3 min film

Well those long lazy summer days are now over and its back to work for us all. Over the holidays I was given an assignment to come up with three ideas for a tv series and my three minute film. This post is about my 3 minute film.

Three minute film

The first Idea I had was called Operation Cheese.
Plot:
 

Two rats are on a mission to steal the cheese from the fridge. The rats must navigate across the kitchen without being seen and pass obstacles to get to their goal. Using an assortment of gadgets, they make it to their target only to find a mouse trap lying in wait for them. They must disarm the trap before the humans come back and discover them. They manage to get the cheese and bring it home but when Blanco is checking if the coast is clear, he turns round to find Frankie asleep on his back after scoffing all the cheese. Frankie takes off his headset and throws it on the ground in anger. 

My inspiration was watching mission impossible and thinking of old shows I used to watch as a child such as Dangermouse, Tom and Jerry and those little mice from Wallace and Gromit that put on the sunglasses when the rocket takes off. 

 

  Here are the characters that I created:

  This is Frankie, codename Island because of the patches on his fur that look like islands. He is the muscle of the two and is in charge of the areas that require a grappling hook and strength. 

 This is Blanco, codename Blizzard named for his pure white fur. Blanco is the brains of the operation and is gifted in trap disarment. Together there is nothing these two can't accomplish.

I then went on to make them into basic models to see how they would look. These are made from Super sculpey and black beads for eyes.

If I was advancing with this idea and was developing these models, I would make them have the same colours as the designs and give them fabric utility belts, plastic headsets, plastic hook and real string on the shoulder.

This was the first set I came up with but then I realised, the models came out rather on the large side so in order to get the proportions right, the set would have to be huge! So instead I looked elsewhere for inspiration, and then it hit me:

I could just use my own kitchen at home! It would save so much money compared to building a set and the scale would be perfect because it's a real life kitchen. Plus there are plenty of obsticles already built in such as a lit stove, a sink full of dirty water with many dangerous utensils in it, lots of open space to get caught by the humans...

A gap between the end counter and the fridge, and the ever present danger of the family pet.

Idea 2 was called The lonely Tree

There is a lonely tree on the hill overlooking a forest where all his friends are. 

The tree has always dreamed of being down there amongst his friends. 

One day there is a bad storm with lightning striking closer and closer to the tree. 

Just as a bolt of lightning hits him, he throws out a seed which is caught in the wind.

 The seed eventually lands in the forest and a shoot is thrown up which grows up to 

be him so that he is finally with his friends.

My inspiration for this came from Tracy tree and Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas. However the main inspiration came from when I was sitting in Pizza Hut with my family waiting for food to arrive and I used that time to think of ideas. I looked out the window and saw and tree and my mind suddenly tried to imagine the tree made out of different materials. Somehow, this was where the idea was created.

Here's a picture of Tracy Tree from the Rainforest Cafe. (This thing used to terrify me as a child. I mean look at it!)

This is grandmother willow.

Heres a sketch I did of the tree from the forest so you can see how alone he is at the top of the cliff.

Here is the first design of the tree. He has one arm and I tried to make his facial features part of the tree including his eyes which are meant to look like holes in the trunk.

And here is the revamped design of the tree. This time he has two arms, a little bird and a nest near his hair and more cartoon like facial features. I like this design better as it is more stylized.

If I was doing this idea, I would do it in a stop motion style but using paper and a multi-plane to get a sense of depth.
Here is an example of what I mean:

Idea 3 is called The man from the stars

Prof. Atlas lives in a tower at the top of a tall cliff. In the highest room is his lab where he creates bright shining stars using his homemade machines. He then places the stars on a black piece of paper on his desk and when he is finished he opens the roof of his tower and places the paper on a projector and shines the stars up into the night sky for everyone to see. All of his machines are so strange that you don't know what the man is doing until the very end when the stars are shown in the sky.

