Backdrops!

Here's the first 3 backdrops I've created for my animation. I have to say I really love how they turned out.
It's a long slow process of tracing images and colouring them in using chalks. I've already run out of the shade of blue I've been using and have to hope I can make the new shade I have similar on the computer. But hey it's aaaallll about the learning in the end I guess.
 Things I have learned about making these are to make a greater contrast between shades. They were previously much more flat. They looked quite dull. I just have to be more brave. For the next ones I have to make sure I don't leave a mark on the page underneath.
I'm also going to alter them on the computer by darkening them more and upping the contrast even further possibly.

I am very proud of them I can't deny and I'm ecstatic to see how they look once the characters are there interacting with their environment!

Scene Analysis - Perfect Blue

Perfect Blue (1997) is a Japanese anime directed by Satoshi Kon who also directed Paprika (2006). Perfect Blue deals with similar themes to Paprika, a blending of reality and a dream world.

I have chosen the scene where the Dream Mima (who is still a J-Pop idol and dressed as such) enters Mima's room through the website Mima's Room. (38:37 - 40:40)

Characters
2 characters present in this scene. Well technically 3. Those are Mima, Mima's Dream self (dressed in J-Pop attire) and I suppose one could Rumi is also present as she is impersonating Mima all the time. We see Mima is beginning to unravel. She is merely a shell of her former bubbly self. The stress of changing her career has taken it's toll on her. As has the struggle for power between her agents over her career and the strange website that documents her life in precise detail. She has taken on the role of the tortured actress. Unable to differentiate between what's real and the characters she plays and the situations they find themselves in. She plays someone with a multi personality disorder so she begins to thinnk she also has the same condition.

Dream Mima (or Rumi) is fueling Mima's breakdown. Telling her she is no longer worth of being a pop idiol. No more than a "dirty slut". She is the exact opposite of Rumi. She is beautiful, elegant and aggressive. Where as Rumi is fat and passive. Rumi sticks out along with Me-Mania as having these oddly positioned eyes. Close to the side of their heads.

Setting
I think the room represents a clashing of the 2 selves.  The room, often refered to as Mima's Room, is Mima's safe heaven And then there's the website also called Mima's Room which is seemingly how Rumi lives out one of her lives.

Mise-en-Scene
Clearly Mima is tired. Her hair is messy her clothes are baggy and dirty. Also the film return to this bedroom scene several times and everytime it is being more and more cluttered with things. Mima's messiness is emphasised through the juxtaposition with Dream Mima who is still a perfect J-Pop Idol with an angelic glow about her.
When on the screen of the computer Dream Mima's movements are diconjointed. She jumps from one position to another without a tween. This could be showing how Mima's perception of reality is now starting to fall apart.

Camera

1. close up of computer
2. wide shot of mim and room
3. panning shot of text
4. close up mim
5. panning shot of text
6. close up of mima
7. computer screen
8. close up of mima
9. over the shoulder of Mima at computer screen
10. close up of Mima
11. Over Mima's shoulder at computer
12. Half shot of Mima
13. Half shot of Dream Mima
14. Close up of Mima
15. Wide shot of crowd 
16. Wide shot of Dream Mima
17. Down low camera angle and over the shoulder of Mima onto Dream Mima
18. High up looking down over the shoulder of Dream Mima onto Mima
19. Wide shot of room
20. Close up of Mima
21. Close up of Dream Mima

All the shots are very confined. The charcters rarely fully fit onto the screen. This could be to create a sense of madnees in Mima OR (and probably more likely) they are staying true to the confined sapce of the tiny apartment she lives in. They could have shots looking through the roof/ walls to get the whole room in view but the director made the concious decision not to do that. It could also be that the film was originally going to be a live action movie and working in a small space like that wouldn't allow for much room in the shots so perhaps they just never changed the story boards to suit the new animated direction the film took.

Creating 3D Sets

Here's a small selection of some of the shots I took today in creating my set. Also some examples of how it was lit up.

More Concept Art

I did some more concept drawings. This time fully by hand and not on the computer AT ALL. It's been a great help to go back to the sketchbook for a time I now pretty much know how I will achieve the look of my animation. My current plan for the back drops is to make the pillars from card in 3D first, photograph the sets, draw outlines over them in illustrator or with tracing paper, colour them in with chalks and scan them back in. Anyway here's some of the concept work that led me to this process.

Animatic - Less Travelled

Here's the animatic for the short animation I've been working over the past few weeks. In my group crit a few suggestions were made to me. I'm probably going to make the following changes:

• I'm going to remove the quote. It was deemed to b unnecessary by both myself and my others.
• The sign will stand out more to make sure the viewer knows he is continuously returning to the same point
• In the shot where the camera is panning along with him walking I'm going to include something for him to pass that isn't pillars. Something that will stand out and tell the viewer he keeps passing that same point.
• Time passing (A year) shown by seasons or just day and night. (Side note: no one picked up on that his robes fit him more comfortably by the end)
• Add a glint to the coin or something a kin to that to let the viewer know it's a coin.
• Cut to a close up of the son's face when he's torn about which direction to go.
• In the end frame, instead of fading out the son and fading in the title I'm just going to fade in the title and leave the 2 side by side. 

