mi6015laurenfreeman

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

Final film reflection - What I would have created

Due to the current global crisis and personal external factors in my life I have been unable to finish my film and as such have followed the path 2 criteria instead, given time, better access to resources and less distracting working environments I would be able to undertake and complete my final film. 

My first steps would be to finish up the remaining backgrounds that I have left to do, as I decided to focus on more character animation during the course of this lockdown to both get familiar with the new software I was using and to fill up my portfolio with shorter character clips. As I made my backgrounds pretty detailed I ended up spending a long time painting them so given the time I would allocate myself a week and a half to get all the backgrounds created and rendered to high quality, this week and a half would also allow me to finish up any other design concepts that I am missing.  

Once the loose ends have been tied up I would then start with the blocking out scenes that I am missing so that I am able to have my entire film roughly blocked out, in terms of time frame I would designate 3 weeks to this task so I can really get to grips with project and fully plan it out. During this module I realised that the shots I had initially planned didn’t feel right within my film, I felt disconnected from my scenes whilst I was in the process of animating them and when watching them back the audience was placed far away from the action in the scene. After trying to get these shots to work for me I finally decided to cut my losses, take a step back and reevaluate my storyboard. As a result of this I ended up reworking my storyboard by focusing more on the characters than the sweeping backgrounds of my original storyboard and bringing the camera in closer to the characters so that the viewer doesn’t feel too distanced from the action on screen. I’ve estimated quite a large time frame due to my working environment, over the course of this module I have found it difficult working from a home environment as, while I have a decent set up in regards to my laptop and graphics tablet, I do not have a proper desk or isolated space that I am able to sit down and work for long hours of the day like I was able to in the third year studio. I have found that over the duration of this lockdown I have been distracted or had my own responsibilities to fulfil in the house which has taken up my time and has stunted my workflow.

An area that my project is lacking in is audio as I was gonna take time during this module to record foley for my project and to find a fitting soundtrack for my film, however due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdown it meant that access to the TRC was impossible and I was unable to record my own primary sounds. As for secondary sourced audio I did not feel comfortable downloading multiple files from websites onto my home device as I have experienced issues in the past with this, also as my laptop is the only computer in the household I did not want to risk compromising it. Due to the aforementioned issues I cannot give a timeframe for this aspect of my final film since it would be reliant on lockdown measures as such the only audio I have to hand would be the rough mixdown I complied for the research and development hand in. Another issue I came across was during a scene in particular that involved a staircase, while I created a few iterations of it I feel like it overall suffered due to the fact I couldn’t find or film reference footage that would have aided me. At the beginning of this module I was able to film a handful of rough reference footage that was was then going to expand on and improve upon however once again due to the impact of covid-19 I was unable to film reference footage and as a result I struggled through a lot of my shots that ultimately ended up being pushed to the side until I had a better grasp of the scene to complete them.

While I have not been able to create a final film in the time allocated due to both the collaboration module and lockdown, this time has been valuable as it has let me further refine the design components of my final film such a my storyboard and reworking a few character designs so that they are less complicated to animate and cutting back on a large cast of characters that I had originally proposed. During this time it has also helped me to realise that my personal style is better studied character focused pieces of animation and that I generally prefer working up close with characters rather than focusing on the background elements of my film. In my revised film I would have more shots focused on the side characters for example, in my original storyboard the Firefly character only played a small role within the film where as in the revised storyboard the firefly character leads the audience across the town towards the Lantern Bearers house, by doing this not only does it add another purpose to the character but it also creates a more streamlined transition to the next scene compared to that of the original storyboard. Another element that I have reworked is that the darkness so that it’s presence is constant within the storyboard as opposed to the original where the darkness just appears and overwhelms the main character in this revision the darkness is constant and mainfestes earlier in the film. This manifestation replaces the original purpose of the lantern backpack in the original design, it does this following the main character through the environment, where the Little girl would notice the dimming lantern in the original film she instead notices the build up of darkness following the lantern bearer and jumps into action getting the firefly to help her get the lantern bearer out of the darkness and refuel the lanterns in the process. I feel that adding the darkness element into the film earlier helps the narrative flow better than the original storyboard as I was never 100% happy with the appearance of the darkness as it is the main catalyst of the film and by building up to it it makes the characters fear and subsequent breakdown feel more significant.   

During the course of this year the aspects of the final film have been likened to dials on a volume panel with some areas tuned up higher than others, with this in mind I am going to summarise the final I would have created through this analogy. In my final film the elements that would be dialed down lower would be audio due to the issues I have stated earlier and the background elements as I devoted to much time to them and I do not want my backgrounds to pull focus from my characters I would therefore make them a lot more simpler but retain the colour scheme that I used in the two finished backgrounds I have posted on Tumblr. Reviewing my research and development module I realise that this film would have been a big project to undertake regardless of the pandemic and issues associated with it so with this in mind I aim to scale back some of the more complicated elements of my film such as the level of colour I used from character designs as I would then have to do 3 passes of colour per character, areas such a this should be simplified if I hope to continue and finish my final film. I have also revised the number of characters within my final film with the maximum number of characters on characters on screen being six. My main focus will be on the characters and lighting, the narrative of my final film relies on both the character performance and the use of lighting in the scenes. The use of light and dark in my film will act as a visual indicator of my main characters emotional and mental state the more darkness present in the scene the more the character displays signs of physical exhaustion also as previously mentioned the increasing use of darkness is the catalyst that sets the off the chain of events therefore I hope to make this a key aspect within my final film when I am finally able to produce it. Overall I’m happy with the design changes I have undertaken in the module and while I am disappointed that I was unable to complete my final film I am glad I took the time to reevaluate my project so that I can properly take the time to craft my film.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

