This was without a doubt my favorite brief of the entire academic year, and I think several of my companions on the course would agree with me on that. I was looking forward to starting on this project since the end of first year. Most of my summer in 2012 was spent accumulating ideas and inspirations in order to really make this project a good one, both in the execution of it and in the final result.
Throughout the length of this project, I dedicated the most time to it compared to other briefs we were given from other seminars, doing a phenomenal amount of research, contributory work, sketches, concept art pieces, and experimentation in order to create an interesting end product. All the evidence of this is available for reading and viewing on my University production blog page on WordPress: Abbiestabby. Without a doubt, having a production blog to work on during the term time was much easier and useful in keeping track of all of my developments and problems, as opposed to just working through sketchbooks. It made everything much easier to navigate, and I had access to it at all times.
The first large piece of research which each of us were asked to take part in was looking up the conventions of storytelling, and how it has developed both as a learning tool and an art form over the years. I did a brief research into the history and cultural developments in storytelling, from places such as medieval feudal Britain, China, India, and across Europe. I looked into the most prevalent practitioners of storytelling too, such as Propp, Todorov, The Brothers Grimm and other classic book authors such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Brontes, Mark Twain and so on.
I also looked into the different genres of storytelling, and how most takes have a purpose, often trying to teach good morals in the form of fables, or enchant in the form of fantasy, or thrill with action and drama. Reading into how the use of language was an important choice to make when writing a story, in order to appeal to certain audiences depending on age, preferred gene, and context (historical, fictional, etc).
The formats of storytelling were also a key element of my research. The most obvious being word of mouth and written, I looked into what other formats of storytelling have been used over the years in different cultures, which create for them, a sense of identity and history. Since the beginning of storytelling, there has been a mixture of portable and non-portable methods of telling a story, the most common being word of mouth. The notion of Chinese Whispers plays into the development of the art form too, original stories getting distorted and exaggerated over the years, people needed methods of keeping the original written down somewhere so that others can enjoy it to the standard in which it was originally conceived. To name a few of these formats, there are:
- Carvings and scratching
- Paintings
- Being printed or inked onto wood and bamboo
- Ivory and other bones
- Pottery
- Clay tablets
- Stone
- Palm-leaf books
- Parchment / skins
- Cloth and silk
- Paper
- Canvas and other textiles
- Recordings on film
- Electronic and digital format
The art of telling stories and creating narrative through the use of images alone has always been a universal way of conveying a narrative to people. The incredibly popular Ukiyo-E artwork of feudal Japan does exactly this. Granted, there may need to be some sense of context given to those with no prior knowledge of Japanese culture, but over all, just by looking at some of these fantastic artworks, we are able to draw meaning from them and form a story.
The inclusion of poetry and music in certain tales throughout the ages has been a popular feature, adding a deeper sense of visualization within the reader. Plays and musicals and radio dramas give a good representation of this, becoming increasingly more popular since the 60’s and 70s. A popular modern day version of this idea would be definitely some music videos. The lyrics act as the poetry, and often, music videos are taken to the extent of displaying a full narrative within the few minutes in which they run from start to finish. Awards and accolades have been created to celebrate such a display of creativity and storytelling.
The conventions of storytelling were also interesting to look at and reflect upon. I definitely took a lot of Todorov’s theory of narrative development into account when creating the narrative for my final animation concept. The most commonly acknowledged theory was this one:
- Equilibrium
- Disruption of equilibrium
- Acknowledgement of disruption
- Repair of equilibrium
- Equilibrium is restored
We were given the opportunity, alongside this research stage, to attend a storytelling seminar with a tutor form the University, and local playwright, Dave Windass. In the seminar we gave each other feedback on narrative ideas, and were asked to come up with a list of aspects and factors, which create a good story. We did some small exercises in creating a story of our own, and were asked in one of them to do the following:
- Write down the first three sentences of a story.
- Go four pages into the story. Write the first three sentences halfway down the page.
- Do an illustration and write a description of said illustration.
- Write the final sentence of your story.
- Give your story a title.
