Directing and storyboarding an animation

How does a film director relate to the animator?

In stop motion animation the director and the animator are often the same person in which case it's vital to differentiate between the two roles. 

Director of the animation:

• A clear vision
• oversees the creative process
• casts the characters
• chooses the location of the set
• decides on lighting, camera position
• Directs the characters
• Sets a mood for each scene
• Chooses a shot list

Animator

• creates characters for close-up, mid-shot and long shot, side profile, head-on
• transforms the characters eg in an explosion
• designs animated backgrounds
• creates props 
• develops transitions between shots
• creates contrast between character and background
• offers ways for characters and background to interact

Between them, the director and animator agree on a storyboard. Story telling involves introducing characters which the audience can relate to, setting a challenge for the main character which leads to conflict which reaches some kind of resolution by the end of the film. 

In animation, characters are few and all are generally introduced in the opening frames. This offers the viewer forewarning so they can anticipate what may unfold and part of the fun of watching film is to be surprised at an unexpected turn of events.

Viewers expect a film to refer back to films seen in the past: borrowing, parody, adaptation, and modernisation are central film-making and lead to recognised genres with styles and typical storylines such as gothic, realist and anime.

Once the storyboard is agreed, 

An animatic is helpful in translating the storyboard into an animation. An animatic is a series of clips or stills using the characters which is played out in real time to test for timing and clarity. 

The animatic may be shown to a naive audience in order to judge its effect. Once the animatic is adapted, the shot list is next. This is a list of all the planned shots in the film, which helps in deciding in what order to shoot the scenes. Usually this is completely different to the final sequence as the opening and closing scenes oftren closely resemble each other, with crucial differences. This saves time in building sets and animating the characters. In craft animation there have to be reserve copies of the characters as the process of filming can damage armatures or models. The shot list may indicate essential shots and optional extra shots.  But in practice, some shots work better than others.

Filming throws up all kinds of practical problems. Lack of time, change in lighting, weather and incidental factors may all prevent the non-essential shots being taken. 

So what happens next? 

Directing involves ditching shots which fail to come across and developing new shots which explain the story better. It may be necessary to make new models of central characters and to change the set to reach internal consistency. When the clips are joined together, some scenes may stand out as inconsistent and need to be thoroughly reworked.

Throughout filming, the director is asking: 

How does this shot develop the story? 

In animation this especially involves transformation and transitions which are impossible in live filming. After each day's filming, the question is: what worked best today and how can filming tomorrow take in these lessons?

1984 the stage play: Angst und Zeitgeist

1984 presents a vivid, scary, dystopian view of the present. 

The Party sees, hears and knows everything people do through a system of screens, cameras and paid informers. People willingly submit to this invasion of privacy because of Project Fear: 

the country is at war

 terrorism threatens 

the collapse of civilisation is imminent

  'There is no alternative'  

Michael Billington's review 
The illusion is maintained through constant repetition and sinks into the world view of everyone. Though I found the play melodramatic and the scenes of torture unbearable, it did make me think about the narrative that national governments like to foster.

There is the narrative of Great Britain: the 'golden years' of a benevolent empire founded on profits from slavery and naval aggression. A transient lead in technology has endowed Brits with the illusion of supremacy, hints of which were heard in the run-up to the Brexit vote. 

It's convenient to forget that Britain is sinking into a morass of corruption and inequality; taking its place as a small nation on the edge of Europe.
In a way, our present state resembles the book group who debate Winston Smith's diary: the myths and illusions of our present day Zeitgeist are invisible to us because we all want to believe a cosy narrative.

The British Empire gave a lift-up to nations that hadn't experienced bureaucracy or prejudice on the grounds of sexual orientation. Missionaries civilised primitive peoples and their illegitimate children, rebellions, torture and starvation are not a part of this story.

pop-up animation studio

I'm fascinated by film-making and I'd like to share my interest.

   It's a lie that playing video games is active; it's simply passive consumption of someone else's imagined world. 

All modern forms of entertainment: video games, cinema, TV and internet are essentially passive. 

As a result we spend hours every day staring at screens and tapping out keys. I'm no exception. It's unhealthy and to cap it all we're bombarded with commercials to use more and more of our time in a passive way. No wonder there's so much obesity. 

The pop-up animation studio

And yet Britain leads the way in innovating ever more ingenious games and series.

