Minor Project: Tutorial Feedback

In today's tutorial with Alan, he suggested that I should move away from my silent horror comedy idea, and should instead listen to some sound clips from various films, and then try to think of funny/unusual sitatuations where they scene from the clip could be - this is something what year 2 are doing as well. There are 30 short sound clips altogether, some that I know what film it's from, some I recognise but can't quite think what film it is and some that I've not heard before. I think it will be more of a challenge to think of funny scenes for the clips that I do know because I have a clear understanding of it, where as with one that I don't know, I have no idea what is happening or what genre the film is.

After listening through all 30 of them, I have, currently, narrowed it down to 10, which are the ones that I think have the most potential. Alan also said that I could try to find some other clips, which I have, so I'm going to continue listening to those clips and will try to find the best, and funniest, 3.

Minor/Major Project: Influence Map

Although this influence map doesn't show much of a range of influences, it shows what my current idea is, which is to create a silent horror comedy over the year. I have been researching silent comedy and horror comedy quite a bit over the past couple of days trying to think of how the final animation would play out. As I said in the project proposal post, for the minor project, that will mainly consist of designing and modelling the monster character. Frankenstein is an obvious influence for this idea -  Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is a film that has the known story in place, but has a completely different design to the original monster design from the 1931 film. This will allow me to make the design unique, but will still be familiar to audiences due to it's origin.

Young Frankenstein is one of many examples that demonstrate the potential in this idea, I think. The challenge will therefore spawn from the decision to make a silent film, and so I will need to use visual/slapstick humour in order to get the laughs. When trying to think of the style of the animation, I remembered that there are these figures called Vinyl Idolz, that have a fun cartoon design to them, similar to the style that I was going for in the From Script to screen project in year 1.

Rigging 3: Part 5A - Pose Space Corrective Blend Shapes - Tutorial

I have completed the arm swing section of this tutorial, and I think it has come out quite well. I think there's a slight moment where there's a little jump between the positions, so I think that may need some adjusting.

Minor/Major Project: Proposal

This year long project will involve selecting, and then researching, a specific period of film making and then using said research for creating a short animation in the comedy genre. Although the chosen film period does not need to be a comedy itself, it does need to be clear and faithful to the source "material".

By the end of the Minor project, the following should be completed to a high standard:

• Character Designs
• Full Character turnarounds (Several poses)
• Final Script
• Environment Designs

Once the Major project has finished, there should be:

•  Further Environment Designs (If necessary)
• A short animation (2-3 minutes)
• Full Storyboard & Animatic
• Production art
• Sound recordings
• Voice recordings (If necessary)
• "Art Of" & "Making Of" Documents

Minor Project: New Story Idea

Although I have already come up with a few, I have still tried to come up with more ideas for this project, which will allow me to make an animation in the comedy genre. Yesterday, I watched Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) with my Mum and Dad, and by watching it, it gave me my new idea.

The quality of character and environment designs in Hammer Horror films, and B-Movies, is clear, so this is something that I'd put into my designs. Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is the first Hammer Horror film that, I think, I have watched in it's entirety, and so it was a very new experience for me. Some scenes, shots and lines of dialogue in the film were very comical, even when they weren't necessarily meant to be. By taking the well known tropes of these types of film, and taking them a step further, I am confident that I can make something that is both entertaining and funny to watch, even for people of my age.

My intial thought with this idea is to create a Monster/Creature, that roams around an empty environment - a castle, for example. By using visual clues and objects in the animation, I would make it clear that this creature would have been made/created, and has either killed or escaped from it's creators.  As the creature will be the only character, his loneliness will be clear and so he/she will be very bored.

Minor Project: Idea Re-think

In the previous post, I said that I thought that the cooking show was the best idea, but after a few days of thinking about it, I now think that the getting ready for a date, or job interview, would be the best idea. With the cooking show idea, I feel like it would be difficult to keep it going and it wouldn't have a consistent standard of humor, and would be relaint on the same type of joke. The getting ready for a date idea, however, has more potential in it's comedy. By playing to the cliches of how a man gets ready, and then "exaggerating" them, would be a fun thing to watch. I've been going through a rough idea in my head about how it would work:

• Man playing video games. His phone vibrates.
• He looks at the phone and reads a new message by his date. 
• He looks confused. He looks at the calendar and remembers, that the date is in 10 minutes.
• He rushes up off the sofa and heads to the bathroom.
• He goes for a quick wash in the shower.
• Gets out of the shower, and slides in front of the mirror, and starts checking himself out.
• He brushes his teeth, quickly and violently, so much so that the brush gets stuck up his nose.
• He tries to find the right hair style, and when he does, he gives a wink to the camera.
• He runs to the wardrobe and opens it. 
• While looking at the mirror in the wardrobe, he goes through a range of outfits.
• He then sprays some deodrant on himself, and puts a bit of after shave on.
• He leaves his appartment and we see that his trousers are ripped.
• The camera then focuses on his phone, which he forgot. The phone vibrates and another message from his date appears which then tells us that he got the date wrong.

That's a quick run through of how I imagine it working. As it is an animation, I can make impossible/unrealistic things happen which will add to the humor, so I think there is definitely potential with this idea.  Some of this will be hard to do, especially the changing outfits scene, but I really want to test myself this year and get much better grades.