The seminar was split into two sessions, and in the second we focused more on characters and how they are made, and tried to create a character ourselves. What we did was have one person draw a head, fold the page over and pass it on. The next person drew the body and did the same, then the next did the legs, then the feet, etc. Opening up the sheet and seeing what we had created, we had to come up with a name, back story, and personality for the character. This was an incredibly fun exercise, and really helped me evaluate how I create characters, and how I can better develop them in future endeavors.
Towards the end of the intestine research stage, I looked up several quotes about storytelling and creating books by several prominent authors, from various sources on the Internet. These helped to inspire me and reflect upon different aspects of creating stories and how to portray characters and emotion, which definitely acted as a contributing factor towards my final idea.
When it came to coming up with and submitting proposals for the ideas, which we had come up with for the project, in total, I created 4. Each is a little bit different, one or two being more emotionally based, the other catering to a children’s audience, others referencing personal tastes in stories and historical figures. A basic synopsis of each idea is listed below:
- CHARLIE – The story of a little boy whose grandmother introduces him to the films of Charlie Chaplin and he becomes enthralled by them. She buys him a little bowler hat and cane, and he imitates him much to her delight. The grandmother gets ill one day and has to be in hospital. To cheer her up, the little boy goes in wearing his little Chaplin outfit in a bid to make her smile.
- THE BAR GUEST – An uncertain idea at first, I wanted to portray black dogs, either as a figurative creature or in the metaphorical sense, depicting depression. The basic idea, which I had, was that a drunken man, having recently lost a family member, is sat in a Victorian pub, and keeps seeing a black dog out of the corner of his eye. He follows the black dog out of the pub when he catches a proper glimpse of it, and ends up stumbling into a river. This idea played into both notions of the black dog being a harbinger of death and it being a visualization of depression. This left the visuals open to interpretation by the viewers.
- PROFESSOR S. LESTER’S FANTASTICAL TRAVELLING WAGON – A children’s book style narrative. The story set in a steampunk universe, of a magician and medicine vendor in a travelling wagon, going around with his inventions and potions, helping out those in need, accompanied by his sidekick, a talking cat, and his assistant, a man in a bear suit called Bear. The wagon had a hot air balloon compartment on the top, so that they could fly off to their next adventure after helping some people in need.
- FAUST AND FOREMOST – A man wakes up in an endless black domain, with only one light in the distance. He is soaking wet and shivering, despite there being no rain/ He follows the light, and comes to a singular building on its own, with some feint sounds of talking and music coming from inside. He goes inside, seeing that it’s a pub, but it is inhabited by strange figurative whisps in human shapes walking about and acting as people would. He walks to the back where there is a fireplace with an old man sat next to it with his dog. They sit and talk for a bit. They talk for a bit, and he says that if he wants to get out of this strange dark place, he has to get a match and find the exit. The old man gives him a match, in exchange for him doing a favor later on. They shake on it, and water spills heavily from his mouth. He wakes up being rescued from a crash in a river.
After having a feedback tutorial with the rest of my class after presenting all of our ideas to our tutor, we were told to choose one of our ideas to work on for the rest of the semester. Our tutor suggested to us the ones with the most potential, and because the concept I had for the black dog was so open and the narrative had not been completely decided upon yet, that was the one which I could have to most freedom writing for. I was given a list of sources and references to use on the subject of black dogs and a mythical creature and a representation of depression, so that I could come up with more ideas as I went about my business. Here are some of the notes, which I took down during our one-on-one tutorials with Gareth:
- Dogs stand in for something else – Depression / Lust / Fear
- Methods for Animation
- Story
- The Stand
- Lovecraft
- M. R. James
- Black Shuck
- Fluid Movement
- Music on Hellhounds
- Voice over or silence
- Fears of the Dark
- Dracula
- Descriptions
- Different designs
- Semiotics
- Depression
- Draw form videos
- Werewolves
- Angela Carter
I did thorough research into black dogs as a mythical creature, finding out that there is a version of the black dog being an omen of bad luck and death in practically every culture and point in history, which you could imagine. This made choosing a particular aspect of the animal very easy and fun to do. Some mentioned the dog being of a particular breed, some places had a local piece of folklore recounting of the appearance of a black dog. Each place had different names for the animal, which made choosing one, which I could use very easy too. I also fond that in some places, it is actually a helpful apparition, who often guided lost travellers to a nearby town or place of residence. This was an interesting point in particular, which I thought would be interesting to play off with my animation.
