Life Drawing

For our last homework we had to look at a photograph of "The Kiss"sculpture by Rodin and trace it. But we only had to trace the basic shapes of the human skeleton to get a better understanding of it.

In our next class a skeleton model was placed on a chair beside our human model and we just had to draw what we see but still consider the basic forms of the skeleton. Sometimes I found myself either making the model look broader or I elongated her limbs too much. They were all drawn with a HB pencil.

Alleyway Reference

Here are some more reference pictures of the alleyway which might help me with making my Model Set.

Poster for my Animation

Here is the final Poster for my Animation Short Sighted. From left to right the characters are; 

Levi, Zion and Ashi. The characters were drawn by hand, scanned and then fixed up in Photoshop. The wall and the floor were real images which I took myself. For the graffiti on the wall, apart from the title and some little bits here ad there, I asked my friends and classmates to sign or scribble onto it. 

Animation Short Posters

Here are the Animation Short Movie Posters of my class. 

Model Set for Short Sighted

These two most important buildings are nearly finished I just need to add a little bit more graffiti onto them. I also have to do some other small buildings and walls which I am currently working on. 

Here are a few images of the nearly finished buildings:

Panel Analysis of Nemesis

Nemesis was written by Mark Millar and drawn by Steve McNiven. 

These are the two panels which I chose to analyse. 

Background story: 

The story is about an evil villain who travels great distances around the world to kill the best police officers, while causing death and destruction, until he reaches a specific time and date and then moves on to his next victim in a new town. 

Character Analysis: 

Nemesis is the villain of the story and the main character. He is always dressed in a white costume which makes him very recognizable throughout the comic. Nemesis looks just like a white, bad version of Batman. In this panel he is trying to get the attention of the main chief of Washington DC by taking over the plane in which the President is traveling in. The only reason he wants to crash the plane and kill the president is so that the Chief has more of a reason to look for him. In the first panel we see his concentrated face as he is trying to fly a plane without properly knowing how to. The fact that he is killing lots of people while landing the plane doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest.

The fact that a bodyguard is covering a person in the fourth panel is the only thing which reveals who the President is.

Victims are shown in nearly every panel except for the first and last panel. I noticed that the person who looks into the car mirror in the second panel looks like the victim running in the sixth panel.

Setting:

The scene starts off with Nemesis in a cockpit. and then moves on to a person in a car watching the plane hurdle towards them. Then we see the plane drive through the city while lots of people are trying to run away from it. It then shows the inside of the plane where the president is being guarded by his bodyguard. The plane crashes onto a motorway that leads to a tunnel.The location of this scene is a street in Washington DC in the afternoon.

Misenscene:

This panels are mostly about the plane crashing and people running away to save themselves. Only in the second panel do the victims realise that they are in danger. From then on everyone starts to run away from the plane.

In the first panel there are blood splashes from the pilots which Nemesis killed.

Camera shots:

1. Close up of Nemesis steering the plane.
2. Point of view
3. Wide low-angle shot or point of view.
4. Dutch tilt low-angle.
5. Wide\ motion shot.
6. Wide shot or point of view.
7. Bird eye view of the plane going through the tunnel and wings breaks off and explode.

What I like and what I didn't like and why? 

Overall I didn't like this comic. I felt like that the story was too vague and over-exaggerated at times. In particular the part were Nemesis fights 97 police men by himself, it's a bit silly. I also don't like Nemesis Costume it looks too much like Batman's, but maybe it was ment to be like that. What I do like about it are the detailed drawings, especially the backgrounds of the city. 

Rough Storyboard for Short Sighted

Here is my rough storyboard which will help me when I start the proper Storyboard.

Graffic Design Students- Vector Portrait

Since I often visit my friend in Graffics,I got to see one of their finished Projects hung up on the walls outside of the room. They had to create Vector Art of themselves on Illustrator. The images

were all printed out in A3. It was hard to take a proper photograph because the corridor was too small and there was stuff in the way. The amount of layers my friend used for image was unbelievable. Her one is the one with the girl that has pink hair. My character in the story is based on her.  

 

 

Working on the Model Set

At the moment I am still only at the beginning of making my set for the animation. I still need to make more houses and put detail on the ones which are nearly finished. Here are a few images of the set... my room is currently a complete mess... :D

 

Sound Design Brief

For this Brief we have to take around a 60 second clip of movie and completely get rid of the original audio and put other audio in ourselves. We could either split up into groups our work on this Brief ourselves.The finished piece needs to be handed up on the 10th of April.

