Figure 1: Ed, Edd n Eddy running: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x605vd4
Ed, Edd n Eddy was a Canadian-American animated series that premiered in 1999 and was created by Danny Antonucci.
The run cycle used in the series and the character's body language and movement is immediately indicative of each character's personality. Ed, whose colour scheme is a red and white shirt, a green coat and a set of purple trousers, is running with his back arched backwards, his arms hanging down and his legs moving in an upward running arc. This indicates that his persona is that of a kind, happy-go-lucky figure. He has the least intelligence in the group but also the most strength as he has been able to lift abnormally heavy loads throughout the series, including an entire house.
Edd, or he's otherwise known, Double D, is the most intelligent in the group but lacks the immense strength of Ed. His colour scheme is his black hat this is never removed, a red t-shirt, and a dark purple set of trousers with blue shoes. His body language in his run cycle is that is upright, holds his arms around his chest and has a uniform running cycle with legs put out in front. This indicates that his persona is disclipined, polite and law-abiding, and has often garnered the respect of his neighbors even though he is still outcast due to his association with Eddy's scams. He is voiced by Sam Vincent
Eddy, the self-appointed leader, is the most self-centered member of the group and often puts his own interests and needs first. His colour scheme is a yellow shirt with a red stripe, a set of blue trousers and a pair of red shoes. His run cycle includes his eyes stretched out in front in a grabbing position, his legs moving in a circular pedal-like fashion and his neon-green tongue sticking out with his mouth wide open. This indicates a hungry, greedy persona, which he inherited from his brother, and it is believed that the character is a resident of his own world, but by the series finale, the character is shown to finally have remorse for his past misdeeds.
an animation of an
alien-like being coming down from the sky is seen in a projection-like aura on
the tay bridge memorial before vanishing upon touching the ground.
MAIN PROTAGONIST APPEARS IN
REAL LIFE FROM BEHIND MEMORIAL. HE IS PERPLEXED BY THE SIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM,
WHICH IS THE VIEW OVERLOOKING THE DUNDEE WATERFRONT FROM THE SOUTHSIDE OF THE
TAY RIVER.PROTAGONIST THEN PROCEEDS TO
PUT ON GLASSES WHICH ALLOW HIM TO SEE TINTED, PLANET-FILLED SKYLINE ABOVE THE
CITY.
CUT TO:
scene 02
EXT. TAY RIVERSIDE, LOOKOUT POINT – DAY
PROTAGONIST IS SEEN
WALKING ALONG THE RIVERSIDE NONCHALANTLY BEFORE STOPPING BY THE LOOKOUT
POINT.HE TURNS HIS HEAD TOWARD THE
METAL AND can see particles flowing up it.He stretches his neck in closer to try and see the objects more clearly,
whilst passers around him walk by, unable to see anything. he then proceeds to
climb up the stairs to the platform.Once there, he raises his glasses in awe, as he can see a blue whale
slowly emerge from the tay water and spout water.The protagonist is taken aback and reels from
the water spraying, but again, no one else is respondent to the sight.
cut to:
protagonist standing underneath the tay bridge,
looking up at the beams of the road bridge. he can see visions of amorphous
creatures swimming above him gently through the water.
dissolve to:
scene 03
ext. Tay riverside - Day
The protagonist is continuing his walk along the riverfront,
and is too shy to communicate to anyone around him. Then, he looks at the wall
beside him to see animations of a cyclist resembling beano riding past him at speed.then more cyclists speed past him, followed
by a zooming out shot indicating the accumulating crowd and his sense of
isolation.This causes the protagonist to
feel uneasy, as indicated by shot resembling a poor antenna television signal. He
then looks towards the city train station.
cut to:
scene 04
ext. dundee railway station – day
protagonist is seen walking towards the railway
station interior.There are a group of adelie
penguins walking along the street non-chalantly as if the area is their natural
environment.The protagonist then peers
through the glass to see an animated projection of character working on laptop in
a train carriage environment whilst the train is in motion.He then smiles at this sight.
cut to:
Scene 05
ext. dundee industrial area – day
protagonist has ventured into the industrial area,
and observes the derelict condition of the space around him.he then pulls out a remote control device and
then hits fast forward.This transports
him to a more productive era where the screen is in an early 20th century gritty
quality, and there is smoke pouring out of a mill, indicating its productivity.
cut to:
Scene
06
Ext.
Dundee commercial street – Day
Protagonist is seen walking along the dundee high
street.The sights of rampant
commercialism and empty shops makes him unenthusiastic and slightly repulsed,
and the footage begins to haze into a view of a dimension constructed in
corporate-style logos. He then tries to look away, but his vision starts to
resemble a rotoscoped quality.no one
else observes this, but he runs away to evade this polluting ambience.