Over all happy with the reaction my animatic got. People got different readings from it which I was delighted about to say the least. 

Right now I'm deciding on how I'm going to create this animation. I think the process for making the backdrops will be something like: Make pillars from paper, arrange them i the way I need, trace over them in Illustrator, place a charcoal/ chalk texture over that and go over that in hues of blue in Photoshop. Going to try and simplify this process though.

Music is hard....

Music for me has been difficult to get right. I thought I had it in the Percussion Trio I previously blogged but as it goes that style was deemed "repetitive". And to be honest when asked "Why did I like this song I have chosen?" I couldn't really answer. That should be indication enough that it's not the right choice So here's some other Film Soundtracks I've looked at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijCcRWNwieg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bN-uD43ig0
The Road soundtrack probably isn't right because it's the end of the world and kind of gloomy. Very gloomy actually.

Pillars

I made more pillars with the intention of drawing over them today. The pillars I was drawing from my head were too perfect and symmetrical looking. Often they looked something like a city sky line. However when I make them by hand and then trace over photographs of them in Illustrator I get a more accurate hexagonal pillar. The angles look right and they're imperfect which makes them look more natural.
Here's a selection of what I did

Music Research

Just found that the duo I was looking at before hand also has a 3rd member thogether they're called Ensemble Evolution. Here's a link to their website containing 6 songs they performed inspired by the tree houses in a tree house hotel in Sweden.
I'm thinking of using Clone for the Blue Cone and The Cabin. Both kind of slow, but the latter is especially great because it has this haunting vocals which I think could work well as long as it was kept to a low volume.
http://ensembleevolution.bandcamp.com/

Extra Storyboard Panels

I added a few extra panels to my storyboard today.
The first is going to go at the very beginning of the animation. It's the last few lines from Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken. I looked at it before as research but recently I had a seminar on Intertextuality which is the use of one text to inform the readers understanding of another text. Texts in this case can be anything which can be read, films, advertising, paintings, photography, comics, music, poetry etc. So I am using this quote to inform the readers understanding that it's about the choices one makes in their life.

The next is frame 22 1/2. It's a cutaway, just a shot to inform the world I have created. It's a close up of a fallen pillar. From the gap the fallen pillar can be seen more of the blue bio-luminescent light that's generally mostly blocked by the pillars.

Frame 45 1/2 is another cutaway but this time it's a shot of the goat in the pen beside Father where he awaits the return of his son. The goat is draped in a velvet cloak with a similar mark to that found on the coin. I added this to show that goats are worshiped in their community.

The final new image 49 1/2 is included out of necessity more than anything. I forgot to include the fact that he walked down the road to the left in the first storyboard and needed to include it for clarity. 

New style

Here's 3 new images concerning the new direction my style has taken. I want to create a 1 to 2 coloured world. This will mean I have to concentrate on tones/ values and intensities rather than colour. For the majority I will be sticking with Blues, blacks and whites. This will mostly occur within the thicket of pillars. However I'm not sure yet as to how the outside world will look. I may just make it blue as well and forget about the blue light being emitted from between the pillars entirely.

The first is my 4th poster. From this I learned I'm not very good at working the intensity. But I'm learning. Should be fine. As a digital it's actually okay, but when I printed the hard copy it came out quite dark and everything was pretty indistinguishable from each other.

Then there's this piece of concept art I did. I tried blurring the background in Illustartor. It does make the characters pop out more. But it was pointed out a (and is true) that it just looks like it was scaled up rather than blurred. Still not really got it nailed down then. Also don't really like the sharpness of the shadows on the characters.

Actually hate this last piece. It's so crap. The pillars at the forefront look like a city scape, the ones in the background are horribly perfect and rigid the ones to the left stick out like a sore thumb and the 2 versions of the son look completely off. Enjoy.

Soundtrack Research

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9kGhXOzxts

Currently researching some ambient music for my animation. It doesn’t get more ambient/ melancholy than Minecraft. Something like this would be great. But maybe a little less electronic and more acoustic. Still going to look for something using bells/ percussion. In an interview C418 (the composer of the Minecraft soundtrack said: "Minecraft" was the first song he wrote for the game and described as "Slowly building up over time, then vanisghing completely" Which kind of describes my animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgfBdRTXqjc

Looking at minimal music. Still finding a lot of techno/ house music. This is the first I’ve found of something where it’s percussion/ acoustic based. They are Maria Finkelmeire (great name) and Jacobs Reminton (another fantastic name) Going to flick through the hour or so set and see if there’s something slower I could use.

Not really into the xylophone thing. But they have a great piece there with just drumsticks on the floor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUQcl0TXWLA

CLASS opening! By one half of the previous video.

http://vimeo.com/21565069

By the same guy again, love the middle piece. Thinking of mixing and matching pieces from across this guys portfolio.However,  sound quality is so low at times that it could be a problem.

 

 Reblog