I am in a group with Jennifer White and we will be working on a part of the opening scene of the first Lion King movie. I am currently looking up sings which I could use for the end of the clip to make it even more dramatic. At the start we were thinking of having my friend Ash quietly sing in the background , badly. We plan to turn Simba into some kind of omen as we noticed that it looks like Raffiki is purifying him when shaking the coconut-looking things over Simba. It reminds of us when Priest say 'The Christ CompelsYou!' and splash the holy water on things.  Not only that but Simba is presented to his animal army which will belong to him when he grows up. All this kind of makes him seem like a Dark Lord. :D I am looking forward to this project.

Treatment File- Animation Short

Characters:

There are three main characters in my story.

The main character in the story is the seventeen year old Zion. He easily loses his temper and always looks either angry or annoyed. Zion is a troublemaker that is always looking for fight. Despite his slim figure and average height, he is quite strong. His special features are his lazy green Mohawk, which slightly covers his face, his stretchers and the bar in his left ear. Zion likes to wear t-shirts with a shirt and ordinary straight cut pants and boots.

The second most important character is the twenty-one year old Levi. He's first meets Zion when he accidentally bumps into him on the street, this annoys Zion who then beats him to near death. Even though he is tall and broad, he isn’t physically strong, but he has a kind and forgiving heart. His special features are his blue cap, which he always wears sideways and his baggy clothes, which match his lazy personality.

The third character in my story is the short, nineteen year old Ashi. She is saved by Zion at the end of the animation, when she is about to be mugged. Her bright pink hair matches her happy, outgoing personality. She likes to wear loose tops with shorts and converse.

The other characters, such as the people who start a fight with Zion and the ones that mug Ashi are never properly shown in the animation. Only the back of their heads, hands, feet and shadows are shown. Their faces are never revealed.

1. Concept/ Narrative

The title for my animation is Short Sighted.

Due to the interest of martial arts which I have, I wanted to try incorporate it into the story for my animation. Thus, I came up with the emotionally unstable character Zion who easily loses his temper and starts fights.

The story starts off with Zion being insulted by three people. He fights them until they can no longer move, and carelessly walks away as if nothing had happened. The same day a stranger, named Levi accidentally bumps into him in the street and Zion loses his temper once more and starts a fight. Zion kicks and punches Levi to near death, when suddenly a pair of binoculars fall from the sky and hit Zion on the head. Confused he picks them up and looks through them. Not believing what he sees he looks through once more. What he sees are the spirits leaving Levi’s body. Panicking he runs over to Levi and tries to push the spirits back in using CPR. Luckily Zion manages to save Levi.

After the fright of having nearly killed someone and watching the spirits leave Levi's body, Zion begins to think about his past and realises all the spirits he has broken and people he has hurt. He has a change of heart and he then begins to think before he act. He starts to use his fighting abilities not to hurt others, but to help them. Just like when he saves Ashi from being mugged.

The message which I am trying to convey in the story is that fighting should not be used to hurt people, but to defend them. I also want to express that sometimes people are hurt mentally or physically by others, without the other person considering the damage done to the people they hurt. The title 'Short Sighted' can refer to how people can be narrow-minded and judgemental at first impressions. The title also has a similar meaning to the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. For example, Zion comes across as a bad heartless character, but in reality he is just lost and needs someone or something to make him realise his wrong doings. The fact that he tries to save Levi after having hurt him suggests that he does have a good side to him.

I didn’t really have any influences for my animation but I came across an old Bruce Lee book belonging to my mother, which was written by his wife Linda. In it, it describes Bruce Lee’s life. After reading some of it I found a resemblance between my main character Zion and Bruce Lee. They were both troublemakers which were always itching for a fight. They both seemed a little lost with no proper destination, but then something happens which makes them see the world differently and they begin to find their own path in life.

2. Technique and Approach

For the characters I was thinking of using traditional animation techniques and then fixing them up and Photoshop and putting everything together in After Effects. For the background, I was thinking of creating a 3D Set or using photograph which I took myself. The set will be an urban-looking street scene of old houses and alleyways covered in graffiti. I might use still images of the set and animate them in Photoshop, move them in After Effects or just record the sets and add the animation to it.

Here is a peek of what some of the unfinished parts of the set look like. It still need graffiti everywhere and other little things added to it. 

3. Aesthetic / Mood Board

Reference of an urban-alleyway 

Reference of graffiti wall

I want to use this unusual camera shot in my animation when the characters are walking.

Interesting camera shot.

Reference of a creepy alleyway at night.

I plan to use this camera view in my animation.

My friend in the images is what inspired the character Ashi.

I always loved the unique style of the characters in the Gorillaz. They just look so cool. (I also like their music).

This is an image from the Animatrix - A Kid's Story. I like the urban backgrounds and the techniques that the characters were made with.

These two images are from a Japanese action film that was based on a manga. It's called Crow Zero. There are a lot of fighting scenes in this film as it's about school gangs and yakuza so it's good reference. It also has very interesting camera shots which I think are viewed through a crows eye. The  whole school building is covered in graffiti and the main character has similarities with my character Zion. 

