mis-en-scene

Back to Bruce Timm's Batman. I wanted to show the intro to the animated series since it's got more great creative stuff that I think we should look at.

Firstly yeah it's waaaaay to dark for what we are going for but I'm looking at it in different ways. First off the architecture in this is all out of whack, but in a good way sharp and shapely to accentuate the dark feel of the piece, we've already looked at disfigured shapes for our film but there's always room for more reference. the environment is just as important for portraying the mood of our film as the characters. It's all part of the mis-en-scene as Kieron would say.

What else, ah yes the music...well I should just let it speak for itself as it's so kick ass. The composer Shirley Walker won awards for this I think, or at least was nominated for them. Basically our film has no dialogue so we need music and or sound effects to fill that silence and this is a gret example of how sound can compliment and build upon the imagery of a piece. Gah all the rising and dipping bits in that piece when the batarangs hit the goons guns and then Bats dives onto the guy. It's great stuff. In any case it's not something we want to underestimate.

Once we have a final animatic we can probably get some sound design or people who study music to look at it and give it a go since I think having some real instrumentals involved would really do us some good.

Codehunters

I couldn't get any good images of this from the web so I found a version of it on youtube. it's not a great version but it'll have to do.

Anyway codehunters is a film that Jared showed me in term 3 I think of our second year. It sort of stuck in the back of my mind and I just think that it is a great example of lighting and texturing. The shadows cast on the characters and environment are also real simple and show in 3D the sort of thing I was talking about with Sean Galloway's colour/ shading style.

I really like the colour scheme in this film as well, nothing stands out too much but at the same time it doesn't just form a blur, I think this would be a cool look for us but with some brighter colours not just greys and browns.

cheeky

Here we are again, Sean "cheeks" Galloway. At one point or another you've probably seen me reference this guy but here he is again simply because he has been one of the biggest influences on my work of late. Like Timm he's a cartoonist/ comic artist and has designed characters for a couple of animated series such as the Spectacular Spiderman cartoon and Hellboy animated.

Like Bruce Timm I admire his very simple but well drafted line work. I always used to add too much detail into my sketches untill I lost the origional image however these guys showed me that a character drawing doesn't have to be super complex to look good. (Damn good)

I love looking at his stuff because it gives me something to work towards but it also makes me cry myself to sleep thinking I'll probably never get there. Still I can chase him all the way and hopefully pick up some neat tricks along the way.

On top of his line work however his colouring style is something that not only influences my own art style but is something I think we should consider for our final film. Very muted colours and simple shading. Despite our film being in 3D I think keeping a look similar to the initial concepts would make an interesting looking film.

Better late than never

Dan brought up a good point yesterday over a game of Uncharted 2 about getting our individual research sorted on our blogs. This is something that usually lets me down as I forget to reference it, usually I just look at something and think "oh that's cool" and incorporate it into my work without thinking. This time however I'm gonna reference some shizz. Some of this stuff has probably been put up by the others on the group blog but this is my own stuff so here goes.

Well lets get the ball rolling with some stuff that has inspired me and my art style since character design and storyboarding is a big part of what I've done so far on the project. I'm sure you all know Bruce Timm or at least recognise his stuff if not then shame on you. He is a comic artist/ cartoonist probably best known for his work on the Batman animated series. I really like the way that he draws the human figure using very simple shapes mixing curves with sharp lines to define muscle tone and portray very strong poses.

The examples I am showing are all black and white because mostly what I take from Bruce Timm's work is the line art

Derelict

Finished that environment design. It turned out ok, never tried to make an image just in photoshop with no pencils before. It was hard to get it to look bare without making it look boring so I kept adding stuff.

I'm too tired to write about it, anyway a picture says a 1000 words.

D.I.Y.

So I went to buy a new sketchpad but once I got home I really didn't feel like drawing anything. I'm running out of sketching steam so to speak so I'm gonna take a break from that for a few days so I can come back strong with some character sketches or some such.

So to make myself feel productive I started up a design for the interior of where the Hitman/Bodyguard is going to be. Everyone seems to be making stuff with shapes in photoshop rather than drawing anything so I figured I would give it a go. It's pretty barebones so far but It's going ok. I made a table in there as well but deleted it quick time since it didn't look right.

