In the workshop we created a simplified version of our storyboard. We broke down the narrative of our film into 4 parts.
PART 1
The first part is the set up; showing who the protagonist is and what they want. In this part I showed my girl character with her dead fish. She shows that the death of her fish has affected her by holding the fish close to her for some time. I’m hoping this would show that she does not want the fish to be dead.
PART 2
The second part is meant to be emotionally opposite to the climax. At this part I had her almost drop the fish bowl, but manages to save it. Therefore at this point, there is a sense of relief.
PART 3
The third part is the climax: the girl unknowingly leaves the fridge door open. There is a sense of apprehension as we await to see what would happen next.
PART 4
The fourth and last part is the resolution, where usually (unless it’s a comedy) the character would have changed in some way compared to how they were in the beginning. I wanted to show that my character is now finally starting to accept the death of the fish by her picking up the broken glass pieces, however I am not sure whether that is effective.
My film is about a girl who had just buried her dead pet fish. Unable to accept its departure, she digs the fish back up and pretends it’s still alive. Obviously, rather than solving the issue, this decision would only create new ones, and we, the audience, follows her as she goes out of her way to keep her delusions sustainable. Will she slowly learn to accept reality? Will she slip up in her methodical routine of keeping the fish “alive”? Find out when this film gets made. Aesthetically, think of a film noir; black and white with high contrast and harsh lights and shadows to add to the drama and tension. The film is a story about the sometimes unhealthy and unproductive ways we try and “self-medicate” our problems away without really confronting it.
I want this film to feel thrilling and suspenseful. I don’t have much experience in making films like that so I need references for staging. Personally I also feel that my shot types are usually not diverse enough, so this is a way for me to learn other possible shots to use.
This shot is from an interesting angle. It’s very low, and utilizes the Dutch angle to convey something is wrong. The characters are shrouded in shadows and out of focus. The audience can see what is going on, but it still leaves a sense of ambiguity.
These two overhead shots are quite similar. In both, the camera is behind the man. The audience can see that he had just done something bad, but the audience does not know how he feels about it because his face is not shown, which aids to the suspense. The shot also uses harsh lighting to create prominent shadows, adding drama.
This film has a lot of extreme closeups. It creates a claustrophobic feeling. At points it also makes the action very ambiguous, such as in the first picture.
Idea one:
Idea two:
IDEA #1 – Girl and Goldfish
EARLY IDEAS & SKETCHES
The film starts with a girl realising that she had accidentally killed her pet goldfish. She buries the fish in the garden. She feels that the death of her fish was her fault, and this guilt follows her everywhere. She starts seeing and hearing things and over days things escalate to a point where she couldn’t handle it anymore. She takes a shovel, goes to the garden, digs up her fish, puts it in a jar of water and puts it in the fridge. She pretends the fish is still alive so that she does not have to feel guilty about it.
CHARACTERS
STYLE FRAME
REFERENCES
Dark atmostphere with dramatic lighting, very limited colour palette. I may limit it to just grayscale + the orange-yellow from the fish for emphasis.
These two above might be a possible final look I’m going for. The second one especially because it utilises textures and softer bounce lights so it doesn’t look too flat even though it is in grayscale. Other than that, the tension in the second clip is what I would like to achieve.
This film is very different in genre and aesthetic, however I really like the increasingly fast pace and use of repetition. Visually I also like how the background does not conform to rules of perspective and the drawings are quite loose.
Good reference for harsh lighting. I find the use of panels quite interesting; other than being stylistically unique, I feel that it draws more attention to the action presented.
IDEA #2 – Stranded Pilot
IMAGES
STORY
A pilot crashes into a small island, wrecking her plane in the process. She tries to radio for help but nothing works. She tries to fix her plane in the hopes she could still escape on it. Before she realises, night had fallen. She notices that the sea water was very quickly starting to rise. She quickly grabs her bag and heads towards higher ground. She realises that she needed to be at a higher point as the water is still rising rapidly, so she climbs up a tree. While she’s on the tree she sees hears a boat in the far distance. Filled with hope, she rummages in her bag to find her flare but drops it in the process. She realises that it was about to be swept away by the ocean water so she scrambles down to try and find it again, realizing that this could be her only chance of getting help. In the end, she finally finds the flare and sets it off.
CHARACTER
REFERENCES
The colours in the film work very well in portraying a serious, more somber atmosphere. It is also a good reference on how to portray a windy beach scene.
This film utilises flat colours which would be practical. I do like the looseness and the textures made by traditional medium (charcoal/graphite perhaps) used on the background.
I quite like the look of textured brushes/traditional medium but colored in digitally. From my experience on Film 4, when doing animation on paper with traditional mediums, it is quite difficult do get solid, vibrant colors. Traditional medium is something I am considering for the final look of the film.
This shot is an example of how I experiment with the timing within an animation. The throw on the left starts and ends quite abruptly, and while it makes it seem faster, there seems to be less energy in the way that the character moves. In the one on the right, I added more build up to it, as well as having the characters left arm swing back more to convey the energy from the momentum of the throw.
I also experimented with how I make the character move. The shot on the left was my first try, and then I realised that the movement was too minimal. I redid the shot to give it more personality and action.
In “My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes”, the director uses photographs to visualise the person speaking in the film. Of interest to note is how the director chooses to use photographs that had been taken in the past.
The footage of classic Hollywood action films (which were broken down into stills and then animated) is integral to the status of this film as a parody.
Deandra Asara 