Story-Telling: The Premise

Claude the fisherman has rubbish flung at him by an annoying school child, after putting up with it a third piece of rubbish is flung and decides enough is enough, he takes action to put him in his place.

Story-Telling: The Logline

Fisherman Claude’s day goes bad as a disruptive school child named Wayne decides to fling rubbish at him using a catapult. Claude then manages to take the catapult from him and give Wayne a taste of his own medicine by catapulting a fish in his face.

Story-Telling: Story Board: Draft 1

Claude Story Board 1

Story-Telling: Summary Post

(I'm posting this now as a 'to do' list and will edit it as I go along- you can see where I am then Phil)
(Its not all up to date on here yet, still some to upload and link)

1) Final CG Pre-Viz
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-maya-pre-viz.html


2) Final Animatic
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-2d-animatic.html


3) 'Art Of'' Publication
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-art-of.html


4) Final Story Boards
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-final-storyboard.html

5) Final Script
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-final-script.html


6) Draft Scrips/ Story Development
    a) The Development (writing partner)
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-story-ideas.html
  
    b) The Treatment
  
    c) The Step Outline
  
    d)The Premise
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-premise.html
    e) The Logline
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-logline.html
    f)Character Biographies
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-character-design-bible.html
    g) The Synopsis
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-character-design-bible.html

7) Preparatory Storyboards
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-story-board-draft-1.html
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-preparatory-storyboard.html

8) Final concept art for character/ environment/ props
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-character-design-bible.html

9) Supporting artwork for character/ environment/ props
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-character-sketches-2.html
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-character-ref-images_22.html
  
10) Supporting research for character/ environment/ props
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-character-ref-images.html
  
  
11) Influence maps for character/ environment/ props
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-influence-map.html

12) Supporting research for written assignment
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-written-research.html
13) Cutting Edge film reviews

    La Jetée, Chris Marker, 1962
  
    Rope, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1948
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-cutting-edge-rope-dir.html

    Psycho, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
  
  
    The Birds, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1963
  
  
    Reservoir Dogs, Dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1992
      

    The Blair Witch Project, Dirs. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, 1999
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-cutting-edge-blair-witch.html

    Cloverfield, Dir. Matt Reeves, 2008
  

14) Life Drawing
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-life-drawing-week-17.html
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/02/story-telling-life-drawing-week-18.html
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-life-drawing-week-20.html

15)  Submission disc artwork/ branding

16) Premiere Pro exercises
    (Evident in Animatic)

17) Maya exercises
    http://skygecko-nat.blogspot.com/2011/03/story-telling-maya-bouncing-ball-off.html

Story-Telling: Story Idea 1: Draft 2

Fisherman Story Idea Draft 2

Story-Telling: Character Design Bible

Claude Character Design Bible

Story-Telling: Character Design: 2 Character Ideas

Two different types of worldly characters. one is a character in a painting and the other is how people look in the world perceived as 'Real'

Think Roger Rabbit kind of circumstances but the 'reality' is cartoon and the painting is the other world

Story-Telling: Character Development

Claude Development

Story-Telling: Character Ref Images & Fisherman Sketches

Fisherman Ref & Sketches 2

Story-Telling: Character Ref Images: Fisherman

Fisherman Ref Images

Story-Telling: Story Idea 1

Fisherman Story Idea

Story-Telling: Character Sketches 2

Some Character design work outs

I'm testing out how to get a character to look squinty and weathered

I thought of using the eye brows to cover the eyes, I'm liking how it looks so far

I had an idea to make the character look slumped and slightly hunch back to indicate years of laborious fishing and general old age.

It gave the character an effect that looked a bit monster-ish though so I tried a different angle

This is where Claude came from.

(Early stages yet)

Story-Telling: The Cutting Edge: Rope, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1948

Fig. 1 Movie Poster

Rope, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1948

The basic storyline of this film is about two young students that decide to kill a fellow student because they think him inferior to themselves so being superior they believe they have the right to kill for pleasure. This takes place in their apartment and decide to hide the body while they have a party. They then show off this 'superior pleasure' by inviting the dead man's parents and girlfriend to the party (all pre planned). They had invited their tutor along as he was the person that placed the mindset into the young men's mind not realising his words were to be taken literally. Over the course of the party he works out what has happened and returns after everybody has left to confront the two young men. After reaching the shocking truth that the train of thought started with him and the young men thought he would be proud, he sets off gun fire out of the window for the police to be alerted and for it all to be judged.