One fantastic publication, which I found after looking for reference material on depression, was “I Had a Black Dog” by Matthew Johnstone. It is a very simply worded and illustrated book, which explains the black dog as a figure of emotional distress, how he coped (or rather, didn’t) with it, and how he managed to find a way of sorting it out. Because of the way in which it was written and through the simplicity of the drawings in it, it is a universal document, which could appeal to a younger and older audience alike. I also found an animated version of the book on Youtube, which was absolutely fantastic to use as reference material.
After relaying this research back to my tutor Gareth, we sat down and spent a good 45-minute session just trying to piece together a narrative, which I could use. I had a basic idea in my head, of a an waking up with the black dog sat on top of him, following him around all day, but that was about it, I had no further ideas t flesh it out and have an actual course of action. We generated several pages of notes in the form of a brainstormed timeline, managing to create a course of narrative from start to finish. We even managed to create a back-story for the character which would appear in my animation, subtly displayed throughout, revealing why he is suffering from depression.
- The character wakes up.
- He sees the dog sat on top of him.
- He gets ready to go out, all the while the dog is there.
- He walks out the house.
- He gets on the bus and the dog is sat next to him.
- He goes to the pub and is sat there from morning till late, drinking.
- A friend sees him and carries him back to their house.
- There us a subtle shot of a picture above the fireplace of the main character, the friend who brought him home, and the friend which has passed away, causing this depression.
- There is a flashback scene in which they are all together, having fun, followed by another of him answering the phone to some bad news.
- He passes out drunk on the friends couch.
- He wakes up the next morning, looks up, and the black dog is sat on top of him again, thus continuing a vicious cycle.
- Titles.
I created some rough thumbnail storyboards after getting the narrative written down, finalized and confirmed with my tutor and the rest of the people in my class, after asking their opinions. I made several re-done versions of these storyboards, making them more presentable and less scruffy, so that I had a decent reference to work from for the cinematography, taking into account the screen resolution, camera angles, misc en scen and so on.
Getting the stylistic choice for the animation down was incredibly important. I didn’t want it to be too detailed. This is because for one thing, it would take up far, far too much time which I didn’t have due to constraints brought up by other pieces of University work which needed to be completed, and for another thing, I felt that stripping it down to something simple would portray the sense of emotion better.
We were asked to create a blog post on our stylistic influences throughout the span of the project thus far, showing which ifluences we were going to take directly style-wise, and which would prove as a starting point for certain aspects. A lot of mine was inspired by black and white film – silent film, film noir, and especially German Expressionism of the 1920’s. Films such as Coffee and Cigarettes also proved to be a fantastic source of inspiration for colouring and background layouts in the beginning (since then, I have made the animation incredibly minimalist, just using black paint and white paper).
I created a blog post on my WordPress site, with a small collection of animations by various independent artists and companies, which displayed alternative art and animation styles, which I found particularly unusual and inspirational. My tutor suggested some of the animations; classmates too, and others I stumbled across after searching on Youtube and Vimeo. Whilst some did indeed revolve around dogs and other creatures, some were created as displays of emotion and action, and poetry, which I thought were very visually stimulating, and helped me cone up with a multitude of choices for my character designs and style.
- Old Fangs
- Djuma
- To This Day
- The Man with the Beautiful Eyes
- Je T’aime
- The Flutist
- El Cannibal
Multiple concept sketches were made of the dog, sometimes experimenting with the use of cross-hatching, as I felt it was the most important figure of this animation without a shadow of a doubt. I made several videos depicting me drawing some concept pieces of the dog, which were sped up and put to music for presentation purposes. I almost filled an entire sketchbook purely on research and drawings of dogs, from different breeds to other stylistic representations of canines from other popular pieces of media.
