create for future work. I also feel more confident about timing and breathing which I can incorporate into my animation work as well.

Eyewitness to Space: Over 1,500 drawings chronicling the American Space Program

AMAZING SPACE ILLUSTRATIONS

I found this page via doodlers anonymous which is one of my favourite databases to find inspiration, and fresh ideas. I love the techniques used in the sketches, they remind me of tasks we have done in the drawing classes.  If you go to the clip about you can see the whole collection, i have picked out some of my favourite illustrations.

I love the use of bright bold colours. We have not done a task in life drawing where we used colour, we have used chalk and charcoal. Even in my sketch book i haven't included any colour, this is something i should change and experiment with. Colour can really change the mood and feel of an image. For me, the image above looked like the character is in a crisis, everything looks frantic, the character would be in trouble or being attacked. I think it is the use of reds and oranges, as for me those colours represent danger and heat.

I LOVE the three illustrations above, the artist is extremely talented - i cannot find the name of the artist anywhere - as i got the images from somebody else's blog. (link at top of page) - I think its Smithsonian. The drawing style is great, it really caught my eye. Probably because it is so different to the way i draw, i have quite a confident neat line, i do not seem to put a lot of detail of depth or texture into my drawings; where as these illustrations do. Also what i think is fantastic is the use of negative space, some designers believe that a full page makes a brilliant eye catching design (and they could be right) but i also think that minimalism can be just as affective. A designer that can work with the paper he has been given, is someone that inspires me. Clever positioning can be key to make drawing look wrong or right. I remember one of my lecturers telling me, "When you are drawing a character running away from a threat, do not draw them in the middle of the box/paper, draw them to the edge, use the negative space to help piece the story together. The negative space will mean the character is traveling in a direction."  I also enjoy the use of brown and black ink in the lower of the three illustrations, for me it seperated three different aspects of a story on one page.

It is like looking at stills for a film, images for a story board. I love how the drawings just give the viewer so much information. I must look into how to do that myself... And therefore i have borrowed - 'Ideas for the Animated short - finging and building stories' by Karen Sulliban, Gary Schumer and Kate Alexander.

GEMMA CORRELL

Gemma Corrells - Daily Diary

Gorgeous illustrations which are uploaded regularly. I cant seem to find any contact information to ask the Correll whether i can put her images up on here - so use the link about to look at her work. Each piece is like looking at a page in a diary, there is something endearing and naive about the illustrations. It could possibly be the way they the images have been drawn in a more child like simplistic technique and the sweet stylised writing font. She has a very limited colour pallet and sticks to black and red but all the same, its eye catching and visually interesting. They lay out look rather natural but i can imagine a lot of thought and time has gone into designing each page.

Other images of Gemma Corrells work you may recognise: