Life Drawing 29/01/13

The whole class was spent on one drawing, done using charcoal. 

From Script to Screen: Outlaw influence map and ideas, bio, etc. #2

I've looked up a list of popular 18th century female names, and made up a list of names which might fit the character. So far, I've been thinking of Bonnie Reed - a cross between Anne Bonny and Mary Read, two famous pirates who worked alongside Calico Jack in the 18th century. 

(To show her name, i think i'd start off the animation by showing a wanted poster of her.)

I've made up another influence map to show possible hairstyles, some more clothing and colour schemes i could use for her. Again, some are quite pirate-y, though i was thinking about mixing a pirate look with the highwayman look, but hopefully without making it too confusing as to who she is (Outlaw/Thief).

Another example of a female highwayman - From a

 Black Adder episode 'Amy and Amiability' 

Bonnie Reed (name for now) sketch and Bio and backstory

Bio is loosely inspired by the Calico Jack, Anne Bonny and Mary Read pirate trio.

Name (so far): Bonnie Reed
Age: 22

Favourite drink: Gin
Hometown: London

Character traits: adventurous, confident, Hopeless Romantic, tough and powerful, skilled in thievery, with weapons, and always wins in a drinking contest. Loves to wear lavish things, but refuses to pay for them. 

So far, i think the character should have had a previous life at sea, where she has stolen countless goods from other ships, and likes to target wealthy people. After a lot of experience in piracy and robbery, she meets a pair of highwaymen, one male and one female. She trio get together and work as highwaymen.

One of the ways she gets through the day is drinking. The gin craze is ongoing, and her thievery skills mean that it is easy for her to grab a few bottles from the locals, or public houses. 

One of the fellow thieves was one of which she developed an attraction and soon a love for. They spent years together, in love. Soon [Bonnie] discovered that [fellow female highwayman] and [highwayman] were secretly having an affair. Filled with anger, [Bonnie] takes off and in a fit of rage, storms the streets of London, and acting on impulse, starts to raid shops. 'Wanted' posters of her and the trio don't help her mood.. (And the story will begin from this point, where she raids a wine merchant for booze.)

Maya: Staircase Camera Roll

Maya: Pendulum Animation

From Script to Screen: Female Outlaw influence map

An influence map for the female outlaw character. What came to mind immediately, was a confident, no-nonsense woman on a mission. Blood red colours would be in her clothes. She'd need to be able to rob a store (wine merchant) without a shred of doubt. 

(The dream sequence that occurs later on will serve to make her change her mind and want to change her ways. )

So i've looked at mainly highwayman images, some of which are of men but i'm just looking at the costumes. Iv'e included some photos of pirate-y/highwayman fancy dress costumes as influence, as they are quite exaggerated and would help when creating a design for the character which would be clear to the audience as to who she is and what she does.

From Script to Screen: New Ideas

Following Phil's feedback, i'm looking into introducing a new character into the story, and having the gravedigger play a 'ghost of christmas future' role.

The new character could be working as e.g. a blacksmith, and stumbles into the cemetary somehow. 

-or just a cellar. 

Character could be an outlaw:-

Notable outlaws of the 1700’s era: 

Pirates:-

-Edward Teach (otherwise known as Blackbeard)

-Anne Bonny (Irish)

-Oliver Levasseur (French)

-Mary Read (English)

-Bartholomew Roberts (Welsh)

-John Rackham (otherwise known as Calico Jack)

Anne Bonny

Others

-Princess Tarakanoff (Russian Adventurer,)

-Samuel Mason (American Highwayman)

Female Highwaymen

-Mary Bryant

-Lady Katherine Ferrers

•Out of these, the pirates and Princess Tarakanoff, and the female highwaymen jump out as potentially interesting characters to look to for influence. 

I think that a pirate would be an interesting character, though it would take the original story into a completely different direction.

•But I think that having an outlaw as my main character would work, as the character could rob a liqueur store and break into the shop’s cellar, where she then has the dream sequence. 

Possible new idea? 

•Looking back on the research on the Gin Craze of the 18th century, I’d like to think about making the character female; a female outlaw who breaks in and steals some gin from the shop cellar, but perhaps this drink pushes her over the edge and causes her to hallucinate/have the dream that causes her to see what her future will be like if she carry’s on. (which still includes the seesaw part and the gravedigger.) Maybe she even gets shown that she will get killed as punishment for stealing. And when she wakes up, drops the loot, and walks away, and maybe leaves some pennies for the shopkeeper that she just robbed, as a way of saying 'sorry'.

For the Gravedigger character

I think the gravedigger could be represented as a ghostlike figure; similarly to the ghost of christmas future in Disney's Christmas Carol (2009), instead of being a physical character, since he'd appear in the characters mind.

Still from A Christmas Carol (2009)

Jumping Sack Animation

After filming this i've learnt where some frames need to be added/redrawn to make this a bit smoother.  

From Script to Screen: OGR

Script to Screen: First draft Script

The Gravedigger draft script by

From script to Screen: current story idea

So far, my current idea is:

•Part 1: The gravedigger is out working in the cemetery digging a grave. It is clear he is intoxicated by his movement. It starts to rain and he runs off into the church cellar nearby, where he finds a stash of booze on the shelves. Grabbing bottles frantically, he becomes clumsy and drops some, and so whist looking away, starts grabbing another bottle from the shelf.

Edit: I've also thought about making the bottle have something to lure him in, rather than him just picking it up by chance. similarly to the "eat me" "drink me" notes on the food and drink in Alice in Wonderland. I think this could make sense, if he's already intoxicated.
   
