Fugitive: Animatic 3

New Storyboards

Animation Animatic - With Sound and Alterations

This is the altered animatic with sound.

The music for the video is copyright free and is called:

'Sad Urban Noir Background Instrumental | Royalty Free Music'

Narrative - Storyboards by Rhys Wadmore & Sam Johnson

Narrative - Storyboards

Research: Art Styles & Artistic Methods & Technical Development

Project Breakdown

The Story

So to begin with each group was given certain themes for their animations such as "Man vs Nature", "Man vs Man" or "Man vs The Universe", we were given "Man vs Machine".

With our idea, instead of going with traditional "Man vs Literal Machine" (Terminator, Megatron, HAL) we decided to go down a much more diverse path, focusing on the machine of society rather than a physical machine. Originally the idea was about a father who had lost his son, who later replaced his sons absence with a small robot. Given our genre the story then developed into something much more different, our storyline now follows a wanted thief in a stolen car, paranoia prominent in this thieves mind. We aim to build the paranoia through light and shape, our inspirational focus being Saul Bass. Bass's work involves extravagant sharp shapes and brilliant colours which will incorporate nicely with our use of bright lights to convey paranoia within the character. With the 'chase' becoming more prominent the colours of Bass combined with the shapes will create an intensity that will build on the paranoia and urgency of the characters. The use of Bass in our city can also be used to our advantage as we can exaggerate the city, make the builds larger than what they should appear - adding to the effect that the character is beginning to feel enclosed. Our animations end sentence is as follows: "His Knees Steadied, His Heart Beat Fiercely And He Began To Run Again", we put this into a literal context by having our main character meeting his demise at the end, he was on the run but isn't anymore.

Art Style

Zaha Hadid

An influence on our art style is a piece created by Zaha Hadid. One of our main goals for this project is designing objects that can only be seen with motion. These thumbnails have a sense of deliberate 'speed' to them, the angles used and the color combinations allow you to see these shapes as objects, but never as a solid.

Overexposure 1

Overexposure 2

Having overexposure lights as an artistic asset in the animation should allow us to give some real feelings of speed and movement. Going back, some of these photos are a good example of showing speed when it is merely a still image, when this technique gets put into the animation we should see some nice results in terms of movement.

Saul Bass

With our main influential artist for this project being Saul Bass. he mainly focuses on minimalist shapes to create organic and easily recognizable shapes. With our concept and production art we plan to incorporate these natural lines in our car, character and buildings to make it simplistic and to add to the paranoia.

The Technology/Development Process

There will be certain methods used in terms of "Creative Assembly" to create the final animation we all want, having certain aspects of the animation more complex than others so some artistic/design choices are able to stand out more.

Software Requirements/Colour Palette

The main production tools that will be used for this project will be, Adobe PhotoshopCC.2015.5, Adobe After Effects CC 2015.3, Maya 2016, CC Adobe Audition 2015.2.,CC Adobe Premier Pro 2015.3 and CC Adobe Media Encoder 2015.3. Photoshop will be used to create our basic concepts and textures After Effects will be used for giving the animation some colour management/rough editing. Maya will be used for rendering and creating our main animation and Audition will be where our sound is edited, created and stockpiled. Premier Pro is where all of the assets come together to create the final animation and Media Encoder will export the video a whatever quality is chosen for the end product. Methods for some of our animation will include characters that are moved around on 2D planes, which can be layered and swapped to give the illusion of 3D. The car will be modeled in 3D as will most of the roads.

The Soundscape

The Soundscape is a priority for this project to achieve this idea of paranoia in conjunction with Bass, the sound will give a feel to the animation without a clear physical visual input. Already we have a big stock of field recorded sounds from some members of the team and we have more coming in soon.

The screenplay for the animation has got two versions, the first is the storyline of the animation, how it flows and acts. But the second version is of sounds specifically tailored for certain parts of the screenplay, so we can get an idea of what it would sound like.

Screenplay Link

http://strideanimation.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/sounds-to-screenplay.html

Man Vs Machine - The Journey

Man vs Machine

"His Knees Steadied, His Heart Beat Fiercely And He Began To Run Again"

Stride Animation has constructed a story from the aftermath of the workshop. The experience was enlightening and shed some light on elements we can use for a proposal for animation. The ending sentence is sourced from Blair Witch Project and that film is littered with abstract shots, close ups and values highly sound design to increase tension. So the first step to strengthening our story is looking at what makes a high speed chase so intense and the shots we can create to illustrate that. Below is the summary of the story - The overall idea:

 

We hear smashing glass and hot-wiring as a man breaks into a car. He seems quite pleased with himself speeding down the street and enjoying himself. It soon comes apparent to the audience he is a criminal on the run from the law, he notices a warrant for his arrest and paranoia sets in.

                  Street lights turn into flashing blue lights and the sounds around him are amplified, he thinks someone is shooting at the car when in fact its a car backfiring. The criminal speeds up even faster, tension builds as he thinks the threat of apprehension gets closer. He goes through a tunnel where he focuses and calms down, realises he's being paranoid. As he leaves the tunnel speeding still he is seen speeding by a real police car and a crash happens fades to black.

 

Bullit (1969)

1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback.

Quantum Of Solace (2008)

Aston Martin DBS V12

Gone In 60 Seconds (2000)

Ford GT500 Shelby Cobra

 

Reviewing some iconic car chases there are actual set camera placements that compliment different actions for the driver. Placing the camera about the car could give us a sense of what kind of shots we can aim to produce. But before that we need to choose a Time and Place for this animation to take place. Somewhere that compliments what is going on in the 90 seconds and doesn't add any un-needed designs to our animation. We ultimately aim for the point of the animation to be clear to the audience so perhaps simplistic and stylised is really the way to go.

The Journey
 

 

 

 

 

Man vs Machine: The Story Workshop Progress And Conclusion

We entered the story workshop with few initial ideas and a possibility for development, the purpose of the day was to work out the nooks and crannies of our ideas. The process involved a lot of thoughts on paper and as we went along the ideas became more refined, closing in on our end sentence. The end results were very enlightening.

Final Decision

Through our development in the workshop as a group we have decided to focus in on our last idea. When we initially pitched it there was a few things we hadn't worked out like the climax. 

Our idea:

We hear smashing glass and hot-wiring as a man has broken into a car. He seems quite pleased with himself speeding down the street. It soon comes apparent to the audience he is a criminal on the run from the law, he notices a warrant for his arrest and paranoia sets in. Street lights and signs turn into flashing blue lights and the sounds around him are amplified, he thinks someone is shooting at the car when in fact its a car backfiring. The criminal speeds up even faster, tension builds as he thinks the threat of apprehension gets closer. He goes through a tunnel where he focuses and calms down, realises he's being paranoid. As he leaves the tunnel speeding still he is seen speeding by a real police car and a crash happens fades to black.

Camera Shots

There are things to still work out like what kind of shots are going to be needed and little fillers here and there to help link each scene a little better. We've been advised to work closer to the sourcing of our ending sentence.

"His Knees Steadied, His Heart Beat Fiercely And He Began To Run Again"

Blair Witch Project

The ending sentence can be related to the Blair Witch Project, a film that is littered with abstract shots, close ups and values highly sound design to increase tension. So the first step to strengthening our story is looking at what makes a high speed chase so intense and the shots we can create to illustrate that. So research to follow soon on that!

The When and Where

Thinking about what time and era can be crucial to the project, it would describe the setting and also what kind of cars to expect. If we want to litter the animation with chase tropes maybe looking at famous chase scenes and dissecting the locations and times. It can help the atmosphere also.