Character Thumbnails

Above are thumbnails that I did for the characters, I liked one of the face shapes from set D and tried to create three different versions of the same character in set E. After the talk with Alan we were advised to go with a more stylized look and to look at actors and people who have faces that have a timeless quality. 

Narrative: Influences and Initial sketches/Concepts

These are some influence maps about the different eras of our story to help us get an idea about our art direction. At this stage we are still trying to find our way around the different art directions we are using.
I have also done a quick sketches and experimented with ink and water colours as well as adding some grunge layers to get that expressionistic mark making touch which we are going for.


Style to use for the 21st Century Era: Some sort of grunge texture, expressionistic.

Style to use for the 1980's era: Bright colours.

Style to use for the 1930's-1940's era: Art deco This style if often characterised by rich colours and bold geometric shapes. 

Style to use for late 19th Century: We were thinking of some sort of graphic novel style, line art and mark making touch to it.

Initial sketches and concepts 

 Next step is to produce concepts and a detailed storyboard enough to visualise our chosen art direction in order to make sure the styles fit and the transitions between the eras work properly.

Refined Group Idea

After getting a little feedback on our first group idea Alan suggested we add more to it that we were heading in the right direction we just needed to add a bit more substance to it. So as a basic outline the following is our more refined group idea.

• Our character is on a train plugged into his iPod completely oblivious to anything around him. Zooming into whats on his iPod its some cover art from the 80's, zooming into that it becomes a poster on a wall in our character bedroom.
• Panning across from the poster you settle on the character whose dancing around the room listening to their Walkman and they knock over a box and out pops an old dusty radio. The camera rotates so the radio is the right way up.
• Zooming out you see the radio become brand new and its sitting on a shelf in a living room playing a famous speech from Churchill. Zooming into the speaker it becomes a vinyl record that's playing a waltz type song. 
• Panning around you see our character practicing dancing with a broomstick, they get interrupted by a knock on the door, dropping the broomstick they head towards the door. The whole scene then reverses itself back through the dancing with the broomstick and to when he entered the room from a different door. 
• Going through that door it's an inventors room with lots of ideas on the wall and you follow the character who sits at the desk and on the desk is the blue prints and idea from the phonograph. 

There are still a few bits that need to be fiddled with and we need to put this idea into script format but this is the basic story we are working with. Alan says that we really need to focus on the style of our animation for this idea to work well and be interesting as it's quite linear. So something as a group we need to figure out is how we are going to style the animation to make it work. 

Group Idea

First photograph shows a man is sitting on a bench in the middle of the day the park is buzzing with people and children playing the man has his iPod plugged in and he is oblivious to the world around him. Another picture is placed on top of the previous photograph this time it’s in the afternoon there are less people, but the same man is still in the same position he still hasn’t moved. Another picture is placed on top this still shows the man in the park it’s night the lamps are on and the man is alone in the park. The picture then transforms into a 3D world, the camera zooms into the man’s iPod and the cover art for the album that he is listening to. The cover art is of a room from 1920 the camera pans around this room until it finds the radio, music is playing but it is interrupted by an announcement by Churchill. The footsteps of people running down the stairs to hear the announcement are heard as it zooms into the radio. The announcement is faded as the room fades into black the radio is stripped of its outer layer until the cogs in the inside are exposed. A picture still slides through and is projected onto the wall. The first image is of Edison designing the phonograph; the next image projected is of him caught on fire with the initial structure of the unfinished Phonograph. The last image is of a proud Edison with his very large Phonograph, the screen goes white as the flash of the camera is heard and the 2D photograph is now a 3D world and Edison moves his hand to play the phonograph playing Mary had a little lamb. 

As a group we sat down and came up with this idea we think that it still needs to be developed further but this the base of the story. 

New Story Idea

After speaking with Alan and he showed us the video Peta-gaye and I went off and did a bit of brain storming. In the process we finally managed to come up with the basis of a story. We  are going to propose it to Alan today and get his advice on a few bits we aren't sure on yet, but hopefully we will get the go ahead and we can start drafting scripts. We also have come up with our style that we want the animation to be in as well as starting to think about the sound in animation. Below is the mind map of our story looks a bit confusing at the moment but once we get the go ahead we will post up our idea so far.

Key Ideas

Before our tutorial with Alan on Tuesday we met up as a group and each proposed the ideas we had come up with over the weekend. All of us had about two and we narrowed it down to our favourite 3 ideas, which were then proposed to Alan. Below is the mind map we made about the key ideas.

Although Alan like our ideas and felt each had it's merits he said that each had flaws, either it was to long and wouldn't fit in a minute or they had pieces missing such as a proper ending, so we had to re-think the direction we were going in.

Story Ideas

I was looking into the social effects of the industrial revolution and I became quite interested in how it effected the farmers in a negative way. I don't have properly formed ideas that have a beginning and an end I just have starting points that could be formed into a more elaborate story.

Idea 1
One of my ideas for a story is showing the life of one farmer and how when the industrial revolution started they were forced to buy new machinery to be able to keep up with the times. The farmer goes into debt purchasing new machinery to discover they could farm more land to pay off the machine. They then go into debt to buy new land to pay off the machinery only to find they needed more and/or larger machines to do the work on the increased area they are farming. And this is like a small cycle.