This film is an iconic one for a few reasons. As screenwriter Arthur Laurents refers to when Hitchcock described the film, 'it's going to be a picture about 'it'' meaning it was going to be one of the first, if not the first, films to include a gay couple and they were shown just as an ordinary couple, unlike the way the topic was illegal and a voodoo at the time. There was also the subject of the type of killers they were. How they did it for reasons unheard of in films at this time, they were killers because their tutor had unintentionally put the idea into their heads that people of a superior intellect had the right to kill those less superior just to clean up the world, and that they believed they were a couple of the superiors that could do this act. Originally, the idea came from a true story about two young millionaires named Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb who killed 14 year old Bobby Franks, in the story was the character known as 'David' (Dick Hogan), who confessed to the murder on 31st of May 1924 in Chicago. Following this, in 1929 a british play was performed based from this story in but they set it in an apartment in London, this was titled 'Rope's End'. The play was later published by Samuel French in 1933.

Hitchcock wanted to make this play into a film but keep it in the style of a play because it hadn't been done that way before. The script was revised as it was too 'British' and because of the british phrasing it was seen as homosexual language, for example 'my dear boy' this was unintentional. So again the scripts were revised.  Almar Haflidason writes in his review of the film on the BBC movies website, how Laurents found that the technical aspects of the film weren't important when watching the film, but he was 'interested in how the movie was clearly about homosexuality, but that no-one at the time could discuss it'. There is only one scene within this film (it could be classed as two as the opening shot is of the outside of the apartment block, this is the only opportunity Hitchcock got to insert himself into his film, but as it is in the opening introductory manor it is not really classed as a scene) which aids the effect of the 'play' style.

Fig. 2. Brandon and Phillip talking intimately.

On the subject of editing, it is quite different as there isn't really much in the film. The editing that it does contain is very planned in advance as they shot continuous sections and only cut a scene when the amount of film on a spool ran out. So in effect it was forced editing by the technology available at the time. The point of the cuts were executed well, the camera would move slyly behind a character in part of a camera movement in order for the lens to be completely blacked out by the clothes of the character for what seemed only a second and the scene continued (after a new reel of film and a day's break) around to the other side of the character. This was also a remembered movie for being one of the first to have a 10 minute take. The actors were all choreographed to be able to act out the long scenes without tripping over camera wires and make sure they were out of the way as the walls were wheeled around the one big scene so the shots were able to happen. Roger Ebert from Chicago Sun-Times describes the film as 'one of the most interesting experiments ever attempted by a major director working with big box-office names', and it did work.

Fig. 3. Palm Reading

In the making of it is explained that there was a double meaning for everything throughout the film. For instance in Fig. 3 Phillip is having his palms read by David's aunt, Mrs. Anita Atwater. Here she speaks of great talent and a long life, she means talent for music and a long life but the double meaning is about how he just killed her nephew with these hands and how his life has ended. 

The story is told through the camera. As there was very little editing, the camera movements were key to the build up of suspense and tension. A great example of this is when Mrs. Wilson (Edith Evanson) clears away the dining ware from the chest and starts to pile up the books next to the chest to put back inside it. It is shot so we can see what she is doing but we can hear the conversation from the rest of the party who are standing almost outside of the shot so it gives the impression that they are too busy to see what she is doing and that she might open the chest and see the dead body which would expose the two murderers. It is only at the last second when she goes to put the books back inside and slightly lifts the chest that the almost unbearable suspense gets shattered as Brandon walks over, shuts the chest and says to leave the books and tidy them the next day when she comes back to clean. 

As the takes were to be so long Hitchcock wanted a way to make the backdrop outside the window show the daylight gradually turning to night time as the party went on. They made a prop with lights to indicate lights of windows showing from the silhouettes of the town scape. At the end some dramatic green and red lighting was used to intensify the mood. This was meant to represent the danger and suspense during the build up of them being found out.

List of Illustrations

Fig. 1. Movie Poster (1948) From: Rope Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock. [poster art] USA: Transatlantic Pictures, Warner Bros.

Fig. 2. Brandon and Phillip talking intimately (1948) From: Rope Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock. [film still] USA: Transatlantic Pictures, Warner Bros.

Fig. 3. Palm reading (1948) From: Rope Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock. [film still] USA: Transatlantic Pictures, Warner Bros.

Bibliography

Rope. (1948) Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock [DVD] USA: Transatlantic Pictures, Warner Bros.

'Rope' Unleashed. From: Rope: 2001 Edition. (2001) Directed by Laurent Bouzereau. [DVD] USA: Universal Pictures.

