2^nd Sliver of Silver update:

Oct 22^nd – Nov 7^th

The team’s goal for the remainder of the week was to try to get to grips with the style of the medieval manuscripts, and also to have a first draft of a script ready for adaptation into a storyboard. I said that I would like to have a go with putting together a script, as I feel quite confident with writing. After that, I would hand it over to the others on the team and adjust it according to their feedback.

I spent far too long actually looking up sample scripts and online guides for writing scripts specifically for animation. I suppose that my mind-set at the time was that before I could even begin, I needed to have a full understanding of the typical structure of a script. Furthermore I realised that my awareness of camera moves and the different terminology for them was rusty, so I again tried to look them up and verse myself this knowledge before I would actually start writing.

After thinking that I was ready to get writing, it occurred to me that as there was no dialogue in the story, the structure that I had originally assumed I would follow no longer seemed to fit. I did not know how I could write a script and refer to the characters without any speech.  Eventually, after searching for examples of scripts with no dialogue and not yielding anything, I approached Andy for advice. He gave me some useful pointers such as treating the script as more of a beat sheet, essentially listing the actions that the characters carry out. 

However, by the time I asked Andy for advice it was late in the evening, and so it was a rather unproductive day.

When I actually sat down to write the script without worrying so much about the outcome and making mistakes, it flowed much more easily. I would definitely be more efficient if I applied this mind set more often.

As we were somewhat baffled by the medieval style, we had asked Freddie Horton if he might be able to have a go at producing some concept art of the bedroom in which most of the action takes place. Here is his first digital piece:

I really liked this piece of art; the parchment-like texture and the repeated floor pattern were elements that were tribute to medieval miniature artists. The dark colours also conveyed the gloomy atmosphere that we would wish the scene to have. However, the perspective still seemed quite normal – the room still seemed to have depth to it.

I asked Freddie to experiment with the perspective more. Some research into the principles used in Byzantine art seemed to be promising:

(source: http://atelier-st-andre.net/en/pages/aesthetics/byzantine_perspective.html)

Freddie said that he would do it traditionally as opposed to digitally, and this is what he came up with:

These seemed promising, showing the ways that perspective can be manipulated to create an atypical effect – something beyond one’s normal perception.

Along with research, we wanted everyone in the team to have a go at doing really rough, quick thumbnail interpretations of the script. Dan Heap and I figured that this would be a good approach to generating a lot of ideas quickly, and being able to get immediate feedback on these ideas would further speed up the approach.

Of course, these things are easier said than done. When we got stuck in the process we realised that that we had not come up with a consistent layout of the room as reference. We quickly brainstormed one and Dan drew up a rough version of the layout of the room.
Some other ideas were generated at the start of the storyboard/layout design process. When drawing, Freddie came up with the idea to have the silver-spoon boy be stood/kneeling by his father’s bed instead of being sat in a chair. This served to simplify potential animation later on down the line. It meant that when confronting Death, the boy would already have the window at his back, making staging the action more sensible.

Dan came up with an interesting camera transition while drawing; he suggested that when we went to a close up of the portrait baby with a spoon in its mouth (to show that the boy was born with the silver spoon), we could zoom in even closer to the mouth, and then have that same shot be the mouth of the boy at his current age. Then we would see Death’s hand come in and touch the spoon, bringing us straight from the portrait revelation to the action.

After this, Freddie offered to model a 3D version of the room so we would have a clearer idea of the layout, plus be able to plan out character movements and camera orientation with further ease:

Dan volunteered to experiment in Adobe Illustrator to see if he could achieve a flat look for potentially animating characters with:

I rather like the look of this style, especially the lack of an outline and the way that the folds of the cloak have been done. If potential backgrounds have a more textured, organic feel to them, then it would allow the character to stand out more.

Lexi Lewis and I carried on doing the rough thumbnail storyboards while the others were working on these tasks. Here are mine:

                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                      

I started storyboarding from the point when Death first appears. It seems that even when trying to draw as roughly and fast as I can, this took me longer than I anticipated.