   Why let someone else have all the creative fun of making something new and original?

People need to discover how easy it is to create original images and to animate them into a film and tell a story visually. [in my humble opinion] Paintings can move.

There is nothing so creative as making your own images and seeing them move

It's possible to make a film in a day. It may not win an Oscar but it shows you how quickly modern software can composit a film out of a hundred stop motion photos. 

And with attention to a storyboard, characters and lighting it can be a film worth watching.

  So I've come up with the idea of a pop-up animation studio: a tripod, camera and laptop and craft materials, such as card and paper. It's small enough to fbe easily transportable by car or train so I can facilitate workshops around the country.

  It's useful to have several copies of animation characters so I now use a template for a male and female character printed out on card in advance. They fit together with brads, little black fasteners. If I use black card the brads will be almost invisible. They're black so you can alter them and colour them in on the day. 

So there it is and my next workshop on February 6th in Birmingham will show how robust the idea is.

Mindful use of failure

An article on Life-affirming imperfection yesterday reminded me of the importance of failure in creative work.

That sounds counterintuitive but all artists have more or less success in creating some visions. A lot of people are put off by failure in their early attempts. 

How do artists and designers use failure?

Laura Snoad [@laurasnoad] writes about how success is often followed by failure, using the same approach may not work a second time; it may feel stale. 
But failure in a career could be serious; we need to know how to fail fast ; how to pinpoint the obstacles that prevent a piece of work from succeeding. 

Creative writers have critique groups; artists have muses, people who recognise the artist's intent and who can say what works and what needs to change.. It is up to the artists to find a way to respond.

Giving your self time to experiment before launching into a project is vital. 

A new character for an animation will require several iterations before the best materials and design are found.

In my work in hospitals I was interested in the rescue curve. How was a mistake such as the wrong patient, wrong dose, wrong treatment, recognised before it led to disastrous consequences? 

Atul Gawande devoted the 2014 Reith lectures to this question Why do doctors fail?

We need a blame free culture, an understanding that adverse events happen often and are worth studying in order to identify high risk places. In short, mindfulness.

As in life: breaking an arm abroad is not a tragedy; it's how we minimise the risk and deal with it when it happens.
It's something I should apply in life a bit more: experimenting more, altering, trying something different.

Cameras, paintings and original art

Do cameras help or hinder original art?

I'm considering leaving my camera at home and just being present

maybe having a handy sketchbook with me at times

I have often wondered if amateur artists are too reliant on photographs. Some subjects I see in exhibitions, such as sunrises 

 

are better as photos than paintings or drawings.

I've certainly benefitted from comparing a photo with an oil painting sketch I've done directly from life, only checking with a photo afterwards.

but it makes me wonder what's special about a painting: how does it convey emotion unconsciously?

A couple of months ago I bought an entry level DSLR camera but I've found that it's too large to fit in my pocket as the compact 'point and shoot' camera used to. 

I have to carry a camera bag and so it's harder to take quick pictures like this:

Then a short time ago, I misplaced my compact camera, 
so in an effort to apply mindfulness,I'ver decided to leave a camera behind. This will be a big change for me in 2016. I can't capture the colourful landscapes that I took photos of in 2015. 

On the other hand I'm not constantly experiencing life through a lens. A camera distances me from the raw experience; I'm constantly moving around to find the best angle. Maybe I can store the subjective experience better by being alert, storing as much as I can of what I can see, feel and hear.

If I draw in a sketch book I won't be able to capture whole landscapes in beautiful colours; I'll have to concentrate on more distinct subjects like buildings, trees and interiors, but is people that interest me most. 

 As you can see, sketching people in my local coffee shop is causing a drift in my drawings towards cartoon-like characterisation, which may be closer to what I need in order to create models for animation.

I will still use photographs. I'll talk about how useful photographs can be in a future blog.

mindful storyboards and filling the gaps in the narrative

Mindful storyboards, filling the gaps in the narrative

Creative writers always say: use all the senses. To evoke a particular place and time, include what you can see, hear and feel, also smell and taste.

This is very much like an exercise in mindfulness, to be in the present, non-judgmental, noticing what's special about the experience. In doing research, writers walk about the location: museum, library, canalside, drinking in the experience. In fiction, the character's emotion is the most vital part, but readers need to 'be there' as well.