And here is Professor Atlas:

I tried to make him look a litte steampunky because I thought that would fit with the style of the set. For those of you who don't know, steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates the victorian and edwardian era of clothes combined with steam powered technology. In case you confused, here are a few pictures to show you what I mean.

                                    

So it's technology combined with victorina fashion such as:

My set will reflect this type of style with stage machinary and contraptions around the place which he uses to produce the stars. As I imagined this I pictured a Tim Burton style to it in the sense of it being rough and ready and looking quite dark.
My inspiration for this comes from the H.Samuel diamond advert (seen below)
H. Samuel advert
The style for the set was inspired by the film Edward Scissorhands in terms of the factory scene and Frankenweenie in the attic.

After looking at all my ideas, I have decided to go for The Man from the Stars for my 3 min film as I think it has a lot of potential and I can make it look really good.

3 minute film work

The first thing I did was begin writing out my script which took a while as I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted the stoy to unfold. This is what I ended up with:

int.lab.night

PROFESSOR ATLAS is sat at his desk looking at a star through a magnifying glass. He carries a pair of tweezers in his front pocket. His laboratory machinery is seen behind him.

Professor Atlas

Leans down and looks at the star through the magnifying glass.

A bell is heard

PROFESSOR ATLAS

Gets up and walks over to a piece of machinery. He looks at a gauge on the machinery which tells him there is full power. Professor Atlas pulls a lever and the machinery creaks into life.

A gust of wind opens the wooden shutters over the window.

PROFESSOR ATLAS

Walks slowly over to the window with his hands behind his back and looks out at the night sky before closing the shutters.

We see little grains of salt in a bag by the machines. A claw moves over to the bag and takes out a grain of salt. The salt grain are placed on a conveyor belt and goes through different types of machinery.

PROFESSOR ATLAS

Walks over to his desk and picks up a picture of his wife and looks longingly at it.

"Ah, my darling, not a day goes by where I don't miss you."

Sets the picture down next to a box which contains her wedding ring. He looks up and has an idea to make a tribute to his beloved wife.

Takes a sheet of black paper out from under his desk and puts it on the desk.

The grains of salt on the conveyor belts are hit by hammers and then go through a large boxy machine. When they come out of the other side, the grains of salt are now glowing like stars.

PROFESSOR ATLAS

Pulls a leather bound book out from under the desk and opens it. Pictures of himself and his wife come to life as he remembers the days captured in the images.

He and his wife holding hands on a bridge, laying on a hill looking up at the stars,dancing on the factory floor. Atlas smiles and closes the book before putting it back under the desk.

He takes out his tweezers as he walks across the room and picks up stars off the conveyor belt. Every star he picks up he carefully puts on the paper on his desk. Once he is finished he walks over to the wall with the window and pulls a lever which opens a section of the roof.

He opens the box on his desk and puts the ring on his finger. He then takes the paper off his desk and walks over to a machine.

Professor Atlas puts the paper in the machine and presses a button. A light comes on and the stars are projected into the sky. We can see that the stars make an outline of his wife in the sky.

PROFESSOR ATLAS

Puts his hands behind his back as he looks out of the window.

"Happy anniversary my love."

After that I decided to draw out the set that the animation would take place in so that I had an idea of how i wanted everything to look.

This is what I ended up with which I quite like as I can make it so that the walls come off which will let me get the camera in there for some of the close up shots. This set will have to be pretty big unfortunately since the character needs to be of a good size so I am able to animate it properly. Im really happy with this design as I can make it look rough and ready and even make to machinery look quite crude but the concept of it all making something so pure such as stars is a really nice thing. There is even a backup element in this set just in case the film ends up being too short with the help of cog and pipes on the wall.
I have also designed a second character for this animation as in the script he has a wife. Even though she is only in it for a short time, I still needed to design and make her. Here is the design for the female character.

Ive have tied to keep her as simple as possible since she is only there for a short time, but I have also tried to make her look as though she belongs with him by dressing her in the same style as him.