IMDb.com, Inc. (Date Unknown) Rope (1948). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040746/ (Accessed on 18.02.11)

Ebert, J. (1984) Rope. In: Chicago Sun-Times [online] http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19840615/REVIEWS/811069998/1023 (Accessed on: 19.02.11)

Haflidason, A. (2007) Rope DVD (1948). In BBC MOVIES [online] http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/08/07/rope_1948_dvd_review.shtml (accessed on: 19.02.11)

Story-Telling: Character Sketches

This character starts off inspired by the features of Pixar's 'UP' character Carl

Story-Telling: Story Ideas

Idea 1:

• Fisherman sat in his boat fishing
• Something bounces off the back of his head
• He looks around but sees nothing so frowns and shrugs it off
• He's back fishing when something else lands in his boat (empty coke can?)
• He huffs and stands up in his boat - it rocks a little
• He looks angrily at the camera but sits down and starts fishing again
• Something else lands in his boat (more rubbish) so he firmly plonks down his fishing rod and stands up
• He then climbs out of the painting and goes up to a rebellious school child that has un-noticingly strayed slightly from the rest of the class and has been catapulting rubbish at the painting of the fisherman. 
• The fisherman squelches across to the school child and reaches across to the catapult that the school child is now hiding behind their back as the teacher  has grabbed their attention
• the fisherman takes the catapult but as the child goes to call out in response there is nothing but some wet footprints and a painting of a fisherman in his boat with a catapult and a fishing rod

Idea 2:

(With thanks to Justin)

• An almost blind, senile old Fisherman accidentally walks into an art gallery instead of a 'fish related place' eg. tackle shop, fish market etc (method to be worked into if the idea is chosen) and is wearing all of his fishing gear as usual.
• He wonders through the gallery not quite aware of his location and comes across a massive Turner Sea Scape painting. His glasses show some tuned in pupils magnified through the 'bottle bottom' thick glass like a hunter on it's prey. His catapult flies around his body as he whips it out from his back pocket and performs the finely tuned act of loading it while in motion and instantly flinging maggots at the 'sea full of fish' he sees in front of him
• He then persists to unravel his telescopic fishing rod (even being senile and blind his years of experience still bring speed and accuracy with his equipment manoeuvre ).
• loads it with a chunky worm (contained in a lunchbox he had somewhere on him) and casts it out into the sea scape (painting) 
• He reels it in a little bit and as it has become hooked onto the painting he thinks he has 'hooked a whopper'
• he starts tugging and as the painting starts looking plucked out the scene cuts to an animated cctv camera which int he cartoon style looks shocked and its lens widens in shock
• shortly some geeky looking gallery curators skid around corners from each room of the gallery and aren't trained for such an event
• a little old granny claps eyes on what is going on and in a 'sylvester and tweety' fashion goes up to the fisherman, bonks him on the head with her handbag and gets out her little scissors from her mini travel sewing kit within this handbag, cuts the fishing line, tells him off, bonks him on the head again and walks off 
• the fisherman, not sure what is going on shakes his head and sees a 'hot mama' walking off after hitting him on the head
• he lets go of the situation that had just happened and scuffles off after this woman with his tongue hanging out of his face in lust
• the scene ends with him disappearing out of the room after the woman and a bunch of clanky kneed gallery curators looking up at the painting with a big fish hook stuck within and shaking and biting their nails

Idea 3

• A fisherman has a son that loves art and wants his dad to take him to an art gallery
• so he agrees to take him to a gallery on the condition they can both go out for a nice afternoons fishing straight after
• The fisherman practically lives in his fishing gear so they go into an art gallery and he says to the son go ahead son im going to wait here by this arty looking bench and ill be here when you have finished doing what you do here
• so the son goes off and while the fisherman is sat waiting there is actually an exhibition being erected
• a man comes up to the fisherman and asks him to stand upon the bench
• not knowing if this was normal he decided to just go along with it incase he was in the wrong
• then some glass panels get affixed to the sides of the bench and a label to the side of the box, then they walk away
• the fisherman just stands in this glass box looking confused for a while not sure if he was supposed to say something
• the son comes back and looks in awe at his dad and sees Damien Hirst in the next room
• The son is extremely excited and says to the dad 'wow dad, this is the best surprise ever, you're the greatest! How did you know my favourite artist is Damien Hirst and to show you care you even agreed to be one of his exhibition pieces for a day!'

(or something along those lines- and the shot ends with the fisherman looking confused but smiling and agreeing anyway)

Environment: Final Scene: Stage by Stage Photo Documentation

Wheelchair scene stages

Environment: Wheelchair Close-ups

Story-Telling: Life Drawing: Week 18

Fig.1 20 min pose- charcoal

Fig. 2 Moving figure

Fig.3 Left: Quick Pose

Right: Characature Pose from memory 

Fig. 4 Left: Quick Pose - Straight Lines only

Right: Characature of previous image from memory

Environment: Final Scene & Progression

Final Scene

Pipeline

Wire Frame

Wire Frame & Blinn 

Blinn

Texture - No Light

Texture - Lighting

Matte Painting

Ambient Occlusion 

Final Scene

Story-Telling: Life Drawing: Week 17

This week I felt a bit out of touch as it had been a while since I had last drawn a live model. Fig. 1 A was the warm-up pose, followed by a pose we had to remember then once the model had walked away we were allowed to draw what we remembered.

Fig.1: Left- A

Right- B

By Fig.2 I felt like I was getting my eye back. Fig. 2 B was another memory pose but I found this one easier to do as I had warmed up by this point.

Fig.2: Left- A

Right-B