Final week of term – monday, tutorial with sulynn, told to focus on italian theater, plotting told me what i need for interim
The final Monday of term I had a tutorial with Su-Lynn. After the interim I just wanted to clear up exactly what I should work on over the break as I felt a little overwhelmed by the feedback. She told me my concept was very interesting, but since I expressed that I probably wouldn’t do a full interactive projection, I should focus on plotting the story for the single screen medium. In it’s current state my story is lacking in conflict, as it was initially plotted as more of a tour of the carnival rather than a linear narrative. So, she advised me to hone in the the italian theater aspect and consider writing about jealousy or betrayal, in the same vein as Commedia dell’Arte tropes. She also said fleshing out my Pulcinella character would be beneficial, as in my interim I stated that I wanted a character like them to be an ongoing “shit-stirrer” in the family. She reference the painting ‘The Fable’ by El Greco, and this also reminded me of ‘Stańczyk’ by Jan Matejko. These sorts of frames maybe interesting to reference in the film.
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I’m having a very hard time ideating a plot that could work for only 1 minute. The biggest issue is that I want the conflict happen between the members of the circus company (as to not introduce too many characters), but it can’t be so severe that the instigator would turn into an overall antagonist. The cast have dysfunctional relationships but for the world overall I want the audience to root for them all together as a family. Essentially, they cannot be irredeemable.
Finally, she also clarified that for the second interim I would need a completed animatic with scratch sound, animation tests showing movement style, and proofs of concept showing a short example of what the final composite would look like.
During the remainder of the class I sketched a layout below of how I imaging the opening, setting the scene for the carnival.
Wednesday, we had a Performance for Animation class with Hannah. We did several improv exercises as well as drawing. We started with warm ups focusing on observing movement and replicating it. It’s very important to be able to embody the characters we animate in order to understand how they will move, and make said movement convincing. Then we also did a pair exercise where we were given prompts to act out and more details were added as we went along, the partner then had to sketch observations. I was the acting partner but below I did some sketches of different scenarios, exploring the body language.
Lastly, we broke into groups to act a little scene based on our characters exploring goal, action, and obstacle. Then we got to perform them. My group portrayed a magic rabbit who quit their act after being berated by their magician and tries to leave the tent (goal). As they storm off (action), another rabbit enters the tent and they become awkwardly stuck in a side stepping battle (obstacle). This very simple structure for movement allows us to generate details about the characters thast really bring them to life, within a larger narrative.
Friday, we visited the Royal College of Art to meet the MA Animation students, and offer ourselves to assist on their films. It was quite loud and overwhelming but I met two people whose films I was very interested in. One assisting with background paints, and another doing Photoshop work to separate layers in paper scans. I think I’d be able to do both as they wouldn’t take too much time, and It would look really good to have two RCA films in my portfolio.