Professional Project - Week 10 - Project Progress and Lesson

Unfortunately this week I have been concentrating on my other module and have only done a small section for this project, but I hope to make it up for next week and have most if not all of the animating finished to show Jamie.

15 just the happy part from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.


Lesson:

This week in class we discussed adapting children's books into animations and ideas generating. In recent years there has been a big trend of children's book adaptations and small books becoming 30 minute films for children. This enables them to sell more and more merchandise because of the popularity of them for children.

An example is the film 'The Snowman (1982) directed by Dianne Jackson and Jimmy T. Murakami. This was very successful and still is as it is shown every year at Christmas. There are times though where films over franchise and it doesn't turn out so well. This happened for the film 'The Snowman and the Snowdog' (2012) directed by Hilary Audus. It was not a great success.

We next went on to look at the film 'Lost and Found' Written by Oliver Jeffers. His booke was adapted as a film by Studio AKA. Unlike many other children films there was not any merchandise for the film, even though it was a success. Studio AKA made sure that the film kept to the same style as the book and even had Oliver Jeffers involved in every step to make sure this happened. 

Below is what the book looks like:

  

Below is what the film looked like:   

After watching the film we went on to look at Oliver Jeffers work and how he comes up with ideas for the children's books he creates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnPk8gmwPuQ  

It was very interesting to see what gave him inspiration and how he started doing children's books.  

Animation Research and Practice - Week 10 - Project Progress

This week I wanted to start by doing character sheets and what she is going to look like. 

I had, had a rough idea from the very beginning that she would only have certain facial features and would only be the outline of a 'normal' female body. This was because I wanted her to be relate able to people. I wanted her to be as neutral as possible. 

Below is what she will look like, she will only have certain details when needed. For example her feet are just a shape below, but will look more like feet in the begging of the animation, when the audience is more focused on them. 

I also tested colours and I liked the white and black and how the worked together. In my animation I want the audience to see she has changed colour as she jumps. 

The black will be when she jumps as it has got too much for her.

The white will be in the beginning to show contrast.

The face will just be a 'normal' shaped head and you will only see her eyes. Which will be round.

I then started to draw some of her expression she may have and how the eyes would move. After getting feedback off Emily we realised the eyes looked a bit too much like Spiderman and I hadn't kept the round shape.

I also looked at the colour of the eyes. Below is with the black underneath.

Below is without the black

After Emily's feedback I changed some of the shapes of the eys so they were more round and added pupils so you could see which direction she was looking and it gave more expression too her.

I do still need to work a bit more on the eyes.

Storyboards:


Carrying on from last week this is all the storyboards.

Animatic:
I then put them into an animatic to look at the timing and how it would fit with the voice over. Some of the timings are off and very slow in places where they need to be faster and so I need to work on this. 

Animatic with just storyboard frames from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.


I then started to add more frames to the animatic.

begining to title scene from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.



Animatic - adding more frames from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

I only managed to add more frames to the beginning 22 seconds, but I feel already that it looks better. I also cut some of the storyboard out. The part where the bubble starts to wrap around her was too long and didn't add anything to the story and sop I cut it and feel it flows a lot better now.

Animatic - so far from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

Feedback:

Feedback off Mum -

She felt that the ending dragged a bit but once I explained that I hadn't added more frames to the end yet she understood.
She liked where it was going so far and liked that she was getting to see the process of it.

Feedback off Sam -

The memory bits could be too long, but this should be fixed when I have finished adding more frames to animatic.
Beginning might with the feet might be off and I hope to fix this by taking reference videos next week.
Sam suggested drawing swimmers at the swimming pool in Wolverhampton- but hopefully my sister should be getting reference videos and pictures for me on Sunday
I also need to look at music and whether I want a score or just sound effects or both.

Animation Research and Practice - Week 9 - Project Progress

After the last week changing my background and how I wanted it too look I went back and started to rethink my storyboards.

Below is the link to where I got the brown paper background off the internet.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=brown+paper&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=979&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiS5tLMnLLQAhUBvRQKHV2rA1gQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=5hvmK0wrbkwjVM%3A

Storyboards:

I liked the feet part at the beginning and I liked how it was sketchy in my last storyboard, so I decided to keep it in this one. After talking to Sam last time she also mentioned that I could included the title screen after the feet before she lands in the water and I really like that idea, so although I have no title at the moment it will be after the feet.