Cut to:
Scene 07
ext. stack retail park – Day
Protagonist is seen at retail park on bench,
calming himself after the event in the high street.He looks up to see the stack tower, and can
see an animation of a steam of jute growing up the brickwork.He is calmed by this sight.
cut to:
scene 08
ext. dundee law – day
Protagonist is seen at Dundee law, sitting on
bench, overlooking the cityscape at the peak beside the memorial.He appears to be content with the sight around
him, but is deterred by a sudden, distinct smell.He then peers down at the ground, and catches
an alarming sight of the ground becoming molten, flowing lava.
Cut to:
scene 09
Ext. Camperdown park – day
Protagonist is seen in camperdown environment,
observing tranquility of the surroundings.He is then greeted by animated projections on trees of butterflies and red
squirrels.The final shot is him
standing on bench, taking a sip of an alcoholic beverage.
Rotoscoping is the animation process where the animator traces over live-action footage frame by frame. Traditionally done by projecting film onto a glass panel and then tracing, the process is largely done nowadays using computers, and has been utilised to remove objects from live-action films. Rotoscoping is one of the easier animation processes and has been used to give the animators a guide to work off of. The process has its roots in the late 1800s, and was utilised by Max Fleischer to give his animations more fluid movement as opposed to the more unrealistic movement that had been demonstrated earlier. This was a revolutionary movement in animated cinema.
The first full-length film from Walt Disney, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)" heavily utilised rotoscoping as real-life actors were heavily used as references to draw over, and the technique would continue to be used in Pinocchio (1940) and Alice in Wonderland (1951). Later on, the technique was used in live-action films, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) and Mary Poppins (1964).
In the 1990s, the technique was upgraded through the work of animator Bob Sabiston, who invented the technique known as "interpolated rotoscoping" which allowed animators to rotoscope footage with the aid of a computer. This led to the creation of the computer program Rotoshop, which copies a traced figure and applies its forms to other movements in the scanned footage, saving animators time. Rotoshop was first utilised in Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" (2001), and it was vital to conveying the unrealistic nature of the story. Linklater would utilise rotoscoping again to produce "A Scanner Darkly" (2006) and "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood".
The otherworldly qualities provided by rotoscoping have been recently utilised by the Amazon original series "Undone", which is compulsory to convey the mood of the setting as well as the themes presented. Even the series looks fully realistic, the viewer can still tell that it is not real. The filming process involved creating layouts of the in-animation sets, since the live-action footage is shot in a green screen studio. The film was shot in co-ordination with the floor plans and the layouts, and the actual environments (as in living rooms and film locations) would be added during the animation process, so the actors had to be able to act in the environment without being able to fully see it. The rotoscoping was pieced together in multiple locations: traced and inked in Texas and then painted in Amsterdam. The film itself was painted with oil paints to give the backgrounds a more rustic, imperfect quality.
Rotoscoping is essential for the improvement of visual effects allowing for more life-like movement. The technique will be used in my film to create a template for the life animations that I will use to connote the mood of my main protagonist. The film will partly inspired by A Scanner Darkly and how that film used rotoscoping to connect itself to reality whilst not being in reality.
Figure 2: Vox "The trick that made animation realistic": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS1hCSsmH1E
Bedard, M., 2020. Rotoscoping: The Perfect Marriage of Live-Action with Animation.
[online] StudioBinder. Available at:
<https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-rotoscope-animation-definition/>
[Accessed 6 October 2022].
Dundee was founded as an official city of Scotland in 1892. It will be the primary setting for my final film, and several of the areas for my animated projections will be landmarks around the city, including the Dundee Law and the Tay Road Bridge. I also have an idea to construct the timeline for my research poster around the Tay Rail Bridge. The reason why I have chosen this particular location is because it was one of the defining moments of my family's trip when we were househunting in Angus, particularly the first time we travelled over the Tay Road Bridge and were greeted by the sight of the sweeping cityscape, which is also an inspiration for one of the establishing shots in my film. Films shot in the local area include "Jute City", "Drambuie", "The Silver Fleet", and "Christabel".
The city has its foundations in the 12th and 13th century, and few buildings have survived. Dundee has withstood several outbreaks including cholera and typhus.
The main exports of Dundee include jam, the fabric known as jute, journalism and the comic series known as Beano. The city is also a notable hub for whalers, as well as a hub for research expeditions, including the port of the RSS Discovery. The city is notable as a hub for game design.
