Final Crit

Here's some experiments I've been doing to try and create an ok Ident, I like the simplicity, but I'm really struggling to engage with my ident. The others are at a stage I don't feel particularly comfortable with to show. To be honest, despite a mammoth amount of work, I feel like I've got a project in crisis and I need to pull it back from the brink.

I had to cut it down from what I was planning with my storyboards, severely so my main question is:
Thoughts on how to make it more interesting?
Although it needs work, does it fit my current teen audience?
Does it also look suitably dated and retro to appeal to an 80's audience?
Should I go less hand drawn and more digital?

Urgh, hitting the storyboards again.

Right, so the last idea was good, or so I thought, however below are the audiofiles for the quotes I selected,most of them, with the exception of the 'bueller' quote are way too long for me to be able to put information across that the viewer needs to see as well.
The Breakfast Club I cut this to start from 'each one of us is a...' but even at that point it's too long, even with a qoute below 10 seconds, if it's more than 6, I'll have no time to get the rest of the info in.

Bueller sound bite  Ben Stein sound bites

If I used the bit that says just 'bueller... bueller... bueller' then it's definitely short enough, so I could probably use this one quite well.

bras on head sound bite  Weird Science sound bites

The one for weird science, I wanted to use the one from the storyboards about motorcycles and mutants because i thought the imagery was particularly vivid, however i couldn't find it anywhere, instead I found this one, again, i have the issue that it's too long to make it effective.

Given that most of them with the exception of ferris Bueller went wrong, I had to think of a new plan, so more storyboards were needed:

So above is the new idea for weird science, it plays to the song 'weird science' by oingo boingo because thats the most immediately recognisable song from the film. it basically uses pictograms like the previous storyboard to outline the plot like in the first lot of storyboards but because it does it in a much quicker, much more immediate way, I'll have time to display all the info the viewer needs. I pln to use stop motion to make them shakey and wobbly and a bit retro as outlined in my design context blog.



Here are a few for the John Hughes storyboards, essentially the first ine, I realised I could fit in a bit more infor because theres less info to put out, i.e. i don't have to hold the film title for at least 1 second, because theres no film title in it, so in the second one, i stuck in the musical note as a pictogram for sound. This will play to, 'don't you forget about me' by simple minds, which I think is appropriate given that he died recently.

Because I think the qoute will work effectively for ferris bueller, I decided to keep a similar story board style, with ferris bobbing up and down, however, I decided to keep him inside the circle, the motif i decided to keep on from the first lot of storyboards, this keeps a consistency across the board with all idents, allowing for a clear continuity.



Here are the storyboards for 16 candles, I initially used the girl sign to point out it was about a girl in highschool, however it seemed to me that this might confuse people and say 'ladies toilet' instead. I think cutting it out still allows for people to realise what the film is, pretty much as soon as the candle appears. It'll play to 'happy birthday' by altered image which will give another clue as well.

I really don't have time to dally around now, so I'm going with these ideas, below I've made a list of assets I need so I can draw them out, otherwise I'll get confused and forget to draw things. I'll then scan them in and alter them using illustrator and photoshop.

My own attempts at hand drawn fonts.

Below are some attempts to create my own type, I'm not happy with all of them but I'll go through it anyway:

None of these John Hughes fonts strike mutch of a chord with me, I think I need to draw from the font research I did on my context blog a bit more.

I actually really like the counter-less font on the far right bottom. I like it's layout and it has a similar fun vibe to the research I did on my context blog.

I experimented with the angular style and I quite like it, though I think it needs to be thicker to stand out in the circular setting it'll have.

I tried to do script fonts, but they don't seem as beautiful or ornate as the font I picked out over on the context blog. I think I need to work on it a bit and make it a bit thicker and bigger, allowing for some detail on it.

Finally, I need to look at the breakfast club, The font I've used in the storyboards is just my handwriting and to be honest, I think it's a bit naff and too uneven and scrawly, so I'll try something different on that and keep you posted.

New Storyboards.

Ok, so after realising that the last storyboards were too long and wouldn't possibly condense to 10 seconds, I decided to look at what I could do instead, from my initial research, I realised that things that people picked up on were quotes, so i decided that looking at dialogue would probably be a good idea. Memorable quotes from the movie are likely to inspire nostalgia and humour. I decided that it would probably best to animate this with pictograms rather than words, so here are a few storyboards looking at that.

In the case of hte breakfast club, theres two frames I had to add to fill out the qoute, they're donw the side, theyre images fo a crown to represent the princess qoute and a burglers mask and hat to represent the word criminal.



As you can see, they all use very simple images to represent key words in the qoute and the images will change as the qoute progresses, or in the case of ferris bueller, it'll say 'bueller' and his head will bob up and then down as if he's hiding, which I think will provide some humour and reiterate the films narrative of a boy playing truant.

Storyboards an Progress evaluation

Ok so this is my full storyboard in detail using what at the time, I thought would be some of the final compositions for the actual animation. However I think it's important at this stage to really re-evaluate what I've done. Firstly, as I was writing notes of what motions where on this, I realised that this was going to take a ridiculously long time ot bring to fruition (for one ident, let alone 5!), I attribute this to it being too complicated. I also think that something this intricate is unlikely to fit within 10 seconds.

Another point I'm beginning to struggle with, is how does this answer my brief, does it speak to both my audiences in a way that would appeal to them? personally, I don't think it does, it seems a bit obvious, not very humerous, though it does demonstrate some content from the movie, i can't help but feel people would switch off.

