I feel as though Ive reached a few problems within this project. There are three main things draining my energy and worrying me about the hand in date.
Problem no. 1: I am not happy with ending. I feel that after the pull back from Burt with the logo background to Burt back in the room it should cut soon after as the reference to his wife at the end makes it confusing to the audience what the animation has actually been about.
A few people have questioned as to whether they should feel sad, and it is exactly the opposite. I do still feel i should reference her at the beginning as he falls asleep, but to be honest i think that's all you need to see of her.
Problem no. 2: The transition from ''real world'' to imagination right at the end section isn't clear and I'm still having trouble with how best to portray this.
Problem no 3: My animation is now approximately 3 minutes long and i need to get rid of at least 30 seconds. Preferably id like it to be 2 minutes and it has been commented that i could easily do this, the thing is i would like to know what to cut previous to rendering it all out, as that seems such a massive waste of time.
There are a few other fears that i have regarding this project but the above three are the ones to the front of my mind, and personally most terrifying.
I have been working on refining the animation , making sure objects in the room are also moving in reaction to Burt; For instance items on his desk such as paper need to slide under his feet, the paintbrushes need to move when the glass is moved, the cushion on his seat needs to squash and then grow when he rises from it. Most of these thing have now been put in and i have been cleaning up the animation of Burt himself, correcting some of his poses where i had forgotten how gravity would effect the rest of his body when stood or sat in a certain way. For example in the chair i had him sitting down but not in a rested position, it was all pretty generic and so i have been correcting all of these things.
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i can say heather, your WAY ahead of me. And u have time still to sort or solve your problems. I may not even have an animation :D so dont worry, just get your head down and soon you will be able to relax and be pleased its done and done well.
ReplyDeleteOkay Heather - I've just sent you an email asking you to post everything - your concerns etc. - and, look, you've done it already. I wonder if your conversation with Mark - however helpful - has knocked your confidences; firstly, for the record, you've worked consistently and intelligently and, what's more, you're working on your own, and making a short animated film is a MASSIVE challenge, so let's not lose sight of what you're trying to do here (i.e. everything!).
ReplyDeleteAbout the ending; does it harm your film if the wife disappears? Thinking back, you and I talked at a very early stage about Burt's motivation: i.e. that he was bored, slipping into old-age, and was slightly ashamed of it, which is why the image of his wife looking proudly at her husband in uniform makes him MORE unhappy; it's this set-up that gives you the ending; i.e., that this surge of activity (fighting the fly) restores him, his fighting spirit, and when he looks again at the picture of his wife, we see that he his happier - i.e., he's accomplished something and he's proud of himself... that is one story, and it needs a set-up and a finish...
However, if you drop this back-story, you have a story of a man who, via the introduction of the fly, enters into a flashback scenario - it's more comic and it's about something else; you could certainly trim the front and the back (end on pan out of wrecked room) and you'd still have an entertaining and funny short (because your character design works and, even in pre-viz, people like the jump between real and flash-back). So - try this - just cut out the references to the wife and see what happens; get your pre-viz, and just cut it out; get him in the chair, get the television playing, put him to sleep, let him trash his house, end on reveal of trashed room... Try it, Heather :-) I'll post again when I've given the final transition some thought (and you know it might mean getting rid of the abstract background bit, because I suspect it's throwing people off).
I'll be back - and stop panicking. You've done brilliantly so far.
about the transition at the end; first idea...
ReplyDeleteWhen Burt finally hits plane could you have a big cloud of smoke greys out the dream sequence and then dissipates to reveal the living room environment? It just feels to me that you need a bigger 'bang' for when Burt finally gets the fly anyway - a kind of smoke 'cross-dissolve'?
sorry - I can't type: I meant "when Burt finally hits the plane, could you have a big cloud of smoke that greys out the dream sequence..."
ReplyDeleteoh - and regarding more subtle animation for Burt, remember that the muscles in our faces relax when we sleep - and also make his moustache relax too - exaggeration is key in animation - make it broader and make it play bigger.
ReplyDeleteI know you put it in after a conversation with me etc., but the fly close-up on the yellow background doesn't work if the previous shot goes...
ReplyDeleteOk, thank you Phil, i've got some focus points to be looking at now, it's just the ending thats causing so many problems. I do really like the imgination section part at the very end, its just quite difficult to show the audience what is really going on, and when ive put in shots of burt going for the fly cutting to similar movements of an outside shot of the plane it just looks weird. Ill try something else and ill try without his wife to see what happens to the story.
ReplyDeleteI had also considered the very end when the fly goes off and the plane follows, to keep the background of the room and keep the fly a fly and then just Burt would be in his plane but inside his living room. So the chase would pan out over his furniture in the same environment. I could possibly involve shots of misfire, knocking over furniture around him but the full reveal would be after the dust cloud settles, and then to pull back shot of final Burt. I think this way i could make a bigger thing of the end piece The only problem is that i don't want the audience to think he's shrunk or something as random as that, which im not sure if they would, but it would be using time to create this only to possibly cut it again and i dont want to waste any time.
I agree about the fly, because it would make more sense to see the fly in Burts 'real world' environment.
Thank you for all your comments Phil, they've really helped!!