The main landmarks of the city include Broughty Ferry beach, Claypotts Castle, Dundee Law, Camperdown, the McManus Museum, the Caird Hall and the Black Watch Memorial, as well as Tentsmuir Forest. There is the dragon statue on the east High street, which was conceived by Alistair Smart and is a local legend of the nine maidens, as well as the Cox's stack, a relic of Dundee's jute industry.
The shots for my short film will be largely dependant on the inherent personality of each of the areas, such as the town centre becoming more entrenched in commercialism, the Dundee law being built on a volcanic sill and being a vital defense post, and the riverside's flat topography being a key attraction for cyclists. This will also relate to the theme presented in the film of how the protagonist perceives certain objects and what he sees in them.
Landmarks to film
Figure 2: The Stack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cox%27s_Stack,_Dundee.jpg
Figure 6: Graffiti under north side of Tay Bridge: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5581407
References
Davidson, L., 2022. 10 of the Best Historic Sites in Dundee.
[online] History Hit. Available at:
<https://www.historyhit.com/guides/best-historic-sites-in-dundee/>
[Accessed 6 October 2022].
Lambert, T., n.d. A History of Dundee - Local Histories. [online] Local Histories. Available at: <https://localhistories.org/a-history-of-dundee/> [Accessed 6 October 2022].
For the first month of the project, I aim to collect my references and train on animation software in order to prepare myself for the workflow. These references will include historical references to reinforce the themes and ideas present in the film, character designs to help me with perspectives and how to animate competently and how to use the tools necessary for the final film.
November 2022
For the second month, I will start to produce some test footage for the film. This will include some demo shots of town where I scout for locations and sketch them to have an idea of perspective for my final film. I will also aim to produce some more relevant pieces of animation, such as animation sketches of objects and characters that will feed into my film's narrative. This footage will also provide me with material for the video assessment. During this period, I will continue my practice studies in order to build my confidence. Once I am happy with this footage, I will commence to work on a script and a mood board where the foundations for the project will come together. I will also
December 2022
Alongside my assessment for the month, I will aim to complete the script for the film, and hopefully show it at the presentation. Once the presentation and assessment is complete, I will hopefully aim to proceed towards the foundations for the final models and the final decision of what the models will ultimately be.
January 2023
Alongside the new modules that we will be starting in the new year, I will aim to confirm the locations for the film. I will then commence work on the final storyboards and have a finished script that I will aim to get a peer review for quality checking purposes.
February 2023
During February, I will aim to begin principal photography on the film. The film will be shot over the course of 7 days with a relatively minimal runtime. I will need to recruit a very small crew in order to help with lighting and cinematography, as well as with sound. The film might need to be reshot if necessary, but after this, I can proceed towards post-production.
March 2023
Post-production will begin in March. The live-action shots that do not require animation will be edited together in a separate file to save the workload. The 3D shots will begin compositing at this time, and will need peer-reviewing prior to animating and then rendering.
April 2023
Once all the 3D rendering is complete, I will aim to start encorporating the models into the shots with the right perspectives. I will need to have the shots alongside me in order to align them and blend them sufficiently.
May 2023
During this period, I will aim to have the film reach the final stages of editing with colour correction, and the final rendering. This period could last until the next month.
June 2023
Submit first draft of video for peer review and second opinions.
Figure 1: Still of perspectivism: https://en.englishlib.org/dictionary/en-cn/perspectivism.html
Perspectivismis defined by Miriam Webster as either "the world forms a complex of
interacting interpretive processes in which every entity views every
entity and event from an orientation peculiar to itself" or "consciousness of or the process of using different points of history". At this present moment, this is the core focus of my final project, as the protagonist has a unique perspective that allows him to see certain things in objects that other people cannot see. A perspective is used to tell how the main figure we focus on sees a situation.
Perspectives in film are essential because they will determine how the audience will perceive the visual world a film creates. The point of view will remind us who is telling the character's story, and how the audience feels about the story will change depending on who is telling that story. In a scene featured in a dining room where a husband and wife argue, and a sister is playing in the kitchen with a baby, the scene would have an objective view should the camera capture both actors in the frame. But if the camera is set at the perspective of the husband, it becomes subjective because the director instructs us to care more about him than the wife. The way to make the shot completely subjective would be to shoot the film as if the cameras were directly in the man's eyes.
The point of view in a film is expressed in a shot, and changing the point of view can directly change how the audience feels about a scene and a story. Determining the point of view is one of the director's most significant contributions to a story. (McGregor, L. 2022)
A first-person perspective restricts the audience to the view that they see from a single character. This perpsective should not be extensively adhered to because we cannot get the reactions of the other characters that this person interacts with. This is focusing on the characters that we see rather than the character who sees them. The first-person is told from a personal perspective and is commonly used in essays, short stories and novels.
