I see preproduction as the most difficult stage, how I work is I need something which is, in a way, given to work with so basing it on my grandad I had the characters and some story, my starting point was filling in the blanks, translating and start recreating it. A big struggle is I didn't know my Grandad and he's no longer with us for me to get what I need for this story, none of my family know much a lot about this story either so there's a lot of work to be put in. I let my family impact too much of what I do, so from now on I'll have to shut them out more (not completely) because their wants are different from my needs, I need to create and fill in gaps without them telling me that's not true or this didn't happen, they know as much as I do which isn't enough to create an animation for, it's based on short film, not a factual documentary.
The animatic I prepared for the crit was not completely what I envisioned my final film looking like, I don't plan it being 7 minutes long and the final thing will be a lot different from the early stages, it was my attempt to visualize what was happening and to make a start so that I can work from that onwards, or as Phil put it, I have my content, my fabric now I can cut shapes from it. I took the story I knew and drew/visualized the possibilities, also thinking about the lectures I've had, trying to apply story arcs and the three act structure to it and elements from the hero's journey, giving my best attempt and getting feedback on where to go from there next. The milk float in the back of my mind was a bad choice, when I googled images of milk floats there were ones with horses however my reasons for making that choice was one because in Ethel and Ernst, Ernst had a float that was driven (although that was based in London, the city would be more likely to have a vehicle float) also my Nan said the floats were on wheels although she was evacuated to Manchester not Yorkshire. Maybe it was on wheels and I chose a modern model to base it on - I will be looking into this more.
The Good:
At the crit we had a guest lecturer who looking at the animatic for the first time with no previous knowledge of what my story was about and before I did my presentation said they understood where and when the animation was set because of the style I designed with. It showed that I have done some research and they like the fact that the woman who is neglecting my Grandad is never seen just the legs down like the woman in Tom and Jerry, which was my influence.
During this project I surprised myself with character design as this is usually my weak area, I am pleased with how they turned out and how I conveyed their character in the storyboards without having done expression or gesture sheets, I felt I'd figure out the characters more if I drew the storyboard before the expression and gesture sheets as in the storyboard I would be drawing those anyway - figuring everything out at once and giving myself an overall something to come back to.
The Bad:
The animatic was too long and it felt like we were always waiting for something which I agree with and, as Phil said, I was putting drawings together to see the reaction. My animatic is just me figuring it out and I don't feel like I'm near done with it yet, gonna take a few more animatics until then. I wasn't able to get the animatic done with sound in time which would have been more impactful and help explain the story in my head more, the next animatic will definitely have sound.
The audience didn't feel much towards it as I showed them what he was feeling rather than making them experience what he was feeling, it isn't in showing them what happened it's putting them through the same experience, which I'm now aware of. Before, when making the animatic, the audience wasn't much in my mind it was trying to visualize and figure things out. Now I've visualized it, my focus is going to switch to making the audience feel and take them on an experience which I will do by examining films, looking at how directors make an audience feel things, studying their tricks. I will get inside my character's head and create an inside experience making his misery more available to the audience, things need to be more traumatic to get across clearer the themes of child abuse and neglect, I need to exaggerate visuals by being more expressionistic, find visual metaphors to use. The audience need to feel him being broken.
The environment doesn't look like it completely fits with the character style choice yet so I will work on that more in addition to working on the story and how linear it is, looking at conveying the passing of time through montaging/repeating aspects. I also need to refocus my shots, majority of it was centered so I will revisit composition, looking at the rule of thirds, looking at shots and paintings for where their focus points are in addition to testing colour schemes for emotional responses.
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