I decided to clean up the clip from earlier. After using Clip studio paint for the last couple of months I feel a lot more confident in my ability to use this new software and I feel like this clip in particular shows my growing confidence with the program. I’m aware that I still have a long way to go to complete my final film however after completing this clip my confidence in my project has grown.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

Panels of my storyboard that I forgot to post earlier on, I felt that these panels needed their own post to showcase both the character performance and to get a better feel for some of the scenes in my storyboard.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

I complied together the clips that play a part in my final final ( excluding the staircase scene and the main character leaving their house) so that I could get a better idea of how much I and to see how many much more I would need to do to hit the 2 minute mark of my final film. 

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

Like with the firefly coloured scene I decided to to add colour to this scene to get a better idea of how the scene might look in my film. I happy with the main character colour scheme as stands out from the dark purple orb, I do however thing that will have to make the orb more opaque in the final version as the transparency seems to dull the action of the scene and the impact of the orb confronting the main character. 

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

This shot continues straight after the previous one, here the darkness blasts through the Lantern bearer to regroup with the growing darkness behind them. It is here that they are forced to confront the Darkness but as they are low on light they are unable to overcome it. This shot has them coming to terms with the fact that are alone in the darkness and the light isn’t strong enough to overcome it. 

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

This shot would take place after my main character departs from their meeting with the little girl and her mother. Here the Lantern bearer continues their patrol of the town unaware of the darkness that is around them until they are confronted by it. 

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

This is the most recent iteration of this scene, over the course of this module I have been trying to complete this shot and while I feel slightly more happy with this one I’m still largely unhappy with it once it the second  set of steps as I have trouble working out the scale of the character. In the future when coming back to work on this scene I will need to really sit down and evaluate this scene, I also feel like I will benefit from reference footage to aid me further for both characters movements and make it easier for me to visualise. 

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

I’m really happy with the way this clip turned out and while I will need to work into it as in some places it’s a little jerky I still feel that it’s a fun little piece of character animation. I’m planning to refine this piece as this would be the opening shot of my film as we follow this character over the town towards the lighthouse. This is another piece done in Clip studio paint.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

Here I have created a rough mock up the scene in colour, as I wasn’t happy with the village colour I erased it from the image. while the painting is incredibly rough I am relatively happy  with the colour scheme in this image my only issue is that the original colour palette whilst relatively light and bright in Photoshop became quite a murky colour scheme in Clip. This may lead to altering the colour palette so that my character is able to stand out brighter against the background.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

As my little girl character plays a big role in my film I decided to do an expression sheet for her too so that I could get a better idea of how her colour palette would work in final film. While some of the above emotions do not feature in my story I wanted to test the versatility of my character and see how expressive I could make her. I also think that this helps to visualise how she would look in the final film.  

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

I decided to do a character expression sheet along side my new character design sheet to further help visualise how my character would look within the final film. I also found it a helpful exercise in getting re-antiquated with my character as a found after the break between the R and D project and the beginning of this project I was completely unfamiliar with my character and wasn’t overly happy with the way I was drawing them.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

My revised character design of the lantern bearer, I have adapted this design as I noticed when I was created my story board that I was repeatedly drawing the main character in this design rather than the more traditional one that design during R and D. I decided to keep that same contrasting colour scheme as I did in the original scheme to help the character stand out.  I also found that this more simplistic outfit was easier to animate than the original.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

This is my revised storyboard, I have changed a few aspects of my original storyboard so that some aspects are more simplified than in it’s previous iteration. For example I have cut back on the number of side character there were in original story so that i can focus more on the key characters and make it easier on myself when I am able to finish the film. I have also limited the amount of backgrounds as in my original version I constantly had the character on the move with multiple different sets which again would be difficult for me to tackle on my own. 

I have made the storyboard more detailed this time around so that the reader can get a better idea of how the film will flow. I have used a grey scale background to better showcase the shot and so the viewer can get a better idea of depth. Overall I’m really happy with this new storyboard as I feel it helps to showcase and characters and their narrative better furthermore by reviewing the original storyboard I have been able to create smoother transitions between the scenes and feel that now the narrative and pacing of the film flows better than it’s predecessor. 

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

This is an early work in progress created in Clip studio paint featuring my firefly character. During my project reevaluation the idea of my firefly character flying around the environment came to me as a way to phase out the original opening shot of the entire town and instead get a feel for the environment through the eyes of my character. It also helped inspire me to create a new storyboard.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

As mentioned in an earlier post after trying to animate a few shots of my final film I realised I was unhappy with some of my proposed shots. Due to this and some feedback I received back from my R and D module I have decided to rework my storyboard so that it focuses more on the characters, their emotions and interactions throughout the film. The image shown above is the first panel of my storyboard, I have gone with the grey scale background as in my R and D feedback it was suggested that having a grey scale theme could make my storyboard both easier to read and help to emphasise depth in my shots.

[mi6015laurenfreeman]

I decided to clean up the lines on my earlier test clip and flesh out some more of the frames as I thought it was it was a nice little piece of animation that highlighted my main characters emotions well. In this clip I have used my updated version of my main characters clothes as opposed to my earlier clip that highlighted their old outfit.