I started to create walk tests for the animal too, but it was at this point, which I ran into some trouble. After backing up my laptop files on a portable hard drive, my laptop malfunctioned and I had to get it replaced. Before I could salvage the backup files, the portable hard drive also corrupted. I suppose in hindsight it was my fault for buying from a cheap, not-so-reputable brand. This created a mighty hindrance on the progress of this project, which I had to try and make up in what little time I had remaining on the project. I was reduced to borrowing peoples laptops, coming into university on my days off and working some long nights in order to try and make some of the work back.
I compiled a possible soundtrack for the animation, of songs, which inspired me during its creation, and songs, which seemed to fit to the concept and narrative quite well. I asked other people on my course and amongst my peers for suggestions, and was met with quite a few valid responses. Chosen either for their lyrical content or atmospheric feel, these songs really capture the essence of what I wanted this animation to be about:
- Robert Johnson – HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL
- System of a Down – ROULETTE
- System of a Down – LOST IN HOLLYWOOD
- Johnny Cash – HURT
- Sully Erna – UNTIL THEN
- Tom Waits – WALK AWAY
- The Doors – BLUE SUNDAY
- Traffic – DEAR MR FANTASY
- Godsmack – TOUCHE
- Godsmack – ASLEEP
- Godsmack – RUNNING BLIND
- Coldplay – SPARKS
- Aphex Twin – NANOU 2
- Green Day – REST
- Alter Bridge – IN LOVING MEMORY
- Space Needle – NEVER LONELY ALONE
- Counting Crows – COLOURBLIND
- Mogwai – I LOVE YOU, I’M GOING TO BLOW UP YOUR SCHOOL
- King Diamond – PEACE OF MIND
Creating the pencil frames for the test animations, which I then went on to paint over for the main frames, was easy enough to get started with. I set the dimensions that I wanted to work by, wanting to go widescreen for cinematography purposes. After experimenting with several sizes I decided on a final proportion and got to work.
Several of the shots which I had planned out in the storyboards found in my personal sketchbook ended up not working as well as I had hoped. So, instead of wasting any more time on them I cut them completely. That is one of the most useful things that come out of the pencil test process – the ability to rectify mistakes and see which ideas just will not work.
I managed however, to alternate some of the designs, which didn’t work, allowing me to keep them, but with a better end result. I took into account factors such as framing and perspective, in order to make otherwise boring shots more unusual and interesting to potential viewers. The somewhat German Expressionist inspiration I acquired for the project gave me the option of not having everything dead-set in regimented proportions, but at the same time without looking poorly drawn. This was perhaps the most fun aspect of the project.
Originally I wanted to paint up the frame in a scratchy style using ink and brush, but unfortunately, I was unable to obtain ink as and when I needed it to complete some of the frames. In order to make the best of a somewhat bad situation, I decided to substitute the ink for acrylic paint, whilst using the dry brush technique. The variation between scratches in each frame has made the animation look very charming, with that sort of homemade, attention-to-every-frame sort of vibe. Each frame was painted individually over a period of several days, giving each page time to dry.
After scanning the images in and touching up the colour contrast a bit, I imported them into Adobe Flash, and started editing them into a sequence. I fiddled about with the frame rate for a good half an hour until it was at a standard and rate I deemed acceptable. This was done yet again with help from a classmate who was much better versed in using Flash than I was. Asking for help and feedback on a project certainly isn’t a bad thing; in fact, I think it is a necessity to help development!
As it stands, I have a good portion of the opening of the animation completed and up on YouTube for viewers to look at. I wish I would have gotten more of it completed before the deadline, but nonetheless, I am happy that I have a good starting point, which I can work on from now on, should I choose to continue with the project. This was by far a much more productive and time-effective project than previous ones from this and last semester. I will definitely be applying techniques and work ethics from this project into my Final Major Project for next year, which I hope will be even more of a success to work with than this one.
AbbieSTABBY 