“Black Dog Days” Aesthetic Style

A STILL FROM “COFFEE & CIGARETTES”

We were asked to compile images and style references which we were going to use in our Narrative based animations. Right through from the start – regardless of what visual style I wanted (ink / cross hatch / traditional), I wanted my animation to have a very “Coffee and Cigarettes” feel to its layout. “Coffee and Cigarettes” is a film by Jim Jarmusch, starring the likes of Tom Waits (a creator of sound-scapes like no other, who has been a heavy influence on the process of this project), Iggy Pop, Jack White, Steve Buscemi, Bill Murray and a whole array of people from both music and cinema. The film is in black and white, and has a very gritty, almost film noir sort of vibe, which I wanted to bring through in my piece when it comes to the colouring.

Especially regarding the image above, I would like to try and use some interesting and unusual camera angles. I will be making sure that there are some interesting / mundane objects put into the misc en scene, thus being thrust into more importance, examples being a cigarette box / bottle / wallet and so on. I could do some interesting arching camera movement centering around said objects if I’m feeling brave enough. I’ll be making tests for those ideas shortly.

The genre “Film Noir” has also played a heavy influence on the visual style of this animation. Whilst granted, my project will have a very scratchy / slightly abstract style, I want to have a film noir vibe through the cinematography and layouts. I want to have a heavy use of light and shadowing in order to really emphasize the emotional state of the main character. I will not however opt for the typical sort of music you would get accompanying this style of film.

Silhouetting will be a recurring theme in “Black Dog Days”, so I will be referencing some old Film Noir classics in order to learn how to put it across effectively. This also drives home the fact that smoke is incredibly difficult to animate, so that will definitely be an aspect which I will have to pay close attention to. I was contemplating having the dog in constant silhouette, likening it to a constantly looming shadow, so that is one option I could go for.

Another genre which will help me especially with this artistic aspect, would be the various “German Expressionist” classics available to watch online / DVD / so on. “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari” is the main focal point when thinking about expressionism and my project together. The abstract backgrounds and sets coupled with the unusual costume and make-up design will be fantastic to try out with my characters, to see if it will enhance the viewing pleasure of the audience or not.

TYPICAL EXAMPLES OF “FILM NOIR” CINEMATOGRAPHY

A STILL FROM “THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI”

I am either going to have the film as monochromatic, solely relying on cross-hatching (like the style which Illustrator Molly Crabapple uses) as a means of insinuating shadow, or have additions of grey neutral tones. I will do a quick test with both of these colour / artistic ideas soon, and upload it here, to show as to whether one or the other works more successfully. I think a mixture of both will look quite interesting. I may even have it so that the background are multiple tones, and the characters moving in the foreground are actually just monochromatic. A visual reference for this which I think illustrates my cross-hatching foreground character idea would be “I HAVE YOUR HEART” – an animation by Crabapple, Boekbinder & Batt.

This point has also made me consider drawing the backgrounds separately to the main animations. Once I have drawn out the pencil tests and get them out of the way, I will start to overlap them and see how it will generally play out between main action and background interaction. I have seen a few pencil tests online by animation students and industry professionals alike, in which they have alternated between using a background / fleshed out character / pencil lines during the testing stages. This is something I plan on making into a test video at some point very soon.

The materials which I intend to use to create the visuals for this animation are what you would typically find in my arsenal of art supplies. All the sketching and base work will be completed using a mechanical pencil / HB pencil and a bog-standard eraser. If I do choose to opt for the neutral tone additions to the backgrounds, I’ll be using Letraset ProMarkers, because they leave a nice solid finish with no pen lines. Nice and fluid! As for the cross-hatching and character outlining, it will either be done using a pigment ink fine-liner, or a high standard black ball point pen. We will all see in further visual tests!

LETRASET PROMARKERS – NEUTRAL TONES (PACK OF 6)

AbbieSTABBY [ Ident ]

Well, here is my fully completed, very first “Ident”! We were given the task during our Craft & Media Tech. seminars to create one which represented one (or all) of three points:

• (A) Our “brand name” which we have given ourselves
• (B) Our field of study
• (C) The career which we hope to aspire to after further education.

I chose to go for “brand name”, because I felt I could have the most fun with that brief – through wordplay, and some experimentation with various styles and aspects of my animations thus far. I adopted aspects of the other options into my ideas too – particularly the “Fat Norman” design (because I hopefully want to use him as a childrens book character in the future).

With all of this in mind and taken into account, I started off my drawing up a few rough storyboards in my sketchbook with a biro pen. This was so that I could get a feel for what I was doing, and to show my tutors what my ideas were at the time. I originally came up with three very different concepts – each of which showed a different aspect of my artistic style. I tried out humor, alternate styles, and original characters. Here are some animatic examples of what was drawn:

After deliberating between the three, I chose to go for the second one: The one which displayed an alternate style to that which I usually use. A silhouette effect was the intention for this ident, with the colours being inverted so that the background would be black, and the figure in the foreground being white. This not only gives off an interesting, ghostly effect, but it also goes together with the “alternative/gothic” choice of narrative and style, and general perception of things which I have from time to time. Let it be known, I have an admiration and adoration for all things creepy and spooky.

The suggestion for this experimental change in style came from one of my tutors, who after a quick discussion, mentioned that I could opt more towards my general username “AbbieSTABBY”. We both thought of what we could associate with “stabby”, and threw out several ideas. The notion of Jack the Ripper came to mind, and I immediately thought of an eerie, silhouetted, ominous figure.

Once I started the animation itself, I was very wary of the fact that this was all going to be freehand, and that I didn’t really have a clue about how I was going to make the movement into each pose fluid. Granted, some of the movements leave a lot to be desired consistency-wise, but in all, with all the frames put together in sequence, I believe it looks quite good. It consists of thirty frames, put into a frame-by-frame sequence, with a little bit of editing thrown in.

It is by no means as graceful as I originally intended, nor do the hand movements match up to my original expectations, but as a first attempt, I am very pleased. I can simply use this as a learning device / test of the water (for want of a better phrase) for creating future idents, and develop this idea further when the time comes to experiment some more!

From the storyboards, in the beginning, I wanted the knife to come closer to the screen, and the white fade edit to be quicker, so that it would give the viewer the impression of being slashed and whiting out. I will try to rectify this in a second attempt, but for now I shall leave this animation to serve as a reminder for all the changes which need to be made / must be done.

I intend to make the white segment transparent in one future edit, and play some footage in the background (obviously extending the length of the foreground animation and adding more action first). I’m thinking of something along the lines of footage of me working, or some “texture” elements such as running water, paint dripping, a fast rotation of the camera, etc. Just like “Mutant Enemy” did before me, I wish to create several variations of this ident, with different movements and themes, such as: Christmas, Film Themes, Extended Narrative…

This animation took a fair amount of planning, and some much needed after-thought to go with it. An entire evenings full concentration went into finishing this rendition off, and I was feeling incredibly happy with myself once it was completed. This venture has left me open ot all sorts of future ideas and experimentation plans, and I am looking forward to seeing what I create in the near future.