Idea 2
The over population of London at the time was from the large amount of people that were moving from farms to the city. Following the life of a young teenage boy that leaves his farm and family to move to the big city of London in hopes of making something more of his life. He gets to the city starts work in a factory and fast forward a few years it shows you that he's gone from the happy you man he was to a run down unhappy man that works on a factory assembly line, he goes back to his dingy tiny apartment that barley fits his bed, and it continues to show what his life has become.

The below animations are just some animations I came across that I quite liked their style. Their content doesn't have anything to do with the industrial revolution.

Narrative Story ideas

 Cut out art Influence map 

I was looking at the above videos and they inspired me to look into cut out art I think that this could be a great style in which we could use to tell our story about the industrial revolution. Apache is a great example of how we could use a 2D style in a 3D format.

Story Ideas 

Story No.1

Thomas Edison

The camera zooms out of the candle that is placed beside a book on an old wooden table the only light source in this room is the candle. The camera zooms into the title of the book, Thomas Edison and the 19^th century. A gust of wind flips the book open to the first page. The pages flip open to a page filled with, blue print drawings of inventions all of his inventions are on the page from the Kinetographic camera to the perforating typewriter. The 2D image of the Phonograph begins to wiggle and move and the notes begin to push their way out of the book crating 3D notes. The music of 1877 fills the room, and the phonograph begins to pushing its way out of the book changing its 2D shape into three-dimensional version, it floats out of the book playing music from 1877 the phonograph dances away then the carbon telephone seeing what had happened decides to push itself out off the book too, as it floats out of the book it begins to ring in beat of the song that the phonograph is playing. It follows the direction that the phonograph has taken, a light bulb comes out next with a long string at the end gets stuck in the book and the light bulb forces itself out by pulling upwards his string is released and the click is heard as the light bulb turns on. The light fills the room, and follows the other inventions that are dancing in a circle above the book the sound of an electric locomotive can be heard the books open page morphs into the exit of a tunnel and the electric locomotive bursts through joining the others his sound also adds to the music that is being created by the phonograph and telephone. All of these inventions continue to circle then they float back into the book closes. The light bulb floats above the book and the light continues to get brighter and brighter the camera zooms into the light and the screen fades into white. 

I think that Going west and the  cut out influence map show the art direction in which I think that story 1 i could be shown.

Story No.2

Mr Diesel & his engine

A large workshop with pictures of planes and cars and engine sketches placed all over along with miscellaneous machine parts placed all over. The workshop is packed with boxes of engine parts and fuel. A calendar with the date 1897 is on the wall. Mr diesel a man in his thirties is hard at work tightening the last screw on his engine; he smiles and decides to push the on button. But before his index finger touches the button he walks out of shot, the sound of rustling can be heard and then it stops and Mr Diesel returns with a bicycle helmet. He pushes the button but nothing happens, he pushes it repeatedly but nothing continues to happen. In a fit of rage he throws his spanner at the machine and it starts to rev slowly but then the speed slowly begins to increase faster and fast until the engine combust in flames. The flames die down and with no eyebrows Mr Diesel continues to stand in shock staring at his machine. The screen fades to white and the word four months later appears. Mr Diesel is accepting an award for best new inventions as he stands on a podium He still has no eyebrows but he now has a broken arm, nose and all of his fingers are wrapped in bandages. The Engine is embossed with the words Diesel engine Test 51. As Mr Diesel lifts his award his picture has been taken with a bright grin, his background show the sketches of machines that the Diesel engine is used in, Planes submarines and ships and trains. The camera fades into the headlights of the train fading into white.

Workshop Influence map 

The Workshop influence map have ideas for what the scene could look like in story no.2 . the animation for Girl and Robot are also influences that we could use in terms of the layout also the structure of the story of having an inventor interact with their creation and having it face problems which is the premise for story no.2. Maybe there are some things that we could learn from Girl and Robot if we decided to pursue story no.2. 

Narrative: Ideas

Concerning the narrative ideas, I have watched a documentary about the Industrial revolution which has helped me a lot to broaden my knowledge about this subject.




Idea 1.

The character is a man who is affected by the revolution, lost his job because of the machines that took over.
He started the Luddites movement which used to meet at night and start destroying machines and inventions.
The man realises the machine brought some positive changes to his life, such as taking the train to visit his family. Furthermore, he realises the movement spread across the country and arrived where his wife and kids are working, this resulted in the death of his family, leaving him miles away from their bodies.


Idea 2.

The Age of Enlightenment which was a cultural movement of intellectuals which resulted in founding the Lunar society in which philosophers, intellectuals, thinkers and industrialists met to discuss ideas and inventions. They used to meet in Soho House,Matthew Boulton's house, the Steam engine inventor,every month during the full moon, because the extra light made their their journey safer and easier.
The Luddites movement members used to meet at night as well, and one of the members took revenge of the leader of the Lunar society.when the leader left the meeting heading to the manufactury he was killed by the luddite hoping it will change something about the unemployability.