The second-person perspective focuses on the "you" in the story, and forces the audience to become a participator in the story. This perspective can really only be conveyed in writing, and is hard to work with after a certain period of time.
A third-person perpsective views the situation as an ideal observer, and is the most-frequently used perspective in film and television. Examples of this include an over-the-shoulder shot and a mid-shot of two characters communicating. The purpose of the third person is to create distance between the reader and the writer, and allows the writer to create a story at distance.
An omniscient point-of-view reveals what the figures in a scene are thinking, and is usually accompanied by narration, voice-over or graphics. This requires a visual connection of the character to be provided to the audience. The filmmaker can combine this range of perspectives to make the story more engaging.
A point-of-view is usually inferred by an audience, and the perpsective utilised will have a huge impact on the plot of the intended story.
A pov shot is a camera angle that shoots a scene from the view of a specific character, and is used to show the audience what the character is witnessing. The shot after this is used to indicate the character's reactions to this event, which is necessary to convey the emotional state of the scenario. Also known as a subjective state or first-person camera. Events witnessed in a point-of-view sequence could include a character viewing an event, the event unfolding in real time or a shot returning to the main focus of a scene.
POV shots are mainly used when the director wants to carry emotions to a particular scene and direct the audience's attention, and must be used only when necessary. A perspective shot can be used in an action sequence to heighten the tension, as well as when the director needs to convey the challenge established for the protagonist. This is particularly effective when the subject in a perspective shot is not human, such as a robot, or alien, and a scene portraying their vision can help establish this. Perspective shots are also necessary to show when a character is in an altered mental state, and can be used to display the effects of heroin on the eyes, or a character entering a separate dimension. This type of shot can also be used to hide an object from the audience to create suspense, or even show the perspective of an object that is being handled by the characters to gain their reactions.
The type of POV shot utilised will depend on what the director wants to convey to the audience.
Figure 2: Ending shot on Inglourious Basterds (2009): http://storystruggles.blogspot.com/2018/03/camera-angles-objective-subjective-or.html
References
Heckmann, C., 2020. Why Point of View Matters in Storytelling.
[online] StudioBinder. Available at:
<https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-point-of-view-definition-literature/>
[Accessed 6 October 2022].
McGregor, L., 2022. Understanding Point of View in Film and Video.
[online] Premium Beat. Available at:
<https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/understanding-pov-in-film-and-video/>
[Accessed 6 October 2022].
Team, N., n.d. Point of View Shot - Everything You Need to Know - NFI. [online] NFI. Available at: <https://www.nfi.edu/point-of-view-shot/> [Accessed 6 October 2022].
The main idea for my final film at this point is a partly-animated film told from the perspective of an alien who has come to Dundee and can see various views of abstract life in inanimate objects such as walls and other still matter. The film will primarily feature a mixture of 2D animation and 3D animation, and the mood and colour scheme will be very much dependant on what the mood of a scene is and how it will represent the character's state of mind. The genre of the film will primarily be science-fiction, as well as filmic art, with the intention of the film to showcase perspectives. The semantic elements featured in the film will include an alien landing on earth, as well as supernatural abilities unique to that individual. The syntactic elements of the film will include certain traces of nature vs artiface, as well as nature vs culture and finally the concept of an individual against a community. These themes are relevant to me because of my position within the group as someone who is more inexperienced with animation than my colleagues, and I want to expand upon this in the film.
Figure 2: Berlin wall film projections: https://www.theguardian.com/film/gallery/2020/may/07/windowflick-berlin-screenings-in-pictures
One of the main visual ideas I have for the film at present is the utilisation of a 3D motion tracker to screen the animations on the walls. Having practised this animation type before in After Effects, I can confirm that the incorporation of the footage into live action will be considerably easier than creating the animations themselves. This influence was chosen because of how the buildings can act like windows that offer glimpses into other things can appear to certain people. The projections will be somewhat reliant on the flat walls to project themselves clearly and smoothly. It will connect to the theme of alienation considering the character is the only one in the film who can see the animation. This kind of animation will be hand-drawn in order to fit the reflective textures, as well as to give a feeling of nostalgia.
Figure 3: United Airlines "A Life" Advert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0_g2Ur5Uhc
Another visual idea I have for the representation of tranquility is a reflection of someone working peacefully on a train as it traverses a tranquil green area. This is relevant to me because of the work that I used to do over the summer on my computing course and the sense of joy it brought, as I was working whilst the world was passing by. This will be a representation of content calmness in the character and the joy of productivity. The animation will be reminiscent of studying music animations that are traditionally set to calming music which allows the mind to focus and achieve a state of positivity, which is the kind of environmental feedback I wish to connote.