Fight Club is also a good reference as it contains a lot of fighting. 

4. Audio

Since this will be silent movie it will have no dialogue, but it will have various sound effects and music playing.

The music will be playing throughout the whole animation and it will have no vocals. It will just be an instrumental piece. The instruments used will be a bass, a guitar and drums, which will be done digitally, due to the lack of proper recording equipment. I will play the bass myself and my boyfriend will be responsible for the guitar parts.

The bass line is done and so is the guitar, I just need a way to link it together in some parts. I also need to consider that the final animation will be played differently depending on the atmosphere in the scene. For example at the start the music will start off slow and creepy, gradually getting rougher and louder when there are action scenes.The style of music I thought of sounds kind of creepy which is exactly what I want, although I am unsure of what genre it would fit in. I think it's garage rock, as it remind me of The White Stripes style.

Another example I can give is the band Tool, although they aren't garage rock but they have that creepy sound that I am trying to achieve for my animation.

Tool- Schism

Tool always have a very strong lead bass line in their songs and for the music track I want the bass like that too. 

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Otherside 

The simple melody and slow speed of the intro of this song is what I hope to achieve in my finished soundtrack. 

5. Sequence of Events /  Shots List:

The animation starts of with the Title “Short Sighted” as graffiti on a wall. A slow creepy bass line starts playing. The camera then zooms out and moves to the left to show the character Zion leaning against a wall in an alleyway. Three shadows on the ground are approaching Zion. The back of the heads from those characters are revealed. They insult Zion with words (I am not sure of what they say yet) A close up of Zion’s face smirking is shown. The heavy music of the chorus starts. Then a silhouette or the shadows of the characters fighting each other are shown as a Dutch Tilt. For a split second during the last seconds of the fight the camera focuses on the ground and we see blood splashing while we hear sounds of the person being beat up by Zion. The camera then zooms out and slowly moves up into a bit of a low angle to reveal Zion standing up straight his hair blowing in the wind and in the background are three unconscious people lying on the floor.

The bass music becomes quiet and creepy again. The camera changes into something like a Point of View shot of Zion looking down his legs while walking down a street. Then the camera angle changes to show Zion from his stomach up walking towards the camera with an urban street scene of houses covered in graffiti in the background. Levi with his back turned to the camera accidentally bumps into Zion’s shoulder while to walking past him. Levi apologises and moves on. An extreme close up of Zion’s angry face is shown after having been bumped into by a stranger. Then the camera angle changes to a side profile of Levi walking, then as the music becomes heavy again as we see Zion’s fist on screen punching Levi at the back of his head. Zion continues to hit and kick Levi in a Dutch Tilt camera angle. The camera zooms in on Zion chest up and shows a pair of binoculars falling onto his head. He stops beating up Levi due to the confusion from the binoculars. The music becomes slow and creepy again as a close up of Zion’s hand picking up the binoculars is shown. The camera changes to a medium close up of Zion holding the binoculars to his eyes. We then see an extreme close up of Zion’s face, for the first time looking scared and confused after having looked through the binoculars. It goes back to a medium shot of Zion looking through again. From the view of looking through the binoculars we see Levi lying on the ground while his spirits are leaving him. This time the camera follows the binoculars falling down onto ground while hearing Zion running. Then the camera goes to a point of view shot of what the binoculars would see from the ground. The music becomes heavy again as we see Zion trying to push the spirits back into Levi’s body. For a second complete darkness is shown and the heavy music becomes the heaviest at this part. Then through the eyes of Levi we see Zion’s completely desperate and frustrated expression of fear while trying to save him. At this point the music becomes softer again.

The next day Zion and Levi walk beside each other on an urban street. Only the view of their feet is shown while they walk. Then a one point perspective of an alleyway is shown At the front of the camera is a girl named Ashi who is about to be mugged. In the back at the top of the alleyway we see the silhouette of Zion and Levi passing. The view of the legs is shown again. Levi stops while Zion walks a few more steps. A front view of the main characters is shown from chest up. Zion is looking back at Levi looking at the alleyway. An extreme close up of Zion’s face is shown as he is smiling confidently. The camera goes back to Ashi, who’s face is covered in tears of fear and we see an over the shoulder view of the man about to punch Ashi in the face. Just as he is about to hit her Zion’s hand stops him at that point the camera angle changes to a point of view shot through the muggers eyes. The music becomes heavy again and when Zion kicks the mugger in the face and then the camera breaks like glass. After that `The End´ is revealed in graffiti writing. Then the end fades out and the credits are shown moving upwards with maybe some images of the characters. After the credits will be special thanks to whomever I want to give them to and the last image will be of the main characters as friends. Then when my animation is fully finished the music fades out.