Making the track

Due to people sucking, not being reliable and me getting fed up with it all, I've decided just to work on the song myself using whatever footage I have already of the song. It won't be perfect and will be very tedious - time I could use elsewhere, but I suppose that's my fault for trusting that people would pull through and help me out. Brace yourself; This will probably be a long post. Luckily I have some stuff recorded. The drums and bass - although aren't very good isolated, and need a lot of tweaking and adjustments. The plan was to record us all playing together, that way we would retain some energy and would sound less like people playing along to the metronome clicker. The main problem is getting everything aligned and sounding cohesive to a consistent time beat. For this ill be using 104bpm. It was what was recorded to, so makes sense to use these as the basis.

SLIGHT CHANGE AGAIN TO ACT 3

During the development and structuring of act 3, particularly the antigral abstract scenes, I felt that a lot of it thematically felt bare and lacked full meaning. It also didn't show enough about the main character - I have no issue in leaving the main character out, however there felt no growth or meaning behind it. The kid allows an audience to hone ideas and meaning and tie a connection to the main character. Because of this, I want to restructure some of the final act - adding some form of narration changer and focus. Utilising the idea previously of a ‘boss fight’ - and adding reference to escapism through other media. ie video games. I think this idea feels more concrete in theming and allows involvement with the main character easier - while equally retaining existing motif of food. Truthfully a lot of reasons are purely out of excitement to make it however. The process of more abstract scenes CAN be fun, however I personally wasn't enjoying it as much as I initially thought.

I don't need to show the fight scenes, it's not necessary and would be a waste of resources, however the anticipation element can be a lot of fun. Having a creature grow and distort and provide a solution in a massive scale to the main character. 

KID DESIGN REVISION

Typography and film logo design

Crescendo Notes and references

One key area I need to focus on is how the scenes flow, transitions and overal art style. I have a real opportunity to add some cohesion outside of artstyle and colour - making the vibe truly off-putting. This post is here for me to list a bunch of ideas and propositions - noting references and existing media.

First of all i really like the idea of having some of the scenes bleed into another - with some 2D animated flurries. Given the quick cuts, a lot of the main elements need to be placed centrally for ease of eye movement, however I like the idea of balancing automated quick movements, with 2d over drawn shapes. Its something however lazily used i feel a lot of rap or cheaper music videos, however I think could be cool and interesting enough if done right.

quick testwork done using a previous animatic shot. I added a blue layer and changed the blending mode to difference to invert the colours. I prefer difference with flat colours as it can be weirdly unpredictable. 

( timestamp 2:10 )

I like this as a reference point as it combines a lot of prior ideas, in a series of quick cuts - while removing some of the overlays, its essentially constructed into layers of flat colour, often inverted. The movements of shapes are also really effective with the character animation.

Given the relationship with food and consumption, I think i could incorporate some of the shape design work used in Ratatouille, which takes design elements from real life brain scans when food is eaten and recognised. 

Happy Creature corpse

ACT 3 TEST FOOTAGE

With a change in direction means a necessary plan to fix and some rough test footage. After some research and planning, I’ve created some test work/ animatic cut combining some existing footage, existing media from ‘don't hug me i’m scared’, and some new drawings. I really liked the style of cutting from DHIM video, as it reused a lot of cuts and edits - but mixed them quickly to a sense of rhythm. I also liked the relationship with food the video combined, utilising real puppets and more abstract drawings. In my own work, I have the extended benefit of a larger setting to embed behind the characters.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SOuesnsghPOcCA0Xd9-8jGTgqKwxqpic/view?usp=share_link

With my previous work on the movie, it felt like it helped a sense of dread had been built - tension embedded into the festival, and by cutting and editing quickly in a horror crescendo, it feels conclusive without cutting short, while complimenting and resolving the prior scenes; reinforcing the further subtext. 

Climax discussion and ideas

I like the idea of highlighting the child is eating alone - it has a lot of subtlety and nuance I feel. Perhaps not in the UK, but eating alone I feel is an often tragic and lonesome occurrence, especially when the meal is prepared by someone else. Especially if the individual is particularly young - it shows that the character is not able to justify his lonesome with success or finance, and has more often atypically negative connotations than someone of say middle age - perhaps still metaphorically judged as a pathetic instance, but for different circumstances. Food is synonymous with culture and lifestyle, climate and natural resources dictating a lot of diets and flavour to each country. However on the surface food is nothing but a human necessity, its always interesting to me how much the food and how its consumed can say about a place. Perhaps its different to each family, but in the UK, eating around the table wasn’t mandatory or culturally expected. I used to work in a pub, and would often just eat a staff meal during breaks. The food is not something overly celebrated in the UK, often resulting in low cost, lower standard in quality control. I visited Portugal over the summer, staying with a band mates family for a couple weeks, and during this it only elevated my understanding of family and its connections to food. It helped bring everyone together. The grandparents cooking large batches of food, creating small feasts for guests and family to enjoy, laughing and chatting, drinking and eating. It was something only really on special occasions I could indulge with at home. My grandparents lived an hours drive away, is a magic I think the UK has progressed from, and almost disregarded. 