Figure 4: Animated still of student at work: https://www.whathifi.com/features/8-best-study-playlists-for-work-concentration-and-focus
This animation is used as a reference because of how it shows the figure in a state of tranquility at work, and this is the kind of atmosphere I want to achieve in my particular animation.
One of my favourite animated films that I want to draw from in terms of connotation and style-resemblance is Logorama. The film depicts a recreation and interpretation of Los Angeles as an environment recreated entirely in corporate logos, with over 2000 logos featured in total throughout the whole film. This invokes an immediate aura of surreality and societal commentary. The logos and characters are featured in controversial combinations, such as the main antagonist of Ronald Mcdonald being a metaphor for American capitalism confronting communism. Maya was used to render the animations in the film, and the crew filmed footage of themselves to build the characters on top of. This footage would then have a skeleton placed on top to guide the animators.
Figure 5: Logorama in English
Finally, a major influence for my film will be the music video for Coldplay's Up and Up. The video is a surreal juxtaposition of images of nature stitched together with modern life, with shots featuring a turtle flying through a train station, and a butterfly perched upon an oil rig. The underlying political message of the video is that man, beast and planet should live together more harmoniously. The video was directed by Vania Heymann and Gal Muggia and won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Visual Effects. This has influenced my project because of the juxtaposition of the normally completed unrelated objects leading to the theme of surreality, which is something I want to highlight in my film.
Figure 6: "Up and Up" music video
Tools to use
Figure 7: Animation sample of Blue Whale:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThfcIv4Ffj8
For the current idea I have for a money shot (a shot used as the main attention grabber to be used in a trailer to attract a mass audience), there will be a blue whale slowly emerging from the River Tay and spouting. This is meant to be a kind of goof given the dimensions of a blue whale would most surely clash with the depth of the river as well as the distance between the pillars on the Tay Road Bridge, which would provide insufficient room for the whale to move around in reality. This is also intended to be a reference to Dundee's history, as Scott of the Antartic voyaged from Dundee and the RSS Discovery is still ported by the V and A on the riverside. This would need to be done using a 3D modelling software, and I have evidence that people have created a similar looking model in Maya, and added textures and fine details in Zbrush. I realise that I will need to produce the footage entirely from scratch.
I also have some ideas of 3D animations that will interact with the environment that I will shoot in. At this point, the main idea I have for this is some small penguins who are wandering nonchalantly around the environment. This is another reference to Scott of the Antarctic and I have some reference to base this on due to the penguin statues that are situated outside the Overgate centre. 3D animators have created several penguin animations in the past using Maya and other 3D software, as demonstrated in the references below.
Figure 8: Maya animation of penguins on iceberg
Figure 9: Footage of penguin being crafted in Maya
Figure 10: Happy Feet (2006) teaser trailer
For the 2D animated segments, I intend to utilise and train on a 2D-animation software such as TVPaint, Toon Boom, Photoshop and After Effects. I am aware that I will have to pay for an essentials license for Toon Boom since it is currently unavailable at the college, but I am aware of how much it is utilised by most major animated projects these days. I have had some 2D-animation experience previously using Photoshop and After Effects but I want to try to make some more elaborate animations using other software in order to have a better grasp of the animation process.
List of animated shots
At present, this is the list of shots that I intend to include in the film that will contain animated elements. These shots will require some considerable training, but I should have some assessment-video-worthy test footage by using accredited tutorials.
Whale emerging from the Tay (3D model)
Penguins walking along the street (3D model)
Animation of person working on train (2D animation)
Animation of person cycling (2D animation)
View from Bridge Memorial (filter and 2D footage placed on live-action footage)
Lava flow at Dundee Law (2D/3D animation)
Black and white, old-age filter (2D animation)
Over-saturated street (2D animation)
Jute growing on the Stack (2D animation)
Child with "Beano" style t-shirt (2D animation)
Flipbook animation (2D animation)
Red squirrel and butterfly animation (2D animation)
Filming locations (as indicated on Google Maps)
Here are the filming locations around Dundee I have outlined in my script. These locations were chosen for their significance within the city's presence, and their visual appeal which will add to the animations that will be projected onto them. I will need to take photos of them with a DSLR for full references.
Test shots
These are some of the test shots I produced on Element 3D in After Effects. They are for what will likely be the most labour-intensive shot of the final film: the scene of the whale coming out of the Tay. The shots are done with premade whale models but with enough persistence, I can make a model similar to those shown, and use it in my final film.
