For my final animation project, I have chosen to have help from my aunt, Babs Horton by using one of her short stories called a bit of the cherry. I have chosen to do this because I am not very good at creating stories and I thought that doing this would make my animation more personal to me.
The story is about a school headmistress who goes on holiday to Spain and decides to swim in the sea naked, a man then appears on the beach and she becomes ashamed of her reckless decisions. She then returns to the beach and sees him naked swimming in the sea, he explains to her that she should live a little and be more carefree in her life. They build up a relationship on the holiday until she leaves to go back to England where she is not happy. She visits an art gallery in which she sees a painting done by the man on the beach of her half naked and half dressed coming out of the sea and starts laughing.
I imagine this story to be of vibrant colours for the scenes in Spain and dull grey colours for when she is back in England. For visual research, I have looked at animators such as Tomm Moore who created Song of the Sea. I love the vibrant colours used in this film, I like that the colours create a dreamlike scene as they are bright but also soft. The illustration of the animation is also very dreamlike as the water is illustrated using swirls and patterns. I am interested in using this method to illustrate the sea in my animation. I have also looked at Salon Alpin particularly their animations called Blue Monday and Old Man’s Journey: Sailing as these two animations are very brightly coloured and give a very warm summer’s day feeling to them which is what I want to achieve for my scenes in Spain.
For the darker scenes back in England I have looked at the animator Saschka Unseld, the creator of Blue umbrella for Pixar. In this short film, the colours are very dull and grey which is what I want for my England scenes, but the blue and red umbrellas are vibrant in colour compared to its dull surroundings. I fell that this is a good technique I could use in my own animation by adding some vibrancy to maybe her clothes or suitcase as she walks through London to contrast and emphasises the bright, happy, dreamlike place she’s left behind to where she is now. Again I have also looked at Salon Alpin’s animations called Falter, Cinema Spot 2015 that used black and white and good lighting techniques, and also the VR painting experiences which shows an animation of London streets, in this animation I like the fact that the scene looks like it’s made of paper and I also like the purple sky. Also in Salon Alpin’s animation called that night at the gas station, I like how the rain is animated as it bounces off the car bonnet and the steamlike feel it gives as it hits the floor creates movent and shows that the rain is very heavy. I would like to use this in my own animation.
.https://vimeo.com/145296253
https://vimeo.com/salonalpin
For the character design, I have looked at artists such as Disney, Dana Terrace, and Quentin Blake. I am a huge fan of Disney and I love to work in his style so I have based my character John on Rodger from 101 Dalmatians as he is a man from England and I feel this style would suit this character, however, I have struggled with drawing the lady of the story, Elenor Redfarn by using the Disney technique. So I want to experiment using other animators as influences.
I really want to give my animation a sketch-like feel to my animation so I have looked at the work of Joanna Quinn as she is very interested in the movement and sketchy qualities in her animation, however, I feel like this technique may be too roughly done as I would like to add a little more detail to my drawings. I have also looked at the illustrator Quentin Blake as his drawings are very sketch-like and simple, I feel like keeping my characters simple will be more effective than trying to make them detailed as I am already struggling when adding more and more details to Elenor Redfarn. I am going to experiment using Quentin Blake’s technique to see if it becomes easier to create my characters and still create personality. As well as these animators I am also interested in the style of an animation called Kickball by Dana Terrace. I love this style as it’s quite sketched as you can see the guidelines on the characters but the animation is also quite finished which is a style I would like to achieve in my animation.
Dana Terrace-Kickball-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jqut8IQdDE
I also want to use Wes Anderson’s technique of breaking the rule of thirds and placing my main character in the middle of the screen especially to emphasise the uncomfortable scenes such as when she’s embarrassed in the water and also when she sees the naked man on the beach.
Joanna Quinn- https://vimeo.com/74056945
Quentin Blake- https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=quentin+Blake&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiS8IWH6bnbAhXJKMAKHRKpBhsQ_AUICigB
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