Production Diary - Week Four - Scripting/Screen Play, Storyboards and More..

(There are more assets, here are just a few for example and documentation purposes)

I have scanned in my acrylic paintings of objects to be placed in the garden scene of my animation, these are to be used as assets, I chose to paint my the scenery/environment of my animation by hand in thick acrylic for some interesting textures that would have been difficult to produce using digital means. Once scanned I opened the images up in Photoshop, removed the white/paper background so that the object was on a transparent background by using the magic wand tool. I then adjusted the levels in the image-adjust toolbar, this helped to bring out the texture of the brush strokes and added warmth to the colours - this is important if I am to keep a seemingly child friendly aesthetic (needs to be inviting).

Mood board -

above is a mood board featuring some animated shorts and feature films which I feel have the same aesthetic qualities of children's TV programs yet, subvert this/ make juxtapositions by having adult themes within the delivery, dialogue and action.
Pib And Pog is a good example of this juxtaposition, as on the surface of the animation the characters are very inviting and friendly looking with the narrator using a child friendly tone asking each character questions and reacting with a light hearted response to quite graphic violence between the two characters.
I also decided to include luxury comedy on the mood board for something to take reference for image tracking on after affects where certain assets follow the features of a face superimposed into an animation, this would help to further combine animation with live action film.

Progression of script - The script is finished however it is only short, it may need alterations depending on the cut of the live video,

Storyboard - This is the first draft of a storyboard for my animated short, from this I will be able to plan out better how long each shot will last and what audio will be played at each point e.g. dialogue, birds tweeting etc. The typographic choice on the first still of the storyboard is not necessarily the choice that will be final as I may choose to create my own text using acrylic paint as this may be more in keeping with the aesthetic of the whole animation.
In some of the shots on the storyboard - noteably the close ups of the flowers I have added a blur effect to the green hills in the background of the scene and aswell to the shed, this helps to pull focus into the two character's faces and gives the scene more of a sense of depth. These creative choices for the storyboard will help inform the work my post-production phase.

Now that the storyboard and script is finished I am able to start producing the cuts of live action video to be included in my animation, once one rough of live action video is produced I will then be able to use the audio from that footage to put it alongside the visuals of the storyboard to produce an animatic.