Here are Lexi’s thumbnail storyboards (she covered the entire script):

                                                                                                                                                                    








 After showing these to the others, Lexi and I went through the boards and went through some of the changes that we wanted to make when it came to doing the final ones in 16:9 ratio. In retrospect, based on feedback from course tutors, it would have made the process smoother if we had done even our thumbnail boards in a 16:9 ratio.

At the weeklies, the feedback was to carry on with research into the medieval style. I had tried previously exploring this:

I was enjoying the process of doing this, but the results yielded were definitely not what I would visualise the film resembling.

 I am a slower drawer, and I am not an experienced painter. Hopefully more practise would improve the pace at which I work.

Previously, Dan and I had chosen a third illustrator to help come up with some concepts of the medieval style with its elusive perspective that we couldn’t quite nail down. I had gotten in contact with Vivien Martineau based upon her illustrations of the Indian epic poem Ramayana. Here is a link to her blog: http://www.behance.net/vmartineau

What particularly appealed to us about her style was the solid flatness that these particular paintings exhibited, plus the repeated patterns that she used. It seemed to be heading in the direction that our team was trying to achieve. To my delight she responded to the email that I had sent her, and we made arrangements to meet up.

I explained to her that we were having difficulties getting that odd near-lack of perspective across. Lexi and I had scanned in loads of reference images from the book that Derek had lent us. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that Vivien had worked in a medieval style for a previous project, so she already had a strong vision of what we wanted.
I asked her to come up with a sketch of the bedroom, perhaps with some colour/pattern tests for the bed sheets and curtains. Taking some time out of her busy schedule – she was away at the weekend - here is what she produced:

 
 
 

I am glad that she painted her concept traditionally; it makes me think that backgrounds painted would produce results that are more akin to the miniature paintings found in illuminated manuscripts.

I am pleased with these concepts, and believe they begin to show the potential to play around with the unique space that medieval artists used in their paintings. In Vivien’s words ‘a really important thing to make it look a bit skewed is to make it look as if the floor is sloping down, then once a character or object is placed over that, upright, it adds to the distorted perspectives.’

If ‘Sliver of Silver’ does get picked, then I would like to ask Vivien do some more exploration into these principles, and perhaps even some final backgrounds further down the line.

After Lexi and I had decided some changes to the storyboards, we then divided the work in half so we could go away and draw up the final versions. Dan offered to start making an animatic based on the rough storyboards, so that he could begin to get a feel for the timing.

Here are the final boards – I drew the first half, and Lexi drew the second half:






 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Alex Papanicola had kindly offered to do the sound design for us. After giving him a list of the required sound effects for the animatic, he very promptly compiled a whole sound collection with a several options for each sound effect.

Giving this and the final storyboards to Dan, he began to stitch together the animatic in Premiere Pro.

Lexi, in the meantime, was finalising the character designs. She had done more research into the medieval style, and this was the result:

Peasant son

Peasant father

Lord Hugh de Seolfor

Ralph de Seolfor

Death

Here is a rough size chart of the characters:

And here are some attempts at backgrounds in a 16:9 ratio that I did:

              

With a few pointers on holding some of the frames for a little longer from Lexi and me, Dan produced the animatic.

It came out to a shorter time than I expected it to, based upon the script. This was a relief, because I was worried it would be too long.

Now all that is left to do for now is to wait and see if Sliver of Silver has gotten through. Regardless of what happens, I am so grateful for everyone’s hard work these past few weeks; I’ve found working with these people to be a really rewarding experience.

Dan Heap: http://scarfeddan.wordpress.com

Lexi Lewis: http://lexilewisanimation.wordpress.com

Freddie Horton: http://freddiehortonanimation.blogspot.co.uk

Alex Papanicola: http://pappyworld.tumblr.com

Vivien Martinieau: http://www.behance.net/vmartineau