Reviewing a piece of writing in a critique group you often find that you've left out some important detail, something so obvious it didn't occur to you to mention it. It's only when your work is read by fellow writers that your attention is drawn to these gaps. 

If you're working on your own, as most of us are, how do you guard against this tendency?

My suggestion is to use storyboard examples. Although a storyboard is used to show the sequence of camera shots in a film, it is also useful to let your story flow. A storyboard focuses on the key moments so it's useful in preparing an 'elevatior pitch' or a synopsis.

You don't have to be an artist. You can just draw stick figures and scribble in a rough background. If you pick out six 'story beats' from your novel.

The first thing you notice is that the boxes in a storyboard are  tiny . Some professional storyboard artists work on on an amazingly miniature scale.

My solution has been to use pastels on an A4 sheet like this:

I predict that you'll notice something in the pictures which belongs in the narrative but isn't there. Whose point of view matters? Are the characters looking at each other? Is there a whole scene that's missing? 

If it's helpful you can storyboard every scene and you may notice details which turn out to be useful. There is a risk is that storyboards are too visual. Our present culture is dominated by visual media: film, TV, internet, video game and the novelist's task is to portray human experience in all its aspects. 

Pictures can hint at smells, tastes, body sensations and emotions but ultimately it's  down to the writer's imagination that finds words to convey these.

The secret of Wicked's success

The Musical 'Wicked' is a massive transatlantic success. 

What's the secret of Wicked's success?

1. Wicked champions the outsider, Elphaba is picked on for her colour and refusal to conform. We see many redeeming qualities in Elphaba: she sticks up for her teacher when he loses his voice and he falls into disrepute because he's not human. Opening scenes often feature arrival at school or college but Wicked pulls it off with humour, poking fun at the apparently sincere good witch, Glinda. But later on, the wicked witch Elphaba releases flying monkeys which cause havoc.

2. Wicked has style: strong female leads, an emerald and black colour scheme, brilliant lighting and stage effects  clocks to rival Harry Potter and Philip Pullman's Dark Materials and a cross between Victorian steampunk and 1930's American costumes. There are enjoyable touches of irony and parody. The Wizard sings a song in 1920's style reminiscent of King Herod's song in Jesus Christ Superstar 'Try it and See'.

3. It even begins with a disabled character, NessaRose whose relationship with her sister Elphaba promises an emotionally intelligent sub-plot

For all its style and popularity, the plot chunters off into nowhere land with arrests, escapes, re-arrests. The most glaring travesty of Elphaba's feisty nature comes in a stick fight with Glinda over Fiyero, the self-confessed shallow male lead.

Sadly Tessa Rose is portrayed as a mistake resulting from her parents' desire to avoid having a second daughter like Elphaba. "She's my fault," says Elphaba. The disabled sister and daughter is a millstone for all to carry. [as in Sleepovers by Jacqueline Wilson] Thus reinforcing widespread perceptions.

In one powerful scene, Tessa is cured by Elphaba's spell and stands for the first time. It must be hard for anyone in a wheelchair to witness this escapist denial of the meaning of chronic illness which harks back to sanitised fairy tales. 

Tessa Rose's fate is sealed off-stage when she is later crushed by a falling windmill and we are left to imagine that her recovery may have been temporary so she was unable to get out of the way in a sudden malevolently stirred-up storm.

The victory of style over contemporary resonance is complete.

How to keep readers reading

Best advice for novel writers: READ MORE

It's vital that writers to understand the conventions that readers are familiar with, in order to avoid cliche or worse: incoherence. 

Breaking the rules invites ambiguity

So what are the rules about keeping readers motivated to read on?

Plot comes first. However convoluted the plot, it can fit into one sentence. 
Tell your friends no more than that one sentence and remind yourself of it every day.
Keeping the plot sentence in mind helps writers write a continuous story and also helps agents and readers decide whether to buy. Knowing the plot keeps you away from sub-plots and irrelevant episodes.

Beware any changes in plot after your first draft; every change will have consequences on each page which will be tiresome to correct. By all means change the characters' names, gender, dialogue as much as you like but plot is sacred from the start.
Plot provides the motivation for your main character and it changes in a special way through the story. and yes, keep to one main charcater and maintain their point of view throughout.
[established writers ignore this but for first novels a rambling point of view puts people off] 

So what is a plot?