I talked to other members of the group about this as I was beginning to panic that I was going to have to scrap everything, however I was asked whether I could just strip it down but retain some of the elements I had been using, to this extent, I'm going to lose the idea of following a path around because that's one extra issue I don't want to have to deal with. With that in mind I need to develop an action plan to be getting to the stage of making animations as quickly as possible:

Thursday 28th Jan: -Finish Storyboarding new ideas
-have visual aesthetic fully realised

Monday 1st Feb: -have at least one composition animated.

Wednesday 3rd feb: -have atleast 3 videos at a stage where people in a crit can get a sens of what's going on.

Working with other Idents.

So this is just some images of me trying to appropriate the style from the last ident to the other films, I've attempted to do this by drawing from shapes and movements I want from the last Ident but using colour and imagery to create a unique identity for each one.
The ones below are me searching for a colour that goes with John Hughes, I liked the yellow, but at the crit last week, the yellow's visibility was called into question. On reflection, the mustard i started with is possibly the one to go for. I got the John Hughes picture by extracting it from a very popular photography portrait of him, i think theres something iconic about it.



Below is me working my way through the imagery for 16 candles, I've tried variations of pink because i think it's the most appropriate colour to represent a girl orientated teen comedy. I selected the image from the film poster/DVD cover of the time because it will have a familiarity with the audience from the 80's and shows recognizable characters from the movies that a modern audience would understand.


For weird science, I though that a green would be apropriate so her I've just explored a few different greens, I like it muted becase it sort of matches the muted blues and pinks from the other idents. The typography is a variation on the typography from the DVD cover


All being well, if the detailed storyboarding of 'The Breakfast Club' ident works, then I can start developing this imagery.

Development of other frames for BREAKFAST CLUB IDENT

I looked at developing these quite fully, so I can make a detailed storyboard that demonstrates how I want things to move. Here are the results:
First we have the opening frame that sort of demonstrates molly ringwald, There's a progression of me making the composition up. I sort of knew what elements I wanted to bring to it and then messed around with them as I went along, I like that the blue circle that's in the title section crops up again, I think it'll give the animation a nice continuity.










I've done similar for the other frames that I'll upload, I'm starting to doubt that this is the way forward because it's so time consuming.

Right, here are the frame developments for the detention section as outlined in the post-it development earlier. I've tried a few things out with this one, but I'm still not happy with it, however I decided to go with one for the storyboard just so I have a rough sequence of events in my head and a reasonably detailed map down on paper:





I started looking at the idea of lockers, representing school, the lockers feature quite heavily as imagery in the breakfast club. However, this by it's self didn't represent detention very well to my mind, I then introduced the hand because I thought about the hand of authority etc. and how significant that could be in demonstrating it. I spent a while working with this and then working the locker back into it, however it wasn't very satisfactory. I also had the idea that a path runs down to spell detention and draws the guy at his desk, which might still work, however I don't like the aesthetic of my idea. As I say, I'm not satisfied with this composition at all. My last idea on that section was to have the circle that seems to be a recurring theme become a clock that ticks but doesn't move past the same point, giving the idea of endless time that traditionally is associated with detention.

Finally, before we get to the title frames, there is the breakfast/no breakfast joke:


I kind of new what I wanted with this one rather than with the detention frame where I kind of muddled through the ideas. I mainly just experimented with scale to begin with.

Crit, Wednesday 20th January

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.

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.

storyboards for crit

Here are my storyboards that I brought into the crit, they range in qaulity from stills of actual compositions for the final thing to rough outlines of whats going on, so here it is. Here on the Breakfast club frames I got the most progress,I've mapped out the motion of the assets using arrows and little notes to myself. I think it'll flow quite nicely.








Below, obviously at a less complete stage, are the outlines for the way the Ferris Bueller frames should work, or at least might work as is in my head. It follows a similar structure as the breakfast club, using a few knowing elements of the film, it'll be in a similar contemporary 'teen film' style of collage and hand drawn elements. I'm looking at changing colours around to give each ident a unique feel, so it won't be the same blue as the breakfast club.







Sixteen candles has a similar set up, it uses plot points and summarises the story in a hopefully kind of humorous way that's knowing enough to generate nostalgia and laugh at some of the cheesyness of the dated films. I think this will attract the 80's audience, given that the visual elements seem more appropriate for the modern audience. Though, if it's presented like th ebreakfast club ident, then the sort of desaturated, worn and stained photographs kind of give it a feeling of age and nostalgia? For some reason, the first few will only proccess in portrait no matter what I do, which is kind of a pain, hopefull yoyu can still read them and I apologise.








I was initially going to do a storyboard for planes, trains and automobies, but given that the rest of the films are teen, it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, so instead I decided to do a general John Hughes themed ident, it kind of summarises some of the things that make his movies, i.e. the brat pack (group of teen actors he regularly employed. Again, apologies that some aren't the right way up.







The weird science ones I did are the sketchiest of the lot, I really just needed to get out the idea i wanted to convey quickly. Essentially it summasises the plot like the other ones do. It goes through nerd-babe-science-scribbled out science-no logic-weird science. It kind of has a humerous structure to it, I need to make sure I convey this when I start making it. Once again apologies that it's not all the right way up, I hope I don't make your neck hurt.