La Maison En Petits Cubes

A friend of mine linked me this film and it's a PERFECT source of inspiration - everything I'm trying to do but done well: flashbacks, montage, loss of loved ones etc etc etc and there's even the bit where the old man pours two glasses of wine! Actually, thinking more about things this is what I've been aiming for (but obviously this film is a much longer format than what I'm doing) so hopefully now that I've watched this I can fix my entire animatic. Here's to being hopeful!

Film by Kunio Kato

Thank you Oliver Sin :)

Animatic 2

I should've done this LOOOONG ago - I can see a lot of the areas where the images aren't communicating very well now that I have looked more carefully at the storyboard and timed out the images. I have fixed the beginning quite a lot from its initial storyboard sketch (which you can see has been re-drawn) and the later two thirds of the animatic haven't been amended yet you expect to see more improvements (hopefully!) There's barely any sound but try to imagine a nice bit of piano music :)

The story is still lacking a bit...I guess I'm being rather literal with my narrative and there's not much hidden symbolism but for some reason my brain just isn't thinking that way right now. Maybe once I sort out the animatic I can start adding layers of meanings to my film.

In-betweened

I couldn't get the right feel for the action in the previous post so I added a few in-betweens to smooth out the action and feel a bit happier about this animation test. There's obviously still room for improvement...and to be fair there's isn't that much difference between this revised test and the one on my previous post!

Here I slowed the action down a bit and added a slight pause when the woman realises he's putting a coat on her. I think I prefer the longer pause from the last test. At least I'm learning! :)

Another ROUGH test

I don't really know why this took me as long as it did :S and I know I have a LOT of timing issues to sort out with this. I'll add a few more in-betweens then re-linetest it again - hopefully I'll be able to adjust the timing a bit better!

I've imagined this scene a couple of times in my head to put into the last section of my story (which hadn't been storyboarded!) and it seemed a suitable action to try out for another animation test involving the touch of a loved one. What is shown here is the ghost character reminiscing about the time when he was alive - just another one of those moments when the couple were happy.

The storyboard is almost complete - Once I sort out a rough idea for the ending I'll go back through the whole thing and adjust the scenes then time them out in an animatic. Need to get a move ON! This whole animation test thing is starting to work, [although I don't want my film to revolve around the theme of romance/love too much] I feel like I can use the moments when the ghost tries to touch his fiancée to enhance his own absence and the loneliness of the woman.

A VERY quick animation test

During my tutorial yesterday I was set the task of making an animation test of the tender touch of a loved one (something along those lines). In my film I want to include bits where the ghost tries to touch his fiancée but instead creates a gentle gust of wind. For the animation test I chose to animate one such situation where the ghost goes to touch the woman's hair (maybe flashback to show it's a habit that he had when he was alive) but a breeze comes and blows the hair back.

As you can see, my skills are barely coming out of hibernation - it's meant to be very rough so the movements aren't quite there yet but I tried to show how the ghost's hand slows down upon "touching" the woman's face and I made the movements of the fingers very subtle. It's not too successful but I don't think I made a good choice of action to animate for this task.

The purpose of this test to get myself in the right frame of mind to explore the emotions and sensitivity between two people who have loved and lost. It was supposed to help inspire my film but I don't really feel any different. I'll continue making such tests in the meantime to get back into the flow of animation. I am rather rusty but it's fun to pick it up again and realise how much I still enjoy it :)

At the moment I'm most happy with my most recent storyboard - if I just storyboard the last section then time the images out in an animatic then maybe I'll be able to find a way of communicating what I want more clearly.