Week 6: Storyboard for Creative Animation

One of the tasks for my creative project was to create a storyboard. This allows me to plan the narrative of my project carefully, and to ensure that I have a complete, working story when it comes to creating my 90 second animation (I have attempted to follow the narrative of The Fly, but transform it into my own version). This also enabled me to plan the sound elements that will be featured in my animation. Below is said storyboard (Note: this is a brief outline of the narrative, as we were limited to three sides of A4):

Sheet 1

As you can see, the visual style of my animatic has drawn great inspiration from rotoscope artist Don Hertzfeldt. As I have mentioned, I am fascinated by his style of animation and the rotoscope effect in general. Admittedly, I am not the best artist, so the use of stick-figures (instead of highly detailed visuals) is beneficial for me. That said, I believe that a great animation does not need to be the most aesthetically pleasing - as long as it contains meaning and provokes thought it can be very inspirational.

Scene 1

In the first scene the protagonist is sitting in an office, staring blankly ahead of him (as does Hertzfeldt's characters in his popular short Rejected). The only sound heard is a slight breeze and/or muffling noise. This scene lasts for 10 seconds, and along with the sound, creates an 'eerie' to provoke the audience to keep watching.

Scene 2

This scene presents the secondary character - or antagonist - of the short film. He is shown to be a scruffy man, who smokes and is overweight. He is revealed not to care about his looks, but his smile portrays that he is happy. In his hand is a CV, which sets the scene of a job interview. The accompanying sound is the opening of the door followed by a silence, and just as in scene 1 lingers for ten seconds, to create an 'eerie' effect.

Scene 3

The third scene is a close up of the protagonist, who is shown to be dishevelled and at an unease due to his disgust at the man in front of him. The only sound in this scene is the slow and heavy breathing from the protagonist followed by the dialogue: 'He is a mess' (which the protagonist thinks, rather than says aloud). The dialogue will be slow and muffled, to add a psychedelic effect which signifies that the protagonist is losing his mind. Just like the previous two scenes, scene 3 is 10 seconds long.

Also: scene 3 is the first scene of which the narrative of The Fly is presented to the audience: 

In the poem, the protagonist encounters a fly who he dismisses as insignificant, whereas in my animatic, the well-dressed protagonist encounters a poorly-dressed man, who he also dismisses as insignificant.

Sheet 2

Scene 4

The face of the protagonist turns from anger to terror. His eyes and jaw widen, and the 'shaky' effect of  the rotoscope increases. There are two sounds in this scene: a loud muffling accompanied by a horrific scream. This scene lasts for 5 seconds and creates a brief effect of horror.

Scene 5

The camera pans back to the antagonist, who is shown to have the head of a fly. A vignette appears to portray that the transformation of the antagonist is in the mind of the protagonist and not in reality. The antagonist says: "Hello" and as before, this is spoken in a muffled tone to portray that the terror is in the mind of the protagonist. The scene lasts for 10 seconds, but due to the three-sheet limitation, a scene is not shown: the camera pans back to the protagonist and zooms in, to initiate a dream sequence.

Scene 6

Scene 6 is the start of the protagonist's dream sequence. As before, this is shown using a vignette effect. In this scene, the protagonist is surrounded by flies and is carrying a fly swat. He begins to attack the flies in an angry manner. The sounds in this scene are indecipherable to create a sense of fear and anxiety. This scene lasts for 20 seconds and the rotoscope effect increases to reinforce the anger shown by the protagonist.

Sheet 3

Scene 7 (and following scenes)

Due to the limitation of three sides of A4, I wasn't able to show the complete dream sequence. However, the basis of this sequence is to portray the protagonist being attacked by a larger human being. He transforms to the size of the fly and begins being attacked as he just was attacking the flies. However the flies rescue him. The sounds in these scenes are the same as scene 6: indecipherable to create fear and anxiety with the audience. These scenes last for around 20 to 25 seconds in total.

Also: the dream sequence scenes are an attempt to portray the theme of capitalism that I spoke of in my project planning. The protagonist was once bigger than the flies - representing the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. However, he is transformed to the size of a fly, to connote that there is always someone above you in the working world. The flies save him to portray that, despite being smaller and less human than him, there lives are as significant. This is the same transformation of mind that is shown in the The Fly.

Scene 8

This scene shows the end of the dream sequence as the protagonist slowly awakes from his dazed state. The rotoscope effect lessens and there is no sound, just silence. This is to provoke the audience to keep watching to see the outcome of story.

Scene 9

This scene shows the antagonist shaking hands with the protagonist. In a plot twist - the antagonist turns out to be the boss of the company and the protagonist is the interviewee. The reason that the protagonist mistaked the antagonist as someone who is of a lower class than him is due to his shallow mind state, which is a comment on a materialistic contemporary world. The sound in this scene is dialogue from the antagonist: "Congratulations, you have the job. You start next week... oh, and forget about wearing a suit, we're relaxed here".

The final scene is a close up of the protagonist. A fly lands on his shoulder, which the protagonist looks at, and smiles and winks.

Week 3 - So much can mean seem so little

From what I learnt this week, is that there is no 'rulebook' for animation. It can mean so much - there isn't a 'textbook' example of what animation is. An animation can signify various different meanings - from ideological to philosophical and sociological... it can have a very deep connotation yet visually may be very simple.

My lecturer said that 'both narrative & storytelling links story, narrator (author) and audience'. When I go on to create my assessed animation, I need to research who my target audience is. When that is decided, it needs to cater to their requirements. Is it for children? Then it cannot contain explicit words or adult content. Is it for only those who can speak spanish? Then my target audience will not be the majority of the British public. These sort of things may seem foolish and obvious to note, but they must be carefully considered.

Along with the target audience I will need to research the type of plot that my animation will follow. An animation contain several types of plots depending on the types of animations used. Examples of plot types are... 'energetic, polyphonic, ensemble, daisy chain, repeated action...'.

I have yet to decide between the two briefs for my assessed animation - an animation of a William Blake poem or an animated map of my day. Both of these seem intriguing, and in the following post I will write the final decision and the reason behind it, and in the weeks that follow you will see what target audience(s) I have chosen along with the type of plot(s).

During the seminar, my lecturer made reference to an artist called M.C. Escher. I had never heard of him before but upon some research I instantly recognised his style of art - metamorphosis. His work is truly inspirational - his ability to morph one object into another in a piece of still art is amazing. Also, the way he creates impossible objects is something I am in awe of. To the left are examples of his work.

These are the sort of things that I would like to incorporate into my assessed animation. I believe that metamorphosis could carry so many connotations (according to a specific context) when done correctly. For example - the never-ending stairs by Escher could signify that as human beings, we have made little progress in moving forward with regards war, poverty, famine etc. So much so that we have got ourselves into a vicious circle -  we may solve one problem (walking down the stairs) but we then go and create another (walking up the next set of stairs).

Overall this week's seminar has been very helpful. In the first half I was able to further my experience with Adobe After Effects, and in the second I learnt more about the history of animation which gave me further inspiration for my assessed animation.