This in ideation is the driving force behind the climax ending, It characterises everything I intend from a subtextual point. As a motif I think it delivers points throughout culture - as it can perfectly characterise negative responses equally. Food while on the surface is nothing more than basic human instinct, can also describe portrayals of indulgence, greed and class. It’s fair to judge that a lot of people aspire to try new, fancy foods, regardless of its time period. Im sure parents have looked back at their childhoods with fondness of rare, exotic foods - that are simply overlooked today. Food however can be self-destructive and exploited, a lack of food, or overindulgence in unhealthy foods can lead to unhealthy behaviours and is often bound to poor mental health. The profiteering and exploitation of unhealthy, overly chemical products. I always find a beautiful irony to see examples of McDonalds, Coca Cola and Red Bull sponsoring and synonymous with Sport and aspirational media.

With food and consumption acting as the driving theme for my ending, I want to deliver the main areas in which this can be delivered. The child eating alone is one, however a family feast can act as anti-aspirational. The family feasting on some leftover carcass, tossed away - not good enough to sell. Currently in the UK, food is progressively getting more expensive, resulting in some families unable to eat more desirable, aspirational foods. And while food can portray essence of culture and vibrance, it perfectly encapsulates class and poverty. Eating healthy is something surprisingly expensive, its so much easier to buy canned/ tinned foods. It is cheaper to grow veg and live independently, but in most cities or poorer areas, its too vastly condensed to have the space for land plots, there are the occasional communal allotments, however rare in condensed cities. 

In the festival I like the idea that these customers are emotionally unable to leave, however physically are still bound to 

Examples of ‘horror climax’

Fixing Act 3 and pacing / workload

KEY PROBLEMS (22/02/23)

A lot of the work is progressing nicely, Reaching the high quality bar I initially planned for. However - there are a couple of caveats to a higher level of quality control, and multilayered set pieces, and it’s the time constraint. Currently as of writing this I have 12 weeks left to complete the whole project and record the song. The song element at the moment is out of my hands, there were annoyingly complications that couldn't be resolved at the time - and the people required to record and finish the song are now away on holiday for a couple weeks. Not overly stressed about it at the moment, but if the song needs to reach a quality bar, it needs to be worked on relatively soon. The other key problem, as in finish the damn project is also running into complications in that the time frame might be too close. Of course with animation its particularly hard to plan and predict how long will take, in my planning document I intended to be relatively vague and generous with the time to complete each scene, however didn't take too much into account for the unwritten elements, i.e mainly act 3 and the main introductory panning down sequence in act 1. 

I’ve decided to take a step back. Recoup what I have currently created and what needs to be done to succinctly tell the story - having to rewrite and adjust anything; in song, narrative and of course the current animations completed. This was in part something I had planned to do prior. When making the animatic - the scenes I had (although in static image form) didn't flow as well with the music during the chorus, it felt disconnected and sort of montag-ey. This desperately needed rectifying. I should also preface that I did have plans and scenes in mind for act 3 - I wasn't going to completely wing it, however these ideas like much of the whole project could prove to be overly ambitious and too strenuous to the time left in the project. Like anything, plans need to change to accommodate life happening, and things getting in the way. Although I do think my previous plan was do-able, albeit wouldn't be healthy, mentally and physically - maybe during lockdown I could have, but right now? Certainly not. 

SOLUTIONS

My initial plan for act 3 was to create an atmosphere and implication of the festival collapsing, I like the idea of calling back to the ‘heart basement’ scene, and having the heart malfunction, and the pipework faulting from the goblins incompetence or overworked-ness resulting in the whole festival and kids life falling apart, giving implication of addiction and how this isn't a sustainable fix, it fragility of a support system, and the emptiness that falters when its crux dissipates. I want to double down on this element to an extent, without increasing the workload too far. 

My main idea currently, that I'm particularly excited about is having this ‘horror climax’, twisting the songs pacing and increasing in tempo. This idea partially stemmed from talking with Simon my sound teacher, in which he pointed out how different and altered the song was from its original composition. By speeding the ending up, it separates itself from the original ‘take me’ song, and allows the audience to recognise the song, but built for the narration of my story, not something I've randomly selected from the soar lines library. By doing this, It can allow for a series of quick cuts - but working as callbacks to previous shots. The pacing of the chorus during act 2 is fairly tepid, culminating of short looping sequences. This is fine - however I feel doesn't supply much narrative support and can feel too repetitive. By juxtaposing this with quick cuts of the same shots (perhaps slightly altered), can allows for implication of passage of time, but equally twisting its meaning and allowing for more interesting horror theming - providing a creepier undertone to the once potentially innocence, and further reinforcing my initial subtext and reference to mental health. Horror is a genre I feel confident and well researched and accustomed to, and so this fix is something simply very exciting to me - and helps provide a conclusion to the narrative, while equally being fun and engaging to the audience. Finally, this solution helps alleviate some of the time constraints, as I can reuse some older shots, and shorten the song/ video without compromising quality or cutting the song weirdly. 

