A-k-a, my public learning diary for my 3D animation degree and since graduating, my free-time independent 3D studies and personal projects
Wednesday 8 February 2017
Script to Screen OGR 2
I haven't finished my OGR, I have the mother and robot characters and the cellar set left still to design as well as the storyboard left to do... I am going to try and finish this all by Monday.
Okay so my thoughts so far... in terms of story - another suggested tweak: right now, you've got it so the diary is already in the cellar with the mother. I don't think its credible that the mother wouldn't have looked in the dairy before this point, so I think the diary has to be hidden up in the girl's room. If the mother knew of its existence she would have accessed it before. Therefore, I think you need to a) extend the sequence when she turns on the robot daughter and it fails to communicate; you could do this through a montage of quick scenes as we see the mum getting more frustrated that her 'new' daughter isn't like her old daughter enough. Maybe during this montage sequence, we see the mum going up to the daughter's room (which she hasn't touched a year later) and fetching items of clothing down for the robot, to try and make her 'more' like the daughter. We see this a few times - the mum going to look for items, until in the final moments of this montage sequence, as she looks around the daughter's room, she spies the diary - ah ha! So she takes it downstairs - 'plugs it in' - in the first few moments, we need to see the robot sort of 'awaken' to her mother - it needs to look as if all is going to turn out well, and the mother is pleased - and then the robot changes and your story plays out. Does that seem reasonable?
When I look at your 'concept art' for the lake - all I'm really seeing is a digital painting of a scene, not concept art for an animation; consider Mary Blair's 'concept art' for animation and hopefully you'll see what I mean:
I think you need to think in a much more stylised way as you approach the look of your film - and that includes your character design. Things need to get simpler and more expressionistic. The tone of your film is pretty dark - check out this lovely animation - The Tell-Tale Heart - and really look at how the environments are depicted - look at the *style* of the drawings and how more is left to the audience's imagination:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flKOtXC4oyM
I'd like to see you using simpler tools in Illustrator/Photoshop to work up some of your concept art and your characters - remember, character design for animation can push things pretty far:
I don't want to see you just 'painting and drawing' people and places, I want to see you designing them with your 'for animation' head on. The other thing I strongly recommend is give your story a specific time and place, because this help you stop drawing and thinking generically: for example, if this was set in the 1950s... this might be the kind of things you were looking at to inspire your story world:
but if it was set futuristically, it might all be a bit more like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjI2J2SQ528
I don't want you going any further until you've nailed a visual concept for your story-world - that isn't just 'drawing stuff'. I also want you to access the Character Design resources on myUCA/Story&Commission for some hints and tips on 'designing characters' as opposed to simply drawing people (not the same thing).
So in design and style terms I should take it down a much darker route because its a dark story... I shall give the characters a Tim Burton/Caligari feel with my own twist.
OGR 09/02/2017
ReplyDeleteHi Paris,
Okay so my thoughts so far... in terms of story - another suggested tweak: right now, you've got it so the diary is already in the cellar with the mother. I don't think its credible that the mother wouldn't have looked in the dairy before this point, so I think the diary has to be hidden up in the girl's room. If the mother knew of its existence she would have accessed it before. Therefore, I think you need to a) extend the sequence when she turns on the robot daughter and it fails to communicate; you could do this through a montage of quick scenes as we see the mum getting more frustrated that her 'new' daughter isn't like her old daughter enough. Maybe during this montage sequence, we see the mum going up to the daughter's room (which she hasn't touched a year later) and fetching items of clothing down for the robot, to try and make her 'more' like the daughter. We see this a few times - the mum going to look for items, until in the final moments of this montage sequence, as she looks around the daughter's room, she spies the diary - ah ha! So she takes it downstairs - 'plugs it in' - in the first few moments, we need to see the robot sort of 'awaken' to her mother - it needs to look as if all is going to turn out well, and the mother is pleased - and then the robot changes and your story plays out. Does that seem reasonable?
When I look at your 'concept art' for the lake - all I'm really seeing is a digital painting of a scene, not concept art for an animation; consider Mary Blair's 'concept art' for animation and hopefully you'll see what I mean:
https://one1more2time3.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/pict0009.jpg
I think you need to think in a much more stylised way as you approach the look of your film - and that includes your character design. Things need to get simpler and more expressionistic. The tone of your film is pretty dark - check out this lovely animation - The Tell-Tale Heart - and really look at how the environments are depicted - look at the *style* of the drawings and how more is left to the audience's imagination:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flKOtXC4oyM
I'd like to see you using simpler tools in Illustrator/Photoshop to work up some of your concept art and your characters - remember, character design for animation can push things pretty far:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/39/41/7f/39417f9b2fcfc131f9c92e038e4f798a.png
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131029145600/corpsebride/images/7/78/Victoria_Everglot.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/20/9d/ec/209dec91756a79f0c08d4ca090af004c.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/41/a8/71/41a8714daecd6e2d7b3ad3ab4313d4c7.png
I don't want to see you just 'painting and drawing' people and places, I want to see you designing them with your 'for animation' head on. The other thing I strongly recommend is give your story a specific time and place, because this help you stop drawing and thinking generically: for example, if this was set in the 1950s... this might be the kind of things you were looking at to inspire your story world:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/bb/9f/5c/bb9f5c1633822f59350e093f50aad5ae.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7b/2e/68/7b2e68fd13a938e0629d5fc666b6b01a.jpg
but if it was set futuristically, it might all be a bit more like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjI2J2SQ528
I don't want you going any further until you've nailed a visual concept for your story-world - that isn't just 'drawing stuff'. I also want you to access the Character Design resources on myUCA/Story&Commission for some hints and tips on 'designing characters' as opposed to simply drawing people (not the same thing).
So in design and style terms I should take it down a much darker route because its a dark story... I shall give the characters a Tim Burton/Caligari feel with my own twist.
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