I'll just keep adding stuff to this bad boy till it looks right. Want to finish it and maybe start a different design before the weekend since I want to spend some time tackling my essays for Gareth and Kieron.

sketches from the underground

Did these earlier, just trying to think of things that would make up the targets room. Drawing objects instead of characters got real boring real fast though.

Speaking of which...

It's already on the board at college I just forgot to post it up here the other day, finished boards. Give or take a few that may need to be reworked down the line.

Deep sixed

Yet another design. I did the initial sketch a while ago but only just got round to inking/ colouring it because of having to re-do the storyboard etc...

This was based on the idea that the target was in witness protection or something and the mob was after him. This guy has too much character though so the faceless ninjas are a better option.

Hashashin

A concept for an alternative assasin, he's based off of the arabic word Hashasheen or hashshashin or something which is where the word assasin supposedly origionates.

Sad sack

Character design for the target character in out film. Re did the design to make him look more run down and easier to sympathise with. He looks like his dog's just been run over if you ask me.

Meh

Re-did the colours but it pixelated bits beyond f***ery for some reason.

In the light of day

A concept here for the opposing assasins that our hitman will be killing a lot of. I had to keep a simple design which almost killed me, I totally wanted to go overboard and draw like a 90ft long katana etc but this has to be in keeping with the rest of the film. I'm not really sure about the colours to be honest, again though it needs to fit with the rest of the characters and environment so I kept the colours pretty light.

Self reflection

Yesterday we had a pretty good talk about composition in animation. I regret to say I've forgotten the name of the dude who gave us the talk but he was pretty awesome. Some of the aspects we went over I knew of already but there were fresh things I picked up as well. Most importantly I got some decent feedback on my storyboards. He pretty much said that the composition and angles were good but didn't care for the fact that I had coloured them all up, pretty much said I could do the job with some simple tonal work. Also recommended that I think about the screen size when doing the panels, something that I had completely neglected.

Great bit of constructive crit so I've been boarding some scenes today from our revised script taking into consideration some of the things I was told.

Once I find out the dudes name I'll revisit this post.

Stay loose.

Target Sighted

Design for the target, Was thinking mebbe he should be a shamed politician or something. More on the group blog.

Ciao

Windswept and interesting

Since we have a much firmer idea of the story now I was thinking about the final look we are gonna go for with the characters so I sketched up the Hitman or Bodyguard. I didn't want to stray too far from Sam's design since it was pretty strong anyway but well here it is anyway, I will probably do a few variants.

I'll try and get some nice pieces done for the target and mebbe some of the other assasins too before I get back to storyboarding.

Peace.

Follow up

Yeah well I've been coming up short trying to write some ideas for our film so I drew that little strip of this idea me and Lewis were mucking about with yesterday.

We were thinking of the most random plot twist. Sam said he wanted a massive explosion so I was thinking it's so godamned big it could be seen from space and well...the strip you see below was born.

I'm doing Kierons film analysis thingy at the moment as well and I watched Rear Window which is a great example of establishing everything quickly and entirely visually so I might post that up. I also have some great examples of short stories in this book called "The best american comics 2008" So I'll bring that in and show y'all.

I dunno how much it will help us but there are some quality little stories in there that don't involve deep backstories.

It's a little out there

Translation:

"Foolish Eartlings they offer nothing but violence and fart jokes! They are unworthy of joining the interstellar collective of planets! Come let us return to Flajardy 7 and turn in our report"

"Commander please reconsider! What of the entertainment broadcast the Gilmore Girls?! Surely this work of genuis can make a case for humanities value?"

"Fear not sub-commander, I picked up the full box set on blu-ray from the HMV sale!"

"AH, good thinking sir! Very well then let us make haste away from this damp space rock!"

Not just a rant

Now the previous post was just some stuff I needed to get off my chest about our meeting with Mike and Dave. It's not an attack or a petulant outburst it's my feelings and concerns on the matter.

So moving on, where can we go from here, as if I didn't give any suggestions then it really would just be a rant. As I said before, I think Mike and Dave where right about trying to flip the ending of the piece. We discussed some stuff briefly earlier but the best idea I think was that it's revealed at the end that the "Hitman" has actually been protecting the target throughout the whole film. I think Shuffly came up with it. He also expressed concerns that maybe this is too obvious a reveal. However if handled right I think it could be pretty good.