The next thing I did was breakdown my script to add camera angles in so that I could get a really good picture of how the animation will look. This took a long time but I got it done.

This was a big step because it enabled me to get down all the different camera angles and was a stepping stone to my storyboard. After I had done this I could really see the animation coming together. After that I then had the arduous take of creating the storyboard. This was an intergral part of make my film because I would be using it as reference when filming.

Model making

Next came the process of making the models that I'm using for the film.

I have been looking around for the best way to make my models for the least amount of money since my budget isn't exactly the most bountiful of things.

The first thing I found was a video that showed me how to make an armature using just wire. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsBH9na2xNo

Another way is a little more expensive but it is a more professional way of making an armature which uses a ball and joint mechanism.

There was also another way which is interesting and is always an option. In the doll making process all dolls have a skeleton which is like multiple sockets fitted togther to make a skeleton that is very pliable.

Im still not sure about this method but i need to do some more looking into it.
I am also lookin into what materials I can used for the exterior of the models such as latax and foam latex for the face and hands, molds to make the top and bottom of the hands with a wire armature inside. and being able to make the hands and legs interchangable in case something breaks from overuse as I am animating.
Here is an image of a test sculpt for Professor Atlas' head in super sculpey

I made the mustache cover his entire mouth and it will almost act as a mouth as the mustache will move up and down when he speaks or smiles and will be used to convey his emotions.

Set redesign

After looking at my set design and taking in consideration that it is meant to look like an old and slightly delapidated attic in an anicent castle like building, I decided to look into castle and gothic arcitecture for ideas.

After looking at these, I gave my set a remodel:

Here is the new set. As you can see i decided to make it darker with darker floors an grey brick walls to give it that on and decreped look. I also took inspiration from the windows that I saw and make it more arch like. I also used a photo collage style that I experimented with in a previous project to achieve this look. In case you are unsure, photo collage is an art style where you take images and textures and use them to give your image a certain look. To give you an idea, here is a link to a person to uses this style to create very interesting images. I feel that photo collage style as makes it look more realistic.

 http://ikon-images.photoshelter.com/gallery/Jonathan-McHugh/G0000_SNisjkO7.Y/C00001j8bmKpWgtk

 After I had completed the storyboard, I began working on my animatic so that I could see how the actual animation would actually look. Since I had two lines of dialog in the animation, I got in touch with an actor from the performing arts department but unfortunately, he was unable to get the time to record for me so I did the voice myself as a temporary filer. When I come to do the proper animation, I will reconnect with the actor and see if he has time to do it for me. Creating the animatic was really good for me because it gave me a challenge to deal with the various camera angles I have pictured. For my animatic I used Photoshop to draw the images and Premiere Pro to put it all together. The target time for the animatic was 3 minutes but after I finished the image stage of the animatic, it came to around 3 minutes 30 seconds which I feel was too much over the target time so I began attempting to cut it down and I managed to get it to around 3 minutes 11 seconds which I am happy about.

 As well as this, I also created a dvd cover to go with the animatic.

Front cover:

 I really like how this turned out as I think it shows the emotion of Professor Atlas and how much he misses his wife. It also shows the name of the 3 min film. I have used the same photo collage style that I used for the set design for consistancy.
Here is the back cover:

 This cover was created with his desk area in mind. Again I have used a photo collage stlyle to complete the look. I have included all the main accessories of the animation such as the ring box, photo, star in tweezers and magnifying glass to give it an element of being used. I have also used the cork board above his desk to display a short description of the story behind the animation.
I am happy with how it is going so far and I am especially pleased with the animatic. Here is a link to the animatic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG-G4hf3jrg

I am really happy with the way everything is going for far and over christmas I will make a maraquett  which is a small card version of the set so I can what an physical version would be like and work of my armetures so that when I come back I will be well on the way to creatin everything I need to begin filming the final animation. 

