As a final brief for the second semester, we were working on an animatic based
on a script. My group, which consisted of me, Kristina and Carys, chose a
script of a third year screenwriting student. We really liked the story and found
the ending very interesting. The film is about a man called Ben, who has
kidnapped a dead girl’s body, convinced it’s his girlfriend. His friend, Simon
is trying to persuade him to take the body back to her family and while they
are talking, the police arrive and arrest Ben. Later, in the cell, Ben
strangles Simon because he doesn’t trust him anymore. In the end, after Ben’s
psychiatrist come to see him, it’s revealed that Simon is not real and he
exists only in Ben’s imagination.
Because it was originally written as a live-action
film, we needed to add an element which would make it a better animation than a
live-action film. Because I am a fan of
cyberpunk art style, I suggested it as an idea and everyone loved it.
Retro-futuristic design with neon lights and metal can look very appealing.
When it came to character design, we made
few sketches and then divided characters so everyone had someone important to
design. I took the main character, Ben, while Carys was going to design Simon
and Kristina got the psychiatrist, the girl named Allison and she also did a
few sketches of police officers. However, in the end, I ended up designing both main characters Ben and Simon because Carys’s design wouldn’t work very
well and she continued with police officers. I am quite satisfied with my
character design. My favourite things are the lights in their skin which symbolise
their status in society. We used the colours of the rainbow spectrum and their frequency, so the higher social status a
character has, the higher is the wavelength of their colour. Ben is homeless,
that’s why he has purple lights, while police officers belong to the highest
status in our imaginary society there. Simon’s yellow lights are a secret hint
that he isn’t real because as a homeless
man he couldn’t be yellow.
When it came to set design, we divided it
again. We had only three different sets which were
awesome and each of us took one of them. I did the cell, Kristina did the
warehouse and Carys took the police office. The design of the cell was a bit
tricky for me because I didn’t want it to
look too tattered but I had to stick to the dystopian retro-futuristic
atmosphere. I stuck to the futuristic
look with glass instead of bars but used the simple, concrete look. I also
added neon lights on the glass and inside the cell. The light inside of the
cell is purple and Kristina and I made a theory that they always turn on the
lights in the cell to the same colour as the prisoner.
Working on the actual storyboard and
animatic was very difficult for me, mainly because of the time management. The
problem was, that I thought the hand-in is on 19th of May and a week
before the 5th May I found out the actual date. I have no idea why I
thought it’s two weeks later but I had only one week to do everything and also
work on my other final briefs. I can see that my work is not the best work I
can create, mainly because of the lack of time, but I did the best I could. I
think my ideas – to add subtitles and music – were quite good because it helped display the story better
and the music adds great atmosphere.
I think the shots and angles would’ve worked
better if I had made more of them. Maybe I should have done it only in quick,
sketchy lines, as I wanted to, but I decided to keep the consistency of one
style so I stuck to the same style as
Kristina as Carys had already started. Also, the organisation in our team could
have been better. We didn’t communicate enough and that’s why we made few
easily avoidable mistakes. I have a feeling that the cyberpunk style didn’t fit
everyone.
In conclusion, I think the animatic is
quite good although I can see a lot of room for improvement. I know my work is
too rushed and I should have drawn more frames but the music and subtitles help
the animatic a lot. I would like to see it as 3D animation, because I think the
light and cyberpunk world would look very good in 3D, which, in my opinion,
suits the futuristic design and atmosphere.
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