Okay - listen carefully to me! Your story works really well, it 'feels' like an animated short, and basic though it is, your storyboard communicates your intentions. HOWEVER, your number 1 mission now is to DESIGN this thing, and I'm afraid that means committing 100% to the bit of the course that you're absolutely avoiding.... drawing!!! One of the requirements of the brief is that you produce a presentation standard storyboard, which means that it is 'client facing' - which means it has to be greater than a sketch, and more informative in terms of you showing your technical understanding of the conventions of storyboarding (illustrated camera moves etc.) Take another look at the 'Directing With A Pencil' presentation on myUCA/Storytelling&Commission/FSTS/Brief&Presentations. I really want to see you showing me your confident use of the nuts and bolts of pro-storyboarding. You can then use this more pro-storyboard as the basis of your animatic.
Now - in design terms, there is huge amounts of fun to be had with your story, but right now, you're just not committing to it. If you think about the amount of visual research and thumb nailing expected of you when you designing an environment, think about the expectations we might have of students during this project! I think you need to stylise your world a lot - and I think too you need to stop drawing with a mean little pencil on white paper as you seek to determine your characters. I think you need to work directly in Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro, using simple shape and line-based tools and work up something less generic and more bold: some examples of 'bold':
I want you to REALLY look at the construction of these characters - stop thinking complex thoughts about bodies and hands and feet and faces etc - and really look at what's happening in these designs; big simple shapes are being broken down into smaller more detailed shapes (and yet the shapes themselves are always simple). I think you need to approach your own character designs (and environments) in a similarly 'shape-focused' way. I know you lose confidence the moment you begin to draw, but that's because you think that drawing is difficult, and that's because you keep being out-foxed by the 'idea' of how complex things are, when what you need to develop is an eye for the simple shapes and techniques that build-up - bit-by-bit - into something you might consider as 'complex'. In short - and this is an order - I want you to change up your method and your thinking in terms of designing your characters; for example, make the decision that all your interns MUST BE different shapes; so you have a tall rectangular one, a short round one, a stocky square one, a bell-shaped one,,, and so on. Take a big simple shape (use a tool in software to make it - use Illustrator, for example) and create a memorable story universe. The same is absolutely true of everything else you design - the elf-machine included.
Your story works - but now all eyes are on your execution of your pre-production - you need to dial your skills up and show some hunger to achieve something special!
OGR 09/02/2016
ReplyDeleteEvening Beckie,
Okay - listen carefully to me! Your story works really well, it 'feels' like an animated short, and basic though it is, your storyboard communicates your intentions. HOWEVER, your number 1 mission now is to DESIGN this thing, and I'm afraid that means committing 100% to the bit of the course that you're absolutely avoiding.... drawing!!! One of the requirements of the brief is that you produce a presentation standard storyboard, which means that it is 'client facing' - which means it has to be greater than a sketch, and more informative in terms of you showing your technical understanding of the conventions of storyboarding (illustrated camera moves etc.) Take another look at the 'Directing With A Pencil' presentation on myUCA/Storytelling&Commission/FSTS/Brief&Presentations. I really want to see you showing me your confident use of the nuts and bolts of pro-storyboarding. You can then use this more pro-storyboard as the basis of your animatic.
Now - in design terms, there is huge amounts of fun to be had with your story, but right now, you're just not committing to it. If you think about the amount of visual research and thumb nailing expected of you when you designing an environment, think about the expectations we might have of students during this project! I think you need to stylise your world a lot - and I think too you need to stop drawing with a mean little pencil on white paper as you seek to determine your characters. I think you need to work directly in Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro, using simple shape and line-based tools and work up something less generic and more bold: some examples of 'bold':
http://www.characterdesignpage.com/uploads/1/4/4/4/14441118/9734725_orig.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o1WkXhb4zZo/Ttq4mCH5IlI/AAAAAAAAajE/cGaE13GsRe4/s1600/secret_of_kells_barry_reynolds_monk_01_tang_02.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jMCEmrSulvY/TtvVwZaR83I/AAAAAAAAbEI/dX-FBn3LND0/s1600/secret_of_kells_barry_reynolds_secondary_characters_08.jpg
I want you to REALLY look at the construction of these characters - stop thinking complex thoughts about bodies and hands and feet and faces etc - and really look at what's happening in these designs; big simple shapes are being broken down into smaller more detailed shapes (and yet the shapes themselves are always simple). I think you need to approach your own character designs (and environments) in a similarly 'shape-focused' way. I know you lose confidence the moment you begin to draw, but that's because you think that drawing is difficult, and that's because you keep being out-foxed by the 'idea' of how complex things are, when what you need to develop is an eye for the simple shapes and techniques that build-up - bit-by-bit - into something you might consider as 'complex'. In short - and this is an order - I want you to change up your method and your thinking in terms of designing your characters; for example, make the decision that all your interns MUST BE different shapes; so you have a tall rectangular one, a short round one, a stocky square one, a bell-shaped one,,, and so on. Take a big simple shape (use a tool in software to make it - use Illustrator, for example) and create a memorable story universe. The same is absolutely true of everything else you design - the elf-machine included.
Your story works - but now all eyes are on your execution of your pre-production - you need to dial your skills up and show some hunger to achieve something special!