Professional Sequential Practices - Final Film

 Idea Development and Research

Over the summer we were tasked with coming up with two ideas for our final film. The first idea that I will be going through is the option I chose not to pursue. 

Idea 1 -

I wanted to have two different ideas for narrative – This idea still follows the theme of a fantasy world, but the story focuses more on the magic of the world as the two characters are searching for an ancient artifact.

A rogue witch and a wealthy young sorceress come together for the search – The two have their differences but it is lighthearted. The genre I would describe this idea would be more ‘Slice of Life’

This idea allows for me to focus more on visuals than anything else as the relationship between the two characters isn’t a major focus.

Mood Board - 

As I was thinking of this idea from a visual stand-point I was very interested in aquatic fantasy elements. I looked at many images of environments that would suit the atmosphere of the film, I thought that the characters would be travelling island to island on a small row boat, so plenty of space for imagination for the journey between each location.

I designed the witches character first, she would have a snarky and childish personality, really just a bad influence. Although the story isn't heavily character driven I still thought about their designs and personalities.

I made the mage character to contrast that of the witch, I wanted her to come off as "proper", dressed in pale, clean colours, she needed to look wealthy to contrast the rough dimeanor of the witch.

Concept Art - 

Final Major Project

Synopsis -

Althea and Cherry’s quiet life is disrupted with the rot taking over their island. 

Most of the island has evacuated, but Cherry refuses to leave, her livelihood was the island, it is her home and has difficulty accepting reality, that the land is no longer hospitable. 

althea is the calmer of the two, she knows she must leave but won’t leave without Cherry. 

The film will start with cherry pulling in an unsuccessful haul of fish, althea approaches, there is small conversation until she reveals that they really need to leave that night. 

The fish of the island will appear in quick snapshots, with its condition getting worse throughout.

Cherry is still in denial, refusing to face the fact that their home is decaying - Althea becomes enraged by Cherry’s blindness to the situation and tells her she knows where to find her. 

At the peak of their argument the fish snapshots will become more frequent and intense

Cherry sulks in the forest, reflecting on the argument and comes to her senses once the island starts to fall apart/mysterious force destroys the island. 

Cherry looks to the coast where she knows althea is waiting, unaware of the danger approaching, Cherry breaks out of her denial and runs to her, as the forest falls behind her. 

Althea waits for cherry, she feels she’s waited long enough but she hears rumbling in the distance, she crouches to start the boats engine but decides to run back for Cherry.

Cherry falls during her escape and knocks herself out, the scene fades to black with the the sound of footsteps, once Cherry awakes she's being carried by Althea back to the boat.

The island continues to decay, the girls are travelling through a ravine, as the entrance/island splits, rubble is falling overhead - The girls cower but the fish emerges carrying them on a large wave to safety.

The fish sinks to the bottom of the ocean as the girls hold each other in the boat, looking back at the fallen island.

Research - 

Early Concepts -

In my early concepts I wanted to highlight the fantasy elements, like fishing for gems, or giant jellyfish, maybe even talking animals. I was really aiming to try and capture the aesthetic of the environment they would be in, and I settled on a small fishing island. Most of the designs of the characters in these early concepts follow through into the final designs of my characters. These first few drawings are really bare bones and were only created to help me get a feel for this project.

Concept Art -

These tonal concepts aims were really to capture the one that I want for this film - They focus a lot on lighting and the environment around the characters, I really wanted to delve into the shots just before the island falls apart, I wanted to capture a sense of foreboding.

Having fleshed out the characters a bit more I wanted to draw them in their environment, these concepts were helpful in deciding on how detailed I should make my final film due to time constraints. The fish is the biggest challenge for me as I cant decide or find a design that I like.

Character Design -

My two characters are Althea (Left) and Cherry (Right) - In the original synopsis I was going to have Althea be the one who refuses to leave the island, but after some consideration I changed that role to Cherry. Althea is more of a home body, interested in academics, whereas Cherry is a fisher, it made more sense to me that Althea would be the reasonable one, she doesn't want to leave, but her livelihood doesn't rely on the island. Cherry however is very attached due to her job, she has a very hardheaded personality, so the role reversal made more sense to me.

