One of the things I really would like to get better at is story-boarding. I had the advantage of having a character already prepared (Helvis) for Kathy's project which presented a number of possibilities for song titles. I had looked at a few Elvis tracks and in particular Blue Hawaii which really captures the Tiki vibe I wanted for his Island in Limbo. I have begun a series of thumbnails for this based around the idea that Helvis would be singing to a mermaid on a rock that performs a kind of hoola dance in silhouette, as the song ends it is revealed that the "mermaid" is actually a washed up bit of old driftwood brought to life by the kings imagination! I did however end up going in a different direction and came across the Album "Fiends of Dope Island" by "The Cramps" this summed up for me images of lost souls meeting to hang out before they face the final judgement and one song in particular conjured up a crap load of imagery I could have fun boarding as Helvis performs on stage. one problem I did experience was how to lead up to the action so I decided to follow a character as he arrives on the island via the trans-dimensional portal in the stone effigy of Helvis. He fails to chat up a girl and ends up loosing his eye balls! the girl was originally designed by Mike and was to good a character to pass up, Cheers Mike hope you don't mind. The beginning isn't as flowing as it could have been as I was just getting into my stride but I think it all irons out as it progresses.

Pre-Production

background design

The Rough Cut

Heres the rough cut of the Phoenix Project, in someways better then the final version.

I've had a while now to reflect on the last project- Animated Exeter Ident.
Overall my feelings are that it could have been a lot better If more care had been taken.
Bad organisation and communication were the key factors that caused things to go tits up.

A quick summary of other factors;
- People loosing interest, perhaps they felt excluded, they hadn't been given enough to do that what they were doing was either menial or grunt work, as a result they didn't care about the work they were doing. I also have extreme difficulty working on things my heart isn't in. but I also can't help feeling let down by tutors and students.
-A smaller team would have helped sort this out as is admitted by the tutors, and then would have freed more people to become involved in another project.
-More pre-production work could have been done, but am still not sure if this would have helped.I took a shotgun approach from the outset, part of my process of developing the look was piecing together other work and seeing what would gel and complement other work, I would then act as a kind of filter and try to fuse the styles so that they worked as a cohesive whole. I don't think people got that and probably thought I was all over the shop with the direction.
They thought I was continually dissatisfied or taking over and changing the work that they had done. sometimes you just need to see it in front of you to know if it works!
The original design aesthetic and research bible fell by the wayside and I let go of the rein's as we careered over shit creek. I have recently discovered this situation is referred to in the industry as a fishing trip!
having said that the emerging result turned out to be far more interesting and "right" for Exeter then what would have been had the style guide been followed, so chaos rules supreme.
Editing was sloppy at best, shots that we had didn't allow breathing space either side and a whole scene of the Zoetrope lowering just vanished which was very important in the flow of the piece.
The music score was fantastic but too long and proved difficult to sync up with the visuals, the sound track is 5 seconds in at the beginning of the animation.
We did the best we could do with the material.
The final animation was apparently well received by the event organisers, so much so that an offer of free tickets was retracted as soon as they got the goods!
being taken for a ride is something most student and newcomers to an industry will experience, it's a shame they felt they could exploit this.

PIDDLE THROUGH HISTORY

Process of development.
The initial idea of animating mistakes in history essays was a good basis but not strong enough on its own. After our test voice-overs a character seemed to appear, the professor. We toyed with making him an animated character but this would have got in the way of a simple idea. much better that we don't see him the narration and characterization will hopefully add humor and pin the thing down. In the pitch and bible we will use mocked up photos of professor piddle to add a sense of authenticity and credit to our idea which we thought would be best played tongue in cheek!
The title has changed from "The Anals of History" to a child friendly, "Piddle through History" which I like better as it carries our characters name plus the obligatory double meaning.
I began to write the presentation in the style of a really bad pitch beginning with a hopelessly
mixed metaphor. Rosie found some photos to add to the nonsense, I hope the BBC woman has seen enough bad pitches to get the joke!
Costumes may play a part If we have time, I'm thinking maybe tank tops and corduroys.

Exeter Ident so far...

To create the Animated Exeter ident there are a lot of different techniques needed, which is good, and allows most people to get involved in what they are interested in. I initially took on the role of producer which I have to admit scared the crap out of me, but after I broke down each shot and we worked out how to actually do it, It became less daunting. Andy suggested that I should take on the role of Art Director and Adam and Holly stepped in to Produce and are doing a great job so far. this will be a huge post production job and so the bulk of the stopmo and CG needs to be done end of next week. we are still waiting for the black curtains to arrive so the stop-mo can begin, delays on this will have a knock on effect as post needs the footage to work on as soon as possible. In a budgeted Animation , Pre-production art would be created and given to all departments, with the set build I had use what I already had or could buy at DIY store so pretty pictures of how I imagine it to look are pointless. The set Build went well and Nat and Charlotte popped round to lend a hand. Now that it is set up at the studio there are a few minor problems that need thinking about,
1. how to lower the egg, originally from below in the animatic. There is no hole to insert a pole so may have to be done from above or a segmented pole used which can be shortened.
2. How to get the Phoenix out of the scene down the hole, this is only a problem if we use a stop mo model rather then CG which can be done in post!
3.do we dolly in or zoom in? zoom looks more promising at this stage as we dont have a way of sliding the camera in, model railtracks or a lathe were discussed at one point.
Answers on a post card please to me.

Narration for our pitch

Did some sound recording today with Rosie and will, pretty much forgot how to use the equipment but after a brief reminder from Steve we were good to go. took a few times to get it right as sometimes I could here my "normal" voice slip through but hopefully with the animation to watch no one will think its me. Wills doing an excellent job with the character designs and general look of the thing, very comical and those simple cartoons that he has been developing should bring a lot more comedy to our pitch. will try and post some sound bites soon.