I have been trying to catch up on work this week because of the Animation festival last week and so I did not manage to finish all the storyboards, but they will be finished and in an Animatic for next week.

From Manchester Animation I was inspired by different animations, one that caught my eye was about sex slavery and I thought it was a very powerful piece. Although the topic of the animation is horrible I liked the style and the chain that grabs her. I liked how hard hitting it was and I sort of want this for my piece.

Waiting For You To Notice from Shared Hope on Vimeo.

After watching this animation I started to think about what could happen in my animation. I took my ideas and spoke to my mum. This helped as we both were trying not to be literal and it was easier to bounce ideas off each other.

We decided that after the feet, the title would appear. The she would jump into the bubble which would start to float her to the top. The bubble would then start to shrink and trap her until it pops, where she would be left floating in the water. A tentacle would then reach out and grab her pulling her down to the bottom. It would then be from her point of view and she would start to see memories she didn't like (grave, wheelchair and army boots). These are memories and experiences my mum has been through. She would start to fight with the darkness.
We hadn't figured out the ending yet and I wanted to do the storyboards so I could test out the length and timing.

Animatic:

This is the beginning of the Animatic, I wanted to test out the timing, I feel I still need to play around with it and carry on with the storyboards so I can get a better picture of the timing. 

beginning of animatic from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

Also this week I started to test what kind of brush style I wanted to use on the, I wanted the animation to be messy and smudgy and not neat but when I tried out the chalk one I felt it was too messy and didn't look right. I preferred the clean lines but with a sketchy feel. 

For next week I want to work on some character sheets to properly say what she will look like. 

Richard Phelan and Avgousta Zourelidi Feedback  

This week we had a talk from Richard Phelan (Head of Story at Aardman Animations) and Avgousta Zourelidi (Currently a Director for Rovio Entertainment Ltd.). It was very cool to see both of their work and the different jobs they do and how they got there. 

After the talk the third years that had attended showed them our ides for our final year work. I showed the storyboards above and explained what my final film would be about. Some of their feedback was that they really liked the style and the simplicity of the lines, of how I only want what is important to be shown. They also agreed that I needed to be less literal with my animation and that the direction I was going was good.

They said to carry on with what I am doing and it was great to get their thoughts. 

Feedback from Sam - 

Unfortunately I could not attend the lesson because of a family funeral, but I got Bethany to show some of my work.

Sam had not seen the stuff from the previous week because of the Manchester Animation Festival. The feedback I got was that the idea of doing it more graphic like and on the brown paper was great and she liked the fact it was less literal. 

She also liked the way the character had more fluidity and only would have hands and feet when they are needed. Overall she is very happy with the direction I am going. But I need a one on one tutorial for my essay. 

I have got feedback for my first draft of essay I handed in last week and will implement this in my work for the next draft hand in which is the 2nd December. 

Profession Project - Week 9 - Project Progress

For this lesson I wanted to try and add the feedback I got from the last time Jamie saw the animation. That was to make it so the internet wire came unplugged from a distance as the cut to the close up was too quick. Also to add a slosh when the Earth character hits the floor.


Below you can see I have added the feedback and have carried on with animating more the of the overall animation (the Internet character picking the Earth character up). I have also started to add more of the features to the Earth character like the land.
7 from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

I then went on to start and make the beginning 7 seconds neat and added the shading to the water.      
9 from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

I then added the Eyes to the Earth character.    
10 - no sound from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

This is everything I have done so far with the voice over.
11 - with sound from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

I continued with the rough animating, adding the plugging in of the internet and the ETC letters appearing. I will be doing the ETC letter in After Effects to add a light up affect to them.

13 from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.
I feel that overall the animation is going in the right direction and it turning out the way I wanted it to and hopefully the client Jamie wanted.
I still have to carry on with the animating and neatening of everything but I am about half way there.
For next time I hope to have a lot more done and finished and also I will start to think about sound affects and maybe a backing track.

Feedback 

The feedback I got off of Jamie and Emily was to get rid of the ground line as it is not needed, and the internet box looks like it is floating off the ground because of the ground.

The Earth falling still needs to be more exaggerated. Also to add a tug on the wire as he is tripping over the internet cable. 

to preposition the character when the wifi character is helping up the earth character as they are too much over on the left side of the screen. This I will hopefully fix with a camera movement in Tvpaint.