I had some rough designs for my characters, Cherry's design changed the most out of the two, Althea stayed quite close to the original - I wanted to make their designs make sense to their personalities and environment. The island is hot, so normally I wouldn't have Althea wear a jacket, but as she's made the decision to leave, she's wearing her jacket to not take up space in her bag - She's neat so she keeps her hair short, and a simple skirt, nothing too crazy she likes plain and clean attire. Cherry is very active as she's usually outside or fishing, she wears a tank top and loose shorts for mobility. She's also messy and doesn't care much for her looks so her shorts are oversized, her socks are bunched up, her messy hair is put up out the way.

Character Turnaround -

Cherry -

When finalising Cherry's design I wanted to focus on shape and colour to make her contrast Althea - I aimed to make her body type slightly more different by adding more muscle, as she is a fisher and very active I thought it was suitable. She has a square/angular jawline, round eyes and thick eyebrows all of which are opposites to Althea's. I though about her colour palette a lot, I gave her a dark complexion as she is out in the sun all day, so to contrast that I gave her light hair and a white top/socks. I also wanted to give her a bright colour to stand out when she's next to Althea, so I chose red.

Althea - 

I kept the same ideas of contrast in mind for Althea's character as I did for Cherry - She has a softer face shape, sharp eyes and thin eyebrows. Her palette is much more muted than Cherry's, but I did include a pop of colour with her jacket, I chose green to compliment the red in Cherry's design (Her whole colour palette has a slight green tint to it). There are minimal changes to her design from the original, besides from her top and footwear being changed for simplicity sake. 

Test Animations -

For the first 5 second animation test I decided to animate a run cycle. My main goal was to see how long it would take to make a scene like this in the style I want to emulate in y final film - The level of detail in the background is sufficient and took a reasonable amount of time to produce.

I chose to make the background a larger canvas size so it could move along with the character, i also added transparent png's of trees to add in the foreground. If i was to do anything I differently I would like to separate layers in the background and have them moving at different speeds to create interest. I would also like to add an overlay to Cherry to emulate her running through the spotty shadows, i would most likely create a layer and clip it on to her so nothing else is affected.

For the next 5 second animation I wanted to animate one of the first shots of the film, transition from the large fish under the island to the small haul of fish Cherry catches in the overworld.

I just wanted to figure out stylistically the differences between the two 'worlds' as well as the tone/mystery it would build. With the simple black and white shows the darkness the large fish is living in but gives a sense of foreboding, this contrast the colourful world above.

Storyboard - 

I made many revisions to my story as I went through the process of this project - As stated before, Althea was actually going to be the one who refuses to leave the island, but that change was made quite early on. 

I struggled a lot with the midpoint and end of the films storyboard, I had a solid beginning, but I couldn't figure out what to follow it up with. Originally in the midpoint Cherry was going to be in the forest and escape once the island starts crumbling, then she'd reunite with Althea. I changed this to have a cut to Althea waiting at the boat and decide to go back for Cherry, the two would unite once Cherry wakes up from falling during her escape to see Althea is carrying her. This change to story was necessary in my eyes to add drama as well as more character interaction. 

In the first draft of my story I also had these 'tendrils' that would be trying to prevent Cherry from leaving, but I cut that out in the end as it seems unnecessary and doesn't tie into the story significantly. During revisions I added more dramatic elements such as the island splitting, this would be a call back to the cracks in the ground that appear earlier in the film, so there would be some payoff in including the cracks.  

animatic - 

Video Link - https://youtu.be/gRAt4zvgVmY?si=LJP-E8e6-7sdINLl

Working on this animatic what I was focusing on what just getting my story into a presentable state to work with. I need to move on to polishing the pacing and sound, as the SFX I have at the moment are mostly all stand-ins, I'm considering recording a lot of the sound effects myself.

There is also the case of dialogue which I have yet to add as I need to record lines, I may collaborate with other departments or even commission someone outside of the university - But first I will attempt recording lines with friends or myself before going ahead with any of those options.

I also aim to compose an original soundtrack for this short film.

Schedule -

As for my schedule for next term I have allotted weeks for each stage of the process along with tasks on to do on the side for optimal time efficiency. Having done animation tests and reflecting on my concept art I believe that this schedule can be followed.