OK! So for my specialist study I had decided I was going to focus on character design and scene design, looking at production techniques, in particular story boarding. I was also going to include animal studies, so that I could create animal characters. This is my original proposal:
However, after revising through this original brief it was decided that my specialist study would be on animals. As the competition requests 2d animation only, I'l be using this method to create the piece. I may experiment with 2d styles, e.g. motion graphics effect, using AE (adobe), but will focus on traditional art styles, favouring drawn animation.
This video is a quick audio note on my revised pitch, which i'l likely be doing throughout the project to quickly record thoughts or ideas for progression.
I had a look at entries to the last competition, to gain some insight into what was expected for this genre (time/horology). This clip is last years winner:
I'l be revising the animation pipeline to remind myself of the steps and assist in writing a schedule.
http://cg.tutsplus.com/articles/step-by-step-how-to-make-an-animated-movie/
I've written my own schedule, which I can update in the notes section, and refer to for my dissertation as well as my progress.
My original idea was to create an animation using lots of symbolism and acting from characters to tell a story. This was to include conversations through the actions and scene. However, as I want to include animals in my specialist study, I have decided these elements can be eliminated from my brief, so I can focus on creating animations and characters based on animals, as I like this as an area of specialist study. Though I have narrowed it down there is still plenty of opportunity to be had from this study and part of my research will include the different techniques in creating animal animation and also some uses, i.e. estimating walk cycles of extinct creatures in science.
My original idea was to have death walk through his hall of time pieces through the ages. However, I found this story difficult to incorporate creature characters, in a way that would fit the brief (time/horology) and not become over complicated.
I then played with a few ideas, thinking about how I could use animals as the characters, remembering that the theme should reflect 'time'. I thought of using a crocodile, who hasn't changed since the age of the dinosaurs, chasing an egg through the time periods. This was a nice idea as the story would have been simple and could be converted into short episodes.
However, ultimately I have decided that to keep the story as simple as possible, I have decided that the narrative will simply consist of two people walking into a zoo and take a trip to see all the animals that no longer exist. The characters, e.g. t-Rex, the dodo, amongst others will be symbolic enough to tell the story of how time has taken them. At the end, the people will approach a set of bars and look in through them at the audience..or out..depending on how you perceive it.
I think this idea will allow me to focus on the study of animals and movement, without getting distracted by complicated narrative, and still be hard hitting with the symbolism portrayed directly through the characters.
This brings an interesting aspect to the study of movement of creatures, as I can study the techniques used, by scientists, to predict movements of creatures that we have never seen before. I am very interested in science and this would be beneficial to know if my animation skills could be used in this field.
The BBC TV program, walking with dinosaurs, will be an example of animations and techniques I will be studying.
I will also look at the making of animal animations, looking at Disney 'lion king' and 'lady and the tramp', as well as case study of 'land before time'.
I wont be including dialogue in the animation, as I would like to include this element of the brief to tell the narrative through the characters/symbolism. However, as part of my research I will be including personification of animals in film and animation and also VFX on animals in film e.g. lip syncing. So this will include methods on how this is done and how I could replicate this in the future!
And finally I will look at animals in art- so this will include looking at how the artist fits the animal in its environment, does it blend in, stand out, reactions or actions shown through the pose, backgrounds, style, medium etc. This will include one more case study!
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