Stories open with stasis: the kingdom is in neglect, doom-laden, or everything seems fine but the king is ageing, rumours of dragons abound. Whether you start with action or dialogue, your novel informs the reader of the characters, the place and time and underlying this: the genre [thriller, mystery, horror, historical, romance] Concentrate on your favourite examples of your favourite genre and you will have a repertoire of clever plot twists. 
You can introduce the rules of your fictional world through action, narration or dialogue. If there is magic or paranormal events they are bound by certain rules such as: having a wand made of a particular wood, or having telepathy only with those you love.
Then comes the trigger, the call to action for our hero or heroine. A significant event brings the character to life [eg a beautiful princess is entranced and sleeps for a hundred years]
Ther character sets out on a quest. The object of his quest is often a symbol rather than anything especially valuable. Readers are asked to suspend disbelief, the wrtiter and the character believe that only this one object will bring happiness, relief, safety or survival.
Surprises happen. 
A good writer constantly reaffirms and contradicts readers' expectations. Stories that are entirely predicatable are boring so plan a surprise for every chapter ending. A surprise is an unexpected plausible obstacle or help to the character's quest. She meets antagonists and protagonists, a wise woman or a cruel tyrant.
Then she is faced with a critical choice which demonstartes free will. Things could go either way. She decides to follow a path which is fraught with danger.
This leads to the climax in which she confronts her greatest adversary: time, dragons, a torturer or an arranged marriage and a tense conflict plays out resulting in a reversal: now the character has changed in some way, become more resourceful or lost the battle and accepts defeat. Finally we have the resolution: the new stasis in which the world of the novel is altered following the climax.
So what has kept the reader turning each page?

Surprises and rising stakes. As the story proceeds the character rsks more and more until she stakes her whole life on the outcome. 

I haven't made these rules up, if they sound dogmatic, they can be traced in most films and books and talked about in plot advice to authors since the time of the Greeks. 

In my view, plot awareness is the author's best friend.

The point of Close ups in stop motion films

Close ups have several functions in film. 

A one minute video tutorial:

close-ups blog post
Obviously they convey detail but more importantly they can show a character's emotions more effectively than a long shot which relies on gesture. A close up can imply an unseen observer. A close up may feel intimate or scary depending on how it is used
camera angles 
Extreme close ups and unusal angles can create surprise.
reasons for extreme close ups
A close up may help in continuity by coming between long shots that would otherwise seem jerky due to a change in perspective or angle.

For these reasons, I think it's important to duplicate a character's face on a large scale in a stop/start animation. In this video, I demonstrate how you can do this to simulate the use of close ups in cinema films. 
My characters are made from foam cut to shape and sewn together. The shapes are derived from photographs using a light box, as you can see in this one minute tutorial:

Soulmates, Romance and Love at first sight: pagan myths

Where does idea of a soul mate come from? Somewhere out there is the perfect partner for me simply waiting to be discovered. Love at first sight? Lifelong commitment?
Not from Tennyson's latter day medieval romance: The Lady of Shallot or the original French courtly romans. 
   I'm guessing that love was an essential part of the first stories; certainly well-developed at the time of Classical Greece with dramatic suicides for the sake of love and lives on in sentimental and serious films. Was babyish Cupid with a bow worshipped in early times? We probably still give the little infant too much room to cause chaos. 
   So the mythology of love is pagan in origin, pre-Christian by a long way. Marriage ceremonies in church were a late invention to link choice of partner with Christian theology. And yet now the church fervently promotes marriage and is slowly getting up to speed with people changing their minds and choosing a suitable gender.
   If romance is a fiction devised by druids around a fire how come computers play such a part in dating nowadays? Can the age-old mysterious chemistry really work via binary clockwork?
   Dating is accompanied by a storm of hopes, dreams, memories and associations. The colours, smells, the setting are all capable of being aggrandised by our passionate hopes for transformation and belittled by our post-modern sarcastic cynical minds.
If there is a magic it is in how somewhere real and earthy can be both heaven and hell at different times.

Spring watch nightingale song

A male nightingale singing in the evening last week in a wood in southern Gloucestershire, on the Western edge of the nightingale's range. This is typical nightingale country: hazel coppice with water nearby. 

nightingale song

    The bird sang continuously for at least two minutes. Nightingales sing only between mid-May and mid-June, then they go silent.