For next time I also need to think about sound and putting sound effects and music to it. 

I hope to have as much as I can fixed for next time and also more of it finished. 

Animation Research and Practice - Week 8 - Project Progress

This week is Manchester Animation Festival and so this weeks lesson is cancelled as we will be there.

Project Progress - 

After last weeks feedback off Sam I spoke to my mum and got her to watch the animatic and tell me her opinions on it.

My Mum liked the feet part at the beginning at the reaching out for the light, but she also got that it did look too much like what she was saying and so we talked about what she would like to see animated. 

Since she liked the feet part at the beginning we were going to keep that. 

She liked the idea of the bubbles and suggested that when she jumped at the beginning she would jump into a bubble instead. This bubble would then float towards the light or top of the ocean.

A chanin or seaweed would grab onto her and pull her down, where she would have past memories hit her.

These memories would be of:

• the Army 
• A wheel chair
• Someone towering above her
• A Grave

After getting the feedback off my mum I started to sketch ideas and I sketched on brown paper, adding only lines to represent the water, not colouring the whole thing. They are rough ideas of what could be happening. Below are the sketches I did:

After this I decided I liked the look of the colour on the brown paper and the way it was simple with the lines, but you knew what was happening. I liked that you didn't need the whole colouring of the water to know she was in water and this is something I wanted to have all the way through. Thus I have decided top have a brown paper background for my animation.

From this I hope to create a new storyboard and rough animatic by next week to help give a better feel of what I want my animation to look like, but I feel better that I am going in the right direction of what I want.

Below is Ryan Woodward's Animation - Thought of You



This is a similar style I am going for but why more colour and based in water. I like how it has the drawings on the brown background and can see this working well for my animation.

Another animation that is of similar style to want I want to produce is Nephtali by Glen Keane - I like how there is only objects in the animation when needed and there are not really detailed backgrounds, until it is needed. Which is something I want for my film, the audience will get she is in water but wont necessarily have to have all the colour of the water to get that she is.


Essay - 

Last week we had to hand in our first draft which I have talked about in the previous post. I am waiting on my feedback to carry on with my essay, but I am continuing to read the articles and resources I have collected.

Professional Progress - Week 8 - Manchester Animation Festival

We are Manchester Animation Festival this week so there is not lesson.

Animation Research and Practice - Week 7 - Project Progress and First Essay Draft

Storyboard - 
For the storyboards I wanted to do them digitally this week and start to think a bit more about what will happen. I know I want to not be stuck to the storyboards and be able to change and add but I like to have some sort of a storyboard in the beginning.

I decided that at the beginning I would have the feet of someone stand on a ledge and step off and then fall into the water. The woman figure would splash into the water and the bubbles would appear. She would then be floating and see the light coming through the water. She would reach out for the light and it would start to go round her. She would then be pulled down and you see the black creature engulfing her. she would then become black herself and until the light came back and you think she is going to go to the light to be helped but she is then pulled back down again.

I din't manage to finish them all this week because of concentrating on the essay, but I wanted to put it into a moving storyboard to see what it would look like and how it would in with the voice over. 

moving storyboard 1 from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

Feedback off Sam - 

The feedback I got off Sam was that i needed to work on the timing of the piece and make the beginning faster.
She also still thinks that I am being too literal about the voice over and I need to be more abstract, the audience is going to here it they don't need to see every word.

Sam also suggested that I got my Mum to look at it and see what she thought about it. This way my mum could say if things don't look like what she imagines them too.

Sound - 

Sam also wants me to look at sound and what kind of sound I am going to have with my animation.
Thinking about it I want sound affects for parts to tell the audience things and I want to look into musical scores and whether it will go with the voice over. 

Essay Structure and First Draft

For the first draft I wanted to send as much I had done in, even if that meant that it was slightly confusing at parts. Below is the draft and I have tried to write what I want to include in the essay as well as starting it, so although parts are not written correctly they were thoughts at the time and I thought it better to but them down now. 

I will wait for the feedback and carry on from there, in the mean time I will carry on to read the article I have and make notes. 

How is Mental Health Portrayed in Hollyoaks?