Heart of festival

Bunch of other soar lines stuff, isnt too relevant to the project, but is part of the whole branding and everything, and so a lot of the project is relying on similar cohesion with the other art assets.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7IBnf8XFNfaymK6rZGX2f6?si=f0f422d26d994974

Formatting the script

For this I used studio binder, both to write the script and also to research how to. This was probably something I missed in first year of the course, so something I need to catch up on - not to worry.

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/brilliant-script-screenplay-format/#Sluglines-Screenplay-Format

ACT ONE:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZUAAcaV3DhTuzp4-dPnYjQQk_luzFi8U/view?usp=share_link

ACT TWO:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P_rHht_sdFa62AOHb0rSZ-tt38s1alUl/view?usp=share_link

Kid need the toilet Sketch

For this scene, I wasn't too sure how I wanted to block out the composition, or situate the camera. I wanted an element of crowdedness, implying a queue  - and that the toilets are extremely busy, mostly for comical purposes, but also speaks levels on how potentially drunk everyone is at the festival. In the case of the kid - he probably just ate something dodgy, and builds on the kitchen sequence prior. However for this scene, I liked the camera situated above, it felt sympathetic - as if the child is uncomfortable in this circumstance, and a comical moment of sympathy. It would have felt weird to have the power balance below the child, when he simply just needs to use the bog. 

The scene does howwever feel almost too dramatic, and crowded and so ill probably need to reduce this down, and limit the amount of characters/ shape blocking in the foreground is going on. This scene however should be relatively easy to animate. I don't think I would need to do much work for the characters waiting surrounding the child. I also like the idea of him bouncing up and down a little - holding his crotch like children do to signal their parents - with him looking at the camera away from the other characters also has him stand out, equally also in the rule of thirds. Its an easy copout but is effective and I don't think this scene is all that deep. That being said I’ll remove some characters and make the queue more streamlined. Also implying more that its a toilet - perhaps adding more gross things just to build the environment further. 

Animating in After Effects

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kzl8VVWL4aWy3HIkqhQpMlN5WKIXrTq0/view?usp=sharing

Link to my current ‘animatic’ / tests from using after effects tutorials

Over the past couple of days, Ive been attempting to compile all drawn and 2D animated elements in after effects. This is a software I am relatively new to, and required a lot of YouTube and online tutorials to accomplish what I was after, however I think the effect is really effective. 

There are two main scenes/ shots I should go over from this video, about how I’ve created and what should still be left to improve;

SCENE 2 - First look inside For sake of linearity, ill start with this as its what i out most time into, and equally what I worked on first. This was actually relatively simple, as a lot of planning and components had already been figured out prior. I always knew of how compositionally, the buildings would move and prior to after effects had drafted quickly and roughly in photoshop using tween options.

I looked into using the 3D camera in after effects, as I previously had seen this almost twisting camera motion, that rotates the camera as it moves in. This I felt would work well with the two buildings on side moving out of shot. I also liked the vertical parallax effect that the mid ground and background had when moved at separate rates. The thing I especially liked about the 3D camera however was how I could separate different layers to be attached to the camera, or change the plane/heirarchy etc, this allowed certain things to be moved very easily.

By playing the animations, and having the automated zoom effects, the whole intro sequence felt too clean and automated. And so I added some blur and soft blue gradients that moved along with the foreground buildings. This felt like it was entering inside, and compiled it nicely with the forward movements. 

SCENE 1 - Outside the festival This shot was a lot tricker, as it was essentially just the building illustration and a separated foreground. I managed to construct the prior scene a lot easier I knew going in exactly what I was after, however in this scene - the camera movement of going upwards, reaching the top of the building felt too clean and amateurish. This meant that I needed to work on two key areas. The main element, the foreground felt too static, as I moved it down with keyframes, the pieces felt like they were moved in automation, and was weird to look at - there was no ‘human touch’ to it. 

To combat this, I added a quickly drafted animation of leaves and foliage in the foreground. Opening away, as the camera moved forward. This created a nice balance of movement from all angles, and didn't cause too much chaos. The balance of 2d animation and 3d movement, eased the eye. If either element were done the same way together, it would run into the same print problems, but because of squash and stretch style quick movements it created an easy solution, without having to construct an extra scene. The other fix, was by moving the 3D camera in a curved upwards motion - causing the camera to be  from someones perspective, still acting on the ground. It helped show the camera not as some sentient being flying upwards and made the movement more natural. 

Kid Sitting above

I liked the idea of the kid almost sitting without a care - like he doesn't have to worry about parents. I wanted to imply this with some form of nonchalant action, over a bed of danger of his own doing. I could have accomplished this in a lot of ways, however this seemed like the safest and easiest option - given the time Frame. It also allowed to expand the setting a bit further - showing the moon area in the background implies he has moved up from the pipework previously and is enjoying running around everywhere. I also wanted to expand the soft world building with the character eating some of the food, and again seemed like a safest and simplest option.

The idea for this scene, sparked initially from deadpool, however is either a reference to something else, or is more of a trope style shot - assumedly in a lot of other movies etc.