•Part 2: After drinking the bottle, he immediately begins to hallucinate, where he drops through a grave, and onto a platform of bottles, barrels, etc. on one side. He struggles to keep his balance, and tries to reach for the end with the wine, etc. The bottles soon move to reveal a large coffin. the coffin knocks him on the ground, and opens up to reveal the gravedigger's fate; his own self buried in the coffin.

•Part 3: After becoming shocked by what he saw, the sequence ends, and everything becomes empty with no environment (?), and we see the bottle that he was drinking beforehand roll away, which we discover to be in fact a bottle of poison.

From Script to Screen: More ideas

*the madhouse, not the madness

Whimsy House: Romantic

Maya tutorials: Whimsy House - Sunset

Old Alley progress

1: adding ambient occlusion

2: adjusting shadows etc.

3: adding lights

2: more lights

Cutting Edge Film Review: Rope

Script to Screen: Influence Maps and Ideas

I'm still interested in including the dream/hallucinating/drunk sequence in the story. So i've made up a couple of influence maps showing a real world setting and how the dream world might look.

Id like to make the dreamy world more vibrant and abstract in comparison to the real world. since the animation is limited to a minute, id like the short sequence to be quite interesting and memorable, but also to carry on leading the story. 

For the real world setting, or how it will look at the beginning and end of the animation, i'm trying to decide what the time period might be, so far im trying to decide between a Victorian world, an 18th century or a post WWI/II setting. The reason i was leaning towards these two settings is as it would provide a good reason for the alcohol that the character drinks, to hallucinate so much.

After doing some research, I found some information on the 'Gin Craze' within the 18th century. Roughly in the 1730's London, 10 million gallons of gin were being distilled and roughly 14 gallons was consumed by each person a year. To get their fix of Gin, quite often homemade versions were being created. Turpentine and sulphuric acid was being used, leading to poisoning. Though it was also blamed for an increase in crime, prostitution, madness, high death rates and low birth rates. 

The print below was part of a two piece print along with 'beer street', and was designed to shock and show the effects of the gin craze. The image shows decay  suicide, starvation along with probably the most shocking image of a woman dropping her baby whilst drunk. 

Gin Lane by William Hogarth

So, i'm thinking about placing my character within this time period, just to give the character a background and design, and maybe suggest the reason for why he just picks up the alcohol/wine and drinks it, in my potential storyline, and also to explain the hallucination scene. 

From script to story: Story ideas 1

I have here a couple of ideas for a story based around a dream sequence idea, as Phil has suggested to look into. I have a possible beginning plot, and two ideas leading from that. I am leaning towards idea number 2 at the moment. I don't have an actual idea for a dream sequence, although I have added some things that may happen within it which relate to the prop and environment.

CG toolkit: Bouncing Ball Animation Tutorials

Toolkit Animation: Sack Animation: Planning

A simple character sheet, and rough sketches of how to animate a sack of flour jumping over an obstacle.

1: character sheet

2a: planning movement

2b: planning movement

From Script to Screen: Possible Themes

I think it would help if I had an idea of what theme my story will be, and also what influences from games/films/artwork I could use to help. 

My first thought was that the combination I was given (Grave Digger, See Saw, Cellar) might lead to quite a dark story, or with dark visuals at least. though the see saw initially makes me think of children's playground, and something goofy. So I thought about a game franchise called Medievil, which has dark visuals and ideas, though it includes a talking skeleton as a main character, and zombies wearing pink shorts, etc. so it also has a lot of humor and is able to appeal to children and adults. 

A level with trampolines: possibly could help me find a
way to incorporate a see saw into a spooky world 

Medievil screenshot (1998)

Another thought was, when researching 'grave digger', a monster truck called the 'Grave Digger' was always popping up so I decided to look into it. I've thought about the possibility of making the main character a sort of monster truck inspired robo-man/woman. if I went (or could) go for this idea, I think i'd want to make the story a bit more upbeat/action oriented, maybe set in an american desert - with a Disney Cars inspired feel. 

So far I have two themes to go on which have nothing to do with each other so I think i'll work on wether i want to go ahead with an actual character who is a grave digger, or make it a robot character inspired by the grave digger monster truck.  

(If the character was a car-robot character he could use the see saw as an obstacle he needs to cross. As for the first idea, i'm not sure how to incorporate it into the story. However I wouldn't know how a cellar would work with this idea.)

Disney's Cars (2006)

'Colour Television' by Troy Paiva

Cutting Edge: La Jetée film review

From Script to screen: notes

From Script to Screen: Initial research

Heres my first bit of initial research on (character) gravedigger, (environment) cellar and (prop) seesaw.

Toolkit animation 09/01/12

The first page is different poses showing different emotions e.g. Anger, Shock, etc.

The second page shows different actions, each in a sequence of 3, which are sneezing, throwing a ball, and punching.

1

2

Like for Like Storyboard

I've decided to use a 30 second clip from Lord of the Rings: Two towers, where Gandalf explains and flashes back to how he survived from the first movie. I picked this scene to do as there is quite a bit of action going on, plus the hobbit is still on my mind. I'd like to try and to more of these storyboards and maybe redo this one to get the hang of it better. 

Below is a clip which i used for the storyboard. (i used footage from about 0.34 - 1.00)

08/01/13 Life Drawing

Sorrow: 25 mins

Sorrow: 15 mins

Nervous: 25 mins

Collection of 2 minute poses

From Script to Screen: initial influence maps

For this project, my character will be: 

Gravedigger

Prop: 

See-saw
Environment: 

Cellar

I've made up some initial maps to figure out what the environment, prop and character might look like. Right away i'd like to steer clear of a dark and cold cellar, and go for a more elegant kind of area.

off the top of my head, i was thinking of a man who digs up an old see-saw and finds out that it belonged to a child who died in a cellar...or maybe something less morbid.