Summary of work over Christmas 

Over Christmas I did a little bit of set planning so that I knew the exact sizes of everything for when I went back to uni.
The first thing I did was get a large roll of paper so that I had plenty of room to work.
Then I went and printed out my protagonist in a life size scale so that I could scale the set to him so that everything will be in proportion.

I also taped a straw to the back of him just so that the paper model had a little strength when I stood him up.

Next I measured out the size of the whole set. After some testing I decided on a size which looks best which actually turned out to be alot larger than I first thought.

This is the length of all three walls. The walls won't be as high as this because there is no need for them to be that tall so I will be cutting them down a bit.

Since the model is roughly around 10 inches high, I have made all the furniture apart from the main machine to come up to around 5 inches so that they are all roughly waist high with the character. This to me seems accurate and things like tables and desks are never any higher than that.

I also rolled the floor plan up the opposite way because it constanly rolled back up and held it in place so that it wouldnt want to roll when I laid it out.

Week 1 After Christmas

I have now begun working on constructing my characters and this week I sculpted the head of the female character.

I also found this interesting website that gave me a little information about armature building.
http://www.toddelliott.com/Tutorials/StopMotion_Part01.htm

I really like this because I was struggling with the concept of how to make my armatures and even though I had done some research into this before, a little more is always helpful and this has now given me another possibility of how I coud make it.

I have also started work on my armatures and female character.

The first thing I did was shape the legs with some twisted wire and use the template to get the right length

Next I cut out many little pieces of pvc pipe like the piece you can see in the picture above. The act as bones of the armature and make sure that you can't move the sections of wire that shouldn't move.

At this stage I had worked out all the lengths of wire and pvc pipe. The hips were a bit of a problem as I had to figure out a way to join all the sections of wire together (the legs and the spine) and still be able to move the necessary parts. I ended up having two bits of pipe for the hips so I could attach them both together and I also reinforced it by slipping a bit of wire into both holes on either side to bind them together.

Also this week I sculpted the head of the female character. I started by shaping the head and marking out where the eyes should go.

I then added in the nose and made the eyes look like this so it appears that she is squinting. As well as this I put lines round the mouth to look like wrinkles.

Here are the two models side by side. I added some more wrinkles into the models to age them a little bit more.

I wasn't massively happy with how the model looked so I altered it a little. I made the wrinkles more prominent, made the face more slender and also gave her hair.

Week 2

I thought I would finish off the modelling of thw male characters head so I started giving him hair and ears

It turned out really well and looks exactly how i wanted it to look. The ears dont look perfectly like ears but peoples focus won't be on his ears so it wont matter too much. I also added eyes to the model and I made eyes using beads which  sprayed white and added a black spot in permanent marker for the pupils. These are good because I am able to insert a pin in the hole to move the eyes when animating to make fine movements.

I then covered the empty spaces around the beads and added eyelids to make it look more realtistic and give him a softer look since with them it looked like his eyes were bulging.

Hand experiments

I am finding hands rather difficult to make so I am trying a few different methods to see which one I like.

The first method I attempted was using a tutorial I saw here:
https://gracevdiggens.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/building-the-armature-ball-and-socket-hands/

 


According to the guide (as seen in the image above) you take two pieces of wire and forms three loops in one and two loops in another. I then had a go myself:

These are my two pieces formed into the shape i needed them. The next step requires you to join them together but when I did that I found that it was way too big and I have no way of connecting it to the body.

The second method I tried was simply inserting strands of wire into a piece of sculpy and sculpting over it.

Although this might be a good way of creating simple hands for molding, unfortunatly they look too simple, the wire easily tears through the sculpey and there was still no way to connect the hand to the armature.

The final experiment I did was wrapping lots of wire around the loops on the armatures arms to form fingers.

This might be a good way of doing it if I were to cover it in sculpey, although I would stll be afraid of the wire coming throught the sculpey and also there is no way to take the hand off if something should break when I'm animating.