Introduction –

This essay will look into and discuss the way the soap Hollyoaks (1995 – 2016, created by Phil Redmond) portrays mental health and the characters in the show that have a mental illness. It will look at whether the show has used negative stereotypes to portray mental health or if it has accurately portrayed them. The soap Hollyoaks was chosen as the case study as it is a contemporary television show that is very popular in today’s society and is watched every night by a wide variety of people of all ages. This essay will look into whether the stereotypes of mental health and how the public sees mental health as something negative and how soaps like Hollyoaks have helped to show the audience what mental illnesses there are and how not to be afraid of them, along with how to talk about them.

Paragraph 1 – Contextualisation of the topic, key terms, ideas, questions and motivations –

What the most common mental health illnesses? (facts)

Which mental health illnesses have been portrayed in Hollyoaks?

What are the main stereotypes of mental health and the mental health illnesses?

Include facts – How many people have a mental illness in the UK?

Chapter 1

What is meant by mental health?

There are many mental health illnesses, that range from more common e.g. depression, anxiety, OCD and phobias to more rare illnesses e.g. bipolar disorder, personality disorders and psychotic experiences. As said by Mind “Mental health problems can affect the way you think, feel and behave.”(mind reference) Mental health illnesses can affect people at different times in their lives and can last for short periods of time or last a life-time. Statistics Mental Health.org states that “One in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives.” (mentalhealth.or – stigma and discrimination) This show just how common they are and how anyone can have a mental health problem.

What is a stereotype?

A stereotype is “a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people.” (Cardwell.1996) It is when people define a set of characteristics to a certain group of people. They are not always made on purpose and can be a subconscious act.

In the case of mental health, people often stigmatise people who have a mental illness to be: dangerous, unpredictable and incompetent. But in actual fact “according to data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, only 3% of people with mental illness are violent. That means 97% of people with mental illness are not violent.” (scatter good foundation) There are cases of extreme and rare mental health illnesses that do have violent tendencies but that does not mean that everybody who has a mental health illness is the same. So why does society see mental illness as negative? The stereotyping of a mental illness can affect the person with the illness. This can include getting the help they need and so can lead to not being diagnosed, the not getting the proper treatment and in some extreme cases suicide. 

An example of stereotyping is in the film franchise Batman (add director), Dr Peter Byrne, a psychiatrist and film expert says, “Batman describes the Joker as schizophrenic clown…” (time to change) The Joker in the franchise is an evil character who is depicted as being a crazy and mentally ill and because of this is a violent, killing character.

Chapter 2 – key points and case studies

One of the main character from the soap Hollyoaks this essay will look into is the character Cindy Cunningham, who is played by Stephanie Waring. Cindy has bipolar disorder in the show and although suffers from further problems has used the character to gain awareness for the illness.

Stephanie says, “ Mental health can be difficult to diagnose and recover from, which is why support is so essential and why we have to stop the stigma surrounding mental health problems, because being able to talk about it is the first step.”(time to change)

Need to go into more detail about how her character is depicted in the show (RESEARCH)

There are many negative depiction of mental health and the media and television show have had a massive impact on this and are also now a day trying to turn it around by having a positive impact. The more it is publicised the more people react to mental health, so it is portrayed negatively, people react negatively. On the other hand if they are portrayed positively people will react positively, which is what a report by Time to Change, working with the Glasgow Media Group found.

The report found that: (time to change)

•              Over half (54 per cent) of people say that seeing a well-known character on screen has improved their understanding of mental health problems.

•              48 per cent said it helped to change their opinion about the kind of people who can develop these problems.

•              31 per cent said it actively inspired them to start a conversation about the storyline with friends, family or colleagues.

These findings back up the fact the television shows affect the way the audience see mental health and that if the show speaks out about it and depicts characters with mental health illness accurately and properly that it impacts society view of them.

More Hollyoaks characters: need more research on these

Hannah Ashworth played by Emma Rigby – Eating disorder – anorexia

Lisa Hunter played by Gemma Atkins – self harm

Anita Roy played by Saira Choudhry – skin bleaching

Newt played by Nico Mirallegro – schizophrenia

Chapter 3 - Why this is related to my project?

I chose this topic to write the extended essay on because I feel it will help me develop my final film. In the essay I have researched and discussed stereotypes and what stereotypes there are for many mental illnesses. I can then use this to make sure that my final film does not use the typical negative stereotypes and uses accurate portrayals of depression. It is a very interesting subject and is something very close to me and so it is interesting to see what other people think about the subject, it will broaden my research and understanding of it.