Vis Comms Session 22/2/10

On Blackboard go to Visual Communications/my courses there are more film and animation clips to look at as well as instructions and ideas on storyboarding.

Aim of this session:

· To work in pairs/groups/individually putting together a storyboard for a 30 second animation on a well known story of our choice (30 Second Stories! – see following sheet)

· Look at 30 Second Bunnies on YouT www.angryalien.com"





We will then animate these in next week’s session (TV studio is booked from 1.00 – 2.00pm from next week – this only gives of all us 1 hour between us with Derek). Try booking the studio/animation room with Derek at other times where possible – e.g: after 4.00pm)
· Consider your aspect ratio
· Don’t have to work to wide screen but this is usually used in animation (16 x 9). Can use normal screen 4 x 3.
· For a 30 second animation you would need a minimum of 9 storyboard screens and a maximum of 18.

Updated my blog - with a little help from Julie. Asked about embedding video
.
· Need to go into Edit html option
· Click on ‘embed (right hand side of screen) – copy this – edit/html – paste – preview. You will then see the video appear in the blog.
· Need to edit past postings using this so that all videos can be seen.


Working with Corinne we first considered to storyboard Bridget Jones’ Diary using rats for our characters. Need to:

Look at the defining moments in the film and storyboard accordingly:

Mother saying ‘you’ll never get a boyfriend if you look like you’ve wandered out of Auschwitz
Bridget wearing a ‘carpet’ – him wearing naff Christmas jumper – Mr Right, Wrong jumper!
Bottle of wine

Looked at a couple of trailers on YouTube to get ideas but felt there was probably too much to put into 30 seconds and not enough defining moments to get the whole idea across.



We then decided to use ‘Titanic’ for our film.







Defining moments:

Modern day – she – only survivor of Titanic disaster seeing ship for first time since it sank
Titanic – maiden voyage – unsinkable ship!
Passengers including our heroes boarding Titanic – Rich/Poor
She goes to edge of ship – he saves her and so begins a beautiful relationship
She meets him in basement – party
She takes him to dinner on the upper deck – role reversal
He paints her naked
Her fiancé – diamond
She and he – diamond
Ship hits iceberg
Everyone on top decks oblivious – some sleeping, some carry on dancing, eating etc
Gradual realisation of what’s happening
Not enough lifeboats
Confusion and fighting re: who should go..etc etc
Him and her trying to escape
Orchestra play on
All fall off
He and she clutching at debris
He lets go and sinks
She survives
Fast forward to present day – recovery of Titanic

Again, we want to use rats for our characters – think ‘rats fleeing from a sinking ship’ phrase.
Define the differences in their ‘class’ - those in steerage walk on all fours…. Those above decks, the upper classes walk on two legs.
Use cheese instead of the diamond
Rats scuttling around




Another resource that we may find very useful. Empire magazine do a yearly competition that involves re-enacting well known films in just 60 seconds. It's very similar to the 30 second bunnies but they use live action and they are obviously twice as long! Links are up in the task folder on Blackboard, but here is the URL in case you can't access BB: http://www.empireonline.com/awards2010/donein60seconds/