So we had to present the storyboards we'd done so far, unfortunately I spent such a ridiculous amount of time creating the frames to a professional looking standard for the first ident, I ran out of time to storyboard all of the others. However, i think I gave enough information to give people a clue as to the direction I was headed in. Here is my feedback forms:
I agree with the feedback, the fully rendered storyboard looks pretty successful in terms of colour choices etc. However the little weird science and John Hughes experimentations work less so, I'm going to have to spend a bit of time thinking about appropriate colour choices and mixing it up a bit with those. The comment about actor's names is a criticism I hadn't thought about, in some ways they're probably right, but I'm trying to make an almost comic brief summary of each film, however I'll have a think on that one. The other feedback form sort of asks more about my back work and development, which I have collated thoroughly, however it's going to be an epic blog post, and having done two of those today, it'll probably have to wait for tomorrow night.
Following on from this, we were given an evaluation form to analyse how we're doing so far, my responses are below:
Evaluation
-Advertising a season of movies to an audience who are aware of and like that genre/subject matter using 5 different 10 second long Idents that can also work as part of a set.
-I have chosen to focus on John Hughes Movies, specifically the ones that he had a directing credit for, because he was a prolific writer and chosing that as a subject would just make narrowing down material to use a very strenuous activity. Specifically I have chosen The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I had also chosen Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but given the rest are sort of teen films, it didn't feel like it fit with the rest, so I decided to an ident based purely around John Hughes the man.
-Areas of research ranged from the basic, such as re-watching the movies to get myself re-re-acquainted with the stylistic elements and the content of the movies I have chosen, to joining a forum called 80's revival and beginning a discussion with Hughes admirers from the 1980's as well as asking my peers. I have asked both audiences about why they enjoyed his films, however I need to post this to my context blog as I haven't yet, it was useful to see them as fans and maybe parts of the films that I should prioritise. I also asked whether they see any films of the Naughties to have similarities to John hughes movies, I hoped that this would give me a decent insight into sort of what similar movies today are doing in terms of visuals for their posters DVD menus etc. and that I could draw from this, which I have done. I again need to post this to my blog now that I'm being extra thorough. I also have looked at a range of secondary material that captures elements of animation and movement that I want to capture in my own work as well as stills that have a visual aesthetic that I want to work with.
-I want to be able to work with both digital imagery and incorporating an element of the hand drawn and stop motion, I find the aesthetic of this quite pleasing.
-There hopefully will be an appropriate amount of time to do this, I'm hoping to begin production by the weekend and see how it goes from there, but hopefully , my ambitious plan will come to fruition. Realistically I have 3 weeks to really play around and really make it look professional.
-I'm going to use basic storyboards, minus all the visuals and ask people to give me some feedback at regular intervals on content, flow etc. as well as getting feedback on the way my animation works regularly by asking peers and recording what they say, and developing my work in accordance to what I see as useful commentary from this process. Obviously there will also be staff available who can advise me whenever I need it.
-Areas of research ranged from the basic, such as re-watching the movies to get myself re-re-acquainted with the stylistic elements and the content of the movies I have chosen, to joining a forum called 80's revival and beginning a discussion with Hughes admirers from the 1980's as well as asking my peers. I have asked both audiences about why they enjoyed his films, however I need to post this to my context blog as I haven't yet, it was useful to see them as fans and maybe parts of the films that I should prioritise. I also asked whether they see any films of the Naughties to have similarities to John hughes movies, I hoped that this would give me a decent insight into sort of what similar movies today are doing in terms of visuals for their posters DVD menus etc. and that I could draw from this, which I have done. I again need to post this to my blog now that I'm being extra thorough. I also have looked at a range of secondary material that captures elements of animation and movement that I want to capture in my own work as well as stills that have a visual aesthetic that I want to work with.
-I want to be able to work with both digital imagery and incorporating an element of the hand drawn and stop motion, I find the aesthetic of this quite pleasing.
-There hopefully will be an appropriate amount of time to do this, I'm hoping to begin production by the weekend and see how it goes from there, but hopefully , my ambitious plan will come to fruition. Realistically I have 3 weeks to really play around and really make it look professional.
-I'm going to use basic storyboards, minus all the visuals and ask people to give me some feedback at regular intervals on content, flow etc. as well as getting feedback on the way my animation works regularly by asking peers and recording what they say, and developing my work in accordance to what I see as useful commentary from this process. Obviously there will also be staff available who can advise me whenever I need it.
Focus
-Initially, because a lot of people talked about the dialogue, I was going to use some memorable quotes to animate to, however this would likely result in animated type or imagery that explains the type, this seemed quite simplistic. A lot of people said that the soundtracks were also excellent, so I'm definitely going to use music as the primary sound for my idents, potentially the only sound for my idents as any voice over attempt would feel quite awkward. The music is likely to strike an immediate chord with my potential audience, as long as the track is selected well. However, I then had to figure out content. I thought about doing an almost sorrowful memorial piece because John Hughes died late last year, however I don't think this would be fitting to the film's content as they're all quite cheerful indie-comedy flicks really. Currently I'm working on an almost irreverant-in-joke style that summarises the plot of each film in 3 concepts i.e. breakfast club Molly Ringwald + detention +Breakfast etc. as seen in development a few posts back. I think this keeps with the sort of quirky nature of the films and creates the sense of an in-joke with the fans who see Molly Ringwald as a bit of a cult figure etc.
-My audience are both people who were teens and early 20-somethings in the 1980's and teens and early 20 somethings now, this is where these films have the most appeal, either because of nostalgia or the story rings true for the audience in the now. This has effected my choices in terms of visuals, because I need to use enough iconic visual to draw on the nostalgia, but balance it out with contemporary style.
Development
-In terms of progression; I looked at quotation from the film and animated typography, but I wanted to try something a little bit more ambitious. I also had the idea of sort of memorialising John Hughes, but I don't think that this should be the focus anymore because the films are fun and I think it would interfere with the sense of fun I want to give my idents... too many concepts spoil the broth.
-Documentation so far has been thorough with photographic documentation of storyboards and problem analysis sheets as well as records of research. In terms of development, I've saved the files I've been working on as I've changed things so I have a really large pile of experiments with colours, layouts content etc. etc. that I need to put up onto the blog and format ready for putting into a slideshow for the DVD.
-I need to use DVD pro so I'll be in here a lot, however, I have a legitimate mac version of After Effects, so I can be twiddling away with it here and there at any time which is highly useful in terms of structuring my time... but I also need to double check everything is compatible with computers everywhere well ahead of module hand in.
Action Plan
Begin thorough story boarding of all idents to help clarify how things are going to move. Friday 22nd
Create compositions for all idents, whilst still paying around with colour layout etc. Sunday 24th
Begin animating in after effects Tuesday 26th.
Start generating proper imagery for dvd so I can build it. Thursday 28th
Once I've done these things I'll re-assess my action plan.
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