Scream Street - Competition Entry

I have taken the opportunity and time out my busy working schedule to create an entry for the CBBC's "Scream Street" competition. The brief is to create an imaginative narrative involving the two characters Dig and Lulu, in 20 panels and in 45 seconds of footage. I love creating narratives so I was really excited to get my teeth into it.

I firstly wanted to absorb myself in the animation, so I watched the one and only episode that has been aired, to get to grips with its style. If the animation was around when I was younger, I most definitely would of watched it, it has that "Mona the vampire" flare. What was a shame in the episode was the lack of inclusion of Lulu and Dig, It would of been great to see a bit more of their personality on screen!

I planned quite a few ideas, mainly all consisting of Lulu being cheeky and tormenting Dig, just because that persona reflects her perfectly and it's what was said about her in her CBBC character sheet. But decided on the narrative of Lulu stealing Dig's leg bone when he is asleep, and running off with it. She gets on a skateboard, but soon realises she has no way of stopping it because she is a Leech with no legs. As a result, she crashes head first into the bins. Dig is following and sees the bone lying "abandoned" on the skateboard surrounded by trash. Whilst Dig is distracted in putting his bone back in place, Lulu takes advantage and steals his rib bone. At the end the audience are struck with the comedic realisation that the whole saga will carry on again, with the shock reveal of his other bone in her mouth.

When I set about making the storyboard, I found it very difficult creating a storyboard with some unfamiliar feeling characters that weren't of my own create, something I am not used to. It has also been the first time I have created a storyboard for someone else and not just for my own use. This meant I had to consider a lot of things like how easily my storyboard will be interpreted by someone else. So this task has been most beneficial for me, giving me a taster of how its going to be in industry, and I have really enjoyed it!

If I had more time on the competition (without juggling college work) I would of paid more attention to details such as the variation of shots and elaborating on stage directions some more.

     My storyboard:

Animatic of my storyboard:

Who am I? Why am I here? and what do I want to learn??

Why have you chosen to study on this programme ?

- Because of the inner child in me wanting to make my drawings come to life. 

- To follow my lifelong dream. The desire to make animations has been with me since I was young whenever someone asked 'what do you want to be when you grow up', I always answered 'an animator'. 

- I work best doing things that I love and enjoy. 

- Animation allows me to create worlds and narratives to fuel my own imagination. 

- Animation will allow me to achieve things live action can't. 

What do you want to learn on the programme?

- Valuable skills in the world of work, improving my confidence and how to find my feet and make a living in the real world. 

- How to turn my lifetime hobby into a career. 

- The aesthetic that suits me best as an animator. 

- To develop skills in animation across all areas (stop motion, 3D etc) so I become a flexible individual industry. 

- How to work efficiently within a collaboration. 

What skills are your strengths?

- I am the ultimate perfectionist who is dedicated and hard working in set tasks. 

- I am a patient individual.  

- From my fine art background I am good at life drawing and conveying emotions on facial features. 

- I don't give up on a task easily. (Unless it involves after effects)

- I am quite good at working my way around a computer, both Mac and PC. And have a lot of experience digitally drawing with a graphic tablet. 

What things do you feel you need to improve on?

- How to work around the top end (really complicated) software (after effects and maya inparticular) 

- Balancing work and play, I seem to work myself down far too much. 

- My focus in lectures. 

- To stop being such a perfectionist to an extent as it can get very time consuming focussing on the most minute and pointless details. 

- My animation skills in general !

What ways will you evaluate your progress?

- Use a reflective planner to relect in daily, in order to see how I can progress further and see how I could of done things different. 

- Use the feedback received from my peers during Crit sessions. 

- Regularly assess my work in annotations. Thinking about all possible outcomes. 

- Compare back to past work to see how I have developed as an individual artist. 

- Critically analyse my work within blog posts. 

"The Art of the Storyboard"

I have been dipping in and out of a few books recently to absorb myself in the storyboard processes and techniques out there. I have been reading "Storyboards: Motion in Art" by Mark Simon, "The storyboard design course" by Christiano Guiseppe and "The art of the Storyboard" by John Hart. To any animator wanting to learn the basic techniques of the process of storyboarding, I really recommend all 3 books, they are brilliant and full of information. Before reading these books I was drawing square thumbnails as the frames to my storyboard, but I soon realised this was the wrong way to do it, you should make your frames rectangular at 1920x1080 in order for your shots to work out in reality. I especially found "The Art of the Storyboard" by John Hart most insightful;

 

Within all books there was a strong emphasis on how quick the storyboarding process has to be. This was then echoed with my research into examplar storyboards in industry, which had many different approaches to how to show camera pans and lighting yet were all rushed and sketchy."The Art of the storyboard" offered me great techniques on how to draw quickly yet in proportion, using a variety of shapes and offered help in achieving a more natural and "at ease" style to meet the demands of the storyboard, when used in industry.

 

This is an example of the rushed, expressive feel of the storyboards I saw mainly of in industry, however it remains clear and evident what is going on throughout in terms of lighting, movements and camera pans.

Reading Bibliography:

HART.J (1998)

"The Art of the Storyboard"

Oxford: Focal Press SIMON.M (2000) "Storyboards: Motion in Art" Oxford: Focal Press   CRISTIANO.G (2007) "The storyboard design course" London: Thames and Hudson

Reflection of Photoshop Induction's.

It has been great to get shown around the software in profound detail, I have had many inductions but never have they explored in the depth like what I have experienced in these 4 lessons.

Firstly we got taught general photo editting, how to change contrasts and exposure in a professional manner, also about how to airbrush out unwanted components of a picture.

Then we got taught how to  how to upload a batch of images from bridge (which will be great for stop-motion or animatics of storyboards. And how to create an animation from them using the "frame by frame" technique on the timeline. Also we got shown Photoshop video (which personally I prefer for animation rather than frame by frame) and had the chance to mess around with. We also got told about key framing and had the chance to make layers pan from one side of the screen to the other as if in motion.

Finally we had the chance to put our valuable skills into practice and create a mini animation (of our choice) demonstrating some of the 12 principles of animation in some way or form. So I made a ball realistically bounce from one side of the screen to the other and have it squash and stretch and lose momentum. I have really enjoyed animating on this software and the inductions have taught me valuable skills which will help me in the future.

Here is a GIF file of my ball bouncing:

Effective Presentation Tips

This seminar was most helpful in providing us all with tips on how to put together a presentation to a professional standard and to come across confident.

Crit presentations are about communicating a journey, how you got from A to B. How you did it, obstacles you faced and how you animated it etc.
They are about sharing ideas, thoughts, concepts, progress and resolution.
They also give the opportunity for constructive feedback from both piers and tutors.
and most importantly, conveying meaningful information PRECISELY.

You should;
Know your audience
Dont make assumptions
Inform about what you are doing
Explain who you are, what, how and role.. (this is what I did)
How to plan to move forward and obstacles you face

Presentation is not all about YOU.
-Think about who you are presenting too
-What it should sound and look like
-Keep it simple
-Avoid clipart (suggests laziness)
-Use imagery to illustrate point when appropriate
-Avoid bullet points
-Avoid too much text
-Slides readable from 8ft
-Enthusiasm, expressive and persuasive.
-PREPARE!!!!
-TIMING

This presentation has set me up for the future now. When it comes to making interim crit presentations and other PPP presentations in the future, I feel confident enough to put together my presentation with a professional approach.