I think the reveal can come in the last scene when it looks like the hitman is going to shoot the target point blank. The target closes his eyes and the gun goes off however he isn't dead, the dude opens his eyes and we can maybe see a figure over the targets shoulder, the foreground blurs revealing a third person behind the target who the Hitman has just shot. (This is where it's maybe too cliché the whole over shoulder thingy)

After this event the film can rewind and we can see sped up versions of all the previous attempted assasinations and they are revealed to actually be succesful attempts to stop the target being harmed. For example when he tried to shoot the guy and missed, from another angle we see that he was actually aiming at an assasin trying to get to the target.

It would be kind of like the first time you see Terminator 2 when we all know Arnie as being the killer from the first film the opening is set up to make him look like he's after John Conners blood and the T1000 comes back but we think he is the Kyle reese type character. Then in the corridoor scene comes the reveal we think that Arnie is going to shoot John but instead rattles off the words "get down" and protects him. It was a great flip or at least I thought so.

Anyway I think we could work with something like that but mebbe someone else will come up with something stronger.

Cut to the bone

So we talked to Mike about our idea today and I left college with feelings of frustration and confusion. When Sam pitched his idea a few weeks back it was as a gag oriented piece. A simple short about a Hitman trying to kill his target and through a series of hilarious interventions this proves harder than it should.

It was picked as this idea however it seems now that we are expected to create something completely different to this with themes of redemption or moral ambiguiety as opposed to a comedy piece.

This is a fair enough suggestion, however why was this film picked after being delivered as a gag film if we are now supposed to make it into some epic story of a Hitman trying to eliminate his target while revealing to us the audience his motives for doing so as well as revealing the nature of his target. A lot of the things we were told seemed quite contradictory. For instance we were advised to not take ideas from existing media similar to our idea yet could not be advised enough to emulate something like Leon. Another thing that frustrated me was the "why do this in animation?" when honestly you could ask the same about most of the films being made this year.

I could go on about this for a while but that wouldn't be productive and I'm not so much angry as a little frazzled by the whole ordeal. One thing I took away from this which I think the entire group agreed on was getting an ending that was strong or had a twist to it. We were advised to have the Hitman question his morals or something along those lines or have a flashback? revealing his reasons and what not. This confused me more as to come up with something believable along these lines it would take minutes and one of the things that we were told was important in the pitch was keeping it short and manageable. I mean Leon is a great film as Mike and Dave seemed so eager to convey to us however it runs over an hour and a half and even in that time they very sparsly visit his backstory. We have 2 minutes.

So in my mind we can flesh out the backstory of both the Hitman and the target but it's unnecessary to delve into this in the film itself. It should be enough that he's a Hitman , he kills for money. If we set it up as him having some big moral dilemma then it really will become like every other Hitman film ever. i.e. Leon- A proffesional killer becomes complacent in his proffesion due to the influence of a young girl who he develops feelings for and it leads to his eventual death. Grosse point Blank- A proffesional killer loses his taste for killing and pursues his lost love in an attempt to "pick up" where he left off.

Pizza-Hurtz

Yeah so the final scene and opening are pretty much done...I'll move onto boarding the gags next just as soon as we are all clear on what's happening with them.

something aboot sunday makes me sleepy...

Nap time.

Keep yapping

blah blah blah...

Drop!

5. What a wonder ful world this could

6. Be-UGGG!

7. The hitman stomps past

8. On a warpath

9. He notices his unintentional handiwork

10. Close up on the Pizza boy

I have the rest of the scene up in my brainbox it goes something like this at the moment.

11. Close up on the hitman to show he's just had an idea

12. Cut to the target in his motel room watching the tube

13. He hears a knock at the door

14. Gets up to answer the door

15. 1st person view from the targets perspective opening hte door

16. Final shot of the Hitman in the pizzaboy's outfit.

I'll git the rest of those panels done over this weekend I guess and mebbe get a start on the squirrel bit but I'm still not sure on the details of that bit wether he picks up the mine or just sets it up. nothing a quick chinwag won't clear up I'm sure.

Have a good weekend dudes and dames.

Skip to the end

More panels for the Pizza boy bit, this is the rageahol taking over the hitman.

1. PDA goes off in his pocket yet again

2. Hitman angy

3. Hitman Smash

4. TAKE THAT WING-ED SPAWN OF SATAN!

to be continued...

Catch up

Coloured up the panels that I left unfinished from the other day...others to be shown in next post.