Negotiated Propsal

BA(Hons) Animation

Negotiated Proposal

AN5: Advanced Theory and Practice 5

Level 6, Semester 1

Printed first drafts must be handed in by 4pm Thursday 6^th October 2005

Any alterations to your proposal must be documented and re-submitted using a new form where necessary.

All forms must be counter-signed by your Module Leader.

All forms will become part of your final assessment.

Name:	Tom Brown / Daniel Gray	Date:	6/10/05
Working Title:	Thomas	Revision No.	2

Premise

The theme of the film is that of a young boy who, in order to get out of schooling, goes to school in the nude.

Outline

The story so far…

“My name is tom, every day I have the same routine. First I get up, put on my pants, socks, shirt and tie, and trousers. shoes. I then clean my teeth, eat one and a half slices of toast with the jam from around the strawberries. I don't like lumps in jam but my mum keeps buying the lumpy one. I pick up my school bag packed from the night before and out of the door. Up the left hand side of the path, cars drive on the left hand side of the road in Britain, Japan and probably some other places. At this corner I take off my shoes and place them upside down under Mrs. Embers bush, its leaves are big and they don't have a dog so they wont get wet. This is where I put my socks (post box on a house) he checks his post at 7am every day so they'll be safe all day here. These socks are 100% cotton - I’m allergic to some man made fibers. I hide my trousers here (maybe a rack in an Oxfam shop with a sleeping attendant he thinks she might be dead), I sometimes look at myself in this window, I don't think I’m the only one, I think its the only reason people stop at this shop because they never go in. I think I look like i have a shirt on, I’m a boy. That’s the park; I don't go and play there anymore because it’s for little kids. I take my shirt off by loosening my tie a little, and opening the top two buttons, it all slips off in one then, it looks a bit like there's an invisible man wearing it. That pen ran out ages ago but I like how it looks. (Hides the shirt under the merry goes round about thing). Every day I get sent home from school (walks through the gate). I don’t like school, so I do this and get sent home. (Walks up a corridor and opens the door of a class room).... something... something like that”.

Treatment

The piece is a narrative, driven by the mono log of the main character describing his day. The medium we are currently investigating is a 2D/3D hybrid. The choice of colour and visual style is that of a halcyon summer morning. Bright and transparent, with the bulk of the background and environmental cast is currently being made up from idealised advertising images. Cereal box images, images of school children painted with the joyous glaze that advertising seems so adept at. That’s the sort of environment we are currently trying to go for.

The main character of tom is an aggressive looking young boy, he’s meticulous and considered in all he does, although the rules of his consideration are somewhat off if calibrated by the sense of the average person.

Research

Le Building , Goballs people, 2005./A Backbone Tale, Jeremy Clapin, 2005

What we drew from these particular animations was their use of entirely 2-D principals through 3D computer generated means. The end result being neither a 2D film nor a 3D one (with all the connotations that normally go with them) but is in fact an animation that carries the narrative seamlessly and with an unbroken diagesis.

The story in Le Building is a very simple cause and effect scenario, which effectively drives a visual circus through a housing block and its surroundings. We particularly admire the sense of progression and pace in this piece, something that we would like to adopt in our short film.

A Backbone Tale is about the lonely existence of a man whose extreme stance makes him incompatible with society, resulting in him leading a loveless and lonely life. The conclusion of which sees him meet someone with an equally extreme gaunt resulting in true love. As well as the stunning visual styling this film has in motion it is also the way the story is told that interests us. It has an attention to detail in every respect that ties the character, environment and communication of the story together in a very satisfying and tight manner. We will pay particular attention to this kind of integration in our production.

Roles and Responsibilities

Pre-production/Production/Post-production

The roles with in each of the production stages are going to be undertaken with equal responsibility by both members of our team. These are the tasks, in order of execution:

Story and character design as a tandem development.

Environment and environment character design alongside production of a storyboard as the resources can be shared effectively.

Make an initial recording of the narrative monologue.

First construction of the elements (animatic) and evaluation in order to maximise out put quality.

Scratch sound recording.

Gather all the resources in order to construct finished levels of quality on static images and background elements.

The building of the environment and combining with the background elements.

Vectoring out the animation of tom with the environment.

‘Inking’ the vectored animation in photoshop.

Record the final sound.

Compositing and Editing with final sound.

About you…

“Viewing my work retrospectively, I can see two areas that I would like to build on, both style and performance are evident in my soundscape and Group project, and this is something that I would like to work on and advance in my final year of study. Considering the issue of style, I believe it is very important in a short film to have a tight coherent style, as this will captivate an audience far greater than narrative or dialogue. This includes character design, world design, consistent Palette and the general aesthetics of the piece.

Performance plays a major role in animation and as I am writing my dissertation on the matter I would like to put the theory I am writing about and apply it to my practice as this will both inform and help develop both my theory and my practical work. My soundscape, Early Worm, was a basis for where I would like to take my work. I tried to create a believable world through the aesthetics but, character and world aesthetically are one. However then through the performance and animation of the bird I wanted to create a misbalance, pulling the bird out of that world and drawing the attention to him. I really enjoy that concept and would like to extend it further. I also managed to work on this with my latest project, but not to the extent that I would have liked.- Tom Brown