Idea Development

Ideas for the character

• An introvert?
• Gets excited about taking pictures
• Avoid setting him up for the day. Doesn’t get up and just start taking pictures.
• Starts off with footage of footsteps and camera clicking – waist down, legs running, camera clicking – contribution to circular narrative.
• Starts with lots of legs walking past, sound of our character comes in and the camera locks onto his legs
  

Ideas for the character design

• Our main character is short and squat. His stature positions him below the eye line of the other people in the world.
  

Environment Design

• All the background are designed to compliment the short character. They consume him.
  

Story

• Man scene in city, taking pictures of mentioned events. Finally seen scurrying keenly after something.

Below is a sketch of an idea for the crowds, having the shape of the main character reflected in their design - so the negative space of the other peoples legs is the shape of our protagonist.

Here is a concept sketch I have done based on Dan’s character. I like the idea of having the camera’s really low down, exaggerating the stature of the character.

Character Design

I came across this little jem by Dan G today - I really like the design of this little guy. The posture of the far left one is great, his little belly sticking out and his small pin legs. I can imagine this sort of Character working really well – his small stature setting him apart from the rest of the world and depicting the child like aspects of his ‘mental disillusions’. And… I really like his nose – he’s cute in a strange and repulsive way :p

Circular Narratives...

Today Dan G suggested an Idea that I love. It’s looking into circular narratives to re code the conventions of narrative. The story is about a little man who has a tourist / toy camera like the one’s we saw in Annecy. Where you look through the viewfinder and when you take pictures it gives you a slide show of tourist attractions of the area.

So the man walks around a decrepit town he finds objects that seem ordinary or unpleasant and takes pictures of them – and in his mind they are turned into beautiful and great things e.g. he sees a dead cat on the side of the road, takes a picture of it and the slide is of a kitten in a field. He does not change the objects in the real world – only in his mind. It is more about the characters delusion and self deceit.

After talking about this – we went to Nick’s house to discuss the idea with the whole group.

The rest of the group also liked the idea *cheers* and we began thinking of aesthetic ideas and more scenarios.

Below is what we discussed and agreed on in the meeting.
Group project idea – Slide Camera Idea

• Man, tourist, travels around taking holiday snaps of various places and subjects of a dark theme, but through his camera lens they seem happy and perfectly normal. E.g. dead cat, but picture shows a cute live cat.
• Real world has dark, sketched aesthetic, taken pictures are lively and colourful.
• Research look and feel of slide camera pictures – strange hyper-touched up with text in the corner. (i.e. tower of pizza)
• There are other people in the environment, but the man imagines they’re not really there, so they appear to be painted in the background.
• Relative level of abstraction so that it cycles better
• Toward the end he’s actually looking for things to take pictures of
• At the end you see him running from place to place taking pictures, implied to maintain the cycle.

Aesthetic Ideas

• Pencil drawn characters in CG 3D environment
• Pencil drawn backgrounds on simple layers. Parallax scrolling simple 3D
• Ink drawn backgrounds?
• Life drawings of the dark objects, to provide high contrast with the colourful slide images.
• Slides are like the hyper-realist sea-side esq. postcards

Environments

• Building – run down 1970s concrete block dwellings, through the camera is the leaning tower of pizza. He looks above the camera at the building, thinks about it, tilts his head slightly and takes the picture.
• Dead cat by the side of a skip, starved to death – through the lens a happy kitten (butterfly! Butterfly!)
• Social crime (mugging etc), people struggling over a handbag, turns to happy image of people holding a bag together.
• Closed, white washed/boarded up shop fronts turn to busy Parisian Street with café.
• Tramp and trolley turns to jolly ice cream salesman and happy little child.
• Industrial chimney to hot geezer. Jelly stone park esq.
• Open man hole cover turns to little bunny in it little bunny hole.
• Busker to mariachi band.
• Burn out car turns to park scene.
• Flying carrier bag turns to kite.
• Gutter full of manky water turns to aerial view of resort.

Segregation

After much discussion about the proposed idea, a split began to form in the group, half the group, myself included, wanted to do something a little more challenging so that we could push ourselves further.

Below are some images and examples of styles that I would prefer to work towards.

Megalomaniac ( Studio AKA)

Jojo In The Stars (Studio AKA)

Eye For An Eye (Shynola)

I really enjoy this darker style of CG, less clean and ‘shiny’. Although a controversial idea, working towards this sort of aesthetic would defiantly stimulate me and keep me interested in the project.

Inspiration and Research

After looking into a multi narrative idea, I looked into some films that take on the same issues and how they were able to portray it.

Below a still from The End Of The World In Four Seasons(1995) by Paul Driessen this film show a series of different narratives all ongoing and at different points of each characters story, repeating and interacting with one another – not unlike the idea we have thought of, however we were looking to have the characters interact less literally with one another, and from a top down view.

Below are a series of stills from Tango(1987) by Zibiginiew Rhyezynski here we see a string of multi narratives all using the same space. The way the character interact is more in line with our way of thinking.

Multi Narratives

We discussed the types of conventions that we were interested in Recoding, The main topic of conversation was narrative, and ideas around recoding the conventions of a traditional narrative i.e. Equilibrium > Disruption > Resolution.
Maybe a sort of multi narrative based subject.

Below is an image of the idea we came up with.

Here we can say a whole strand of multi narratives – all the characters are following their own narratives, but in the end they are all interlinked e.g. In the top right corner there is a girl turning on and off a light, spilling the light into the room across the road. All of the narratives are of different lengths so, maybe, some of the narratives repeat – characters spend the entire film in and on going cycle. All interlinking all ongoing and all separate.

Convention Confirmation

Today we met up as a group and after much discussion on Recoding conventions – we decided to first lay down exactly what is that we are Recoding. A definition of Convention that we all agree upon…

Conventions

As a type of film or television develops, filmmakers and directors find certain techniques that become useful or effective in creating texts. These techniques get used again and again, and eventually they are associated with and are used to define certain types of texts. The techniques then become known as conventions.

Documentary has its fair share of conventions, which we can recognize in such mockumentaries as This is Spinal Tap and the recent A Mighty Wind, for these films call heightened attention to the conventions in order to make fun of them.