Original Pitch/Presentation

This post shows the images of the original pitch for my project, which I have presented to my peers in the form of a presentation. This pitch shows the concept artwork, original storyboards and the references of which I got my inspiration for the film from. 

Second draft of story, this time including an introduction and involvement of a male character, notably the girl's father returning to London from the War years.

Original details explaining the outcome and techniques that are to be used in the project. Has changed dramatically since presentation.

Original pencil sketches that outline certain scenes involved with the setting of the film. 

Concept art work of a teddy bear, which was originally intended to have a major involvement with the depth of the story, but has been dropped due to feedback and changes in the narration.

Original character design, slightly evolved since the beginning of the project.

Character Model design, based on final sketches.

A mood board composed of images from various films including "The Red Balloon" and the girl in the red coat from "Schindler's List" that show the theme and setting of my project and from which I may develop particular qualities/styles based on inspiration.

Designs of a lamppost based on visual reference from old war photos.

Originally, this pitch shows the film piece to have a duration of 2-3 minutes and involve the narration of the girl reuniting with her long lost father, which is a change from the idea of having just a little girl walking through the streets of London and finding her old stuffed bear. But after the presentation, I had received remarks from my feedback, commenting on the amount of work it would take to produce a film of a certain length within a short period of time. So based on the feedback, I have made several major changes to the project, including scaling the duration down to 1 minute and a half and to change the role of the male character from the girl's father to an air warden on lookout. Also have changed the narration to fit the length of the film and also to make it more interesting

Second Animatic

This is the second animatic that stays true to the second draft of the story. This was accomplished by using Autodesk Maya in order to make a 3D pre-visual clip to get an idea of how the character should interact with the environment and setting up camera shots. I will be showing this animatic in the pitch/presentation.

Storyboards - Second Draft

After I decided to make several changes to the story, I produced a second draft of storyboards that show a different storyline. I wished to reveal more of the story of why the character was in the situation in the first place and where she came from. 

These storyboards show more instruction in what the character shall be doing in the environment and how the camera should move in each particular shot. 

These storyboards stop abruptly and are never completed because of the time it would take to produce a certain amount of animation in just a short period of time. So I kind of had to go back to the drawing board, figuratively speaking.

Original Animatic

This here is the original animatic that stays true to the original storyboards. Attempted to give each shot a duration of up to 5 seconds as I wished to give a slow feel to the film and to make it long enough to tell the story. Put this animatic together by using Adobe Premiere Pro so I could use it as a template for the final version of the film later on.

Original Storyboards

Storyboards are simply the story laid out in comic book form, illustrating each shot and turning point of an action involved in the story. Below are images of the first draft of storyboards for the original story line.

The story starts as follows in the bombed ruined street. The little girl peeps out from behind a demolished wall and begins to slowly come out into the middle of the street. The camera has several tracking shots of the girl walking over rubble and heaps of debris. As she walks along, she has flashbacks of planes and bomb explosions during the Blitz. Then she comes to a stop outside of a demolished house which is revealed to belong to her family.

As the girl investigates the house, she spots something on the ground amongst the debris. It is revealed to be a teddy bear, the girl stares at it and then tearfully picks it up. She holds it close and then continues to walk off down the street into the distance towards St Pauls Cathedral.

I wanted to have St Pauls Cathedral involved in the film because I wanted to have something iconic to show throughout the course of the movie and to allow people to see where the movie is set. 

Concept Artwork

Concept artwork is crucial in the visual side of filmmaking and animation as it gives us an idea of how the settings/themes/designs of the story are set and how the characters look.

Below are scanned images of original sketches that illustrate the setting of the story and development of the main characters.

Original rough sketch of the little girl in the middle of the street near St Paul’s Cathedral.

A simple sketch of the character outside a small portion of a demolished house.

A rough design of a stuffed bear that originally was to be set as another character in the story but the idea has been scrapped due to changes in the storyline.

Research/References

For artistic license purposes, I have to conduct research on the specific subjects that are to be involved with the setting of my film since it is set during a non-fictional period in history.

Below are a series of old war photos collected in order to get an idea into producing the setting and the environment structure for the film. This included images of rubble, demolished houses, the style of the buildings back in the 1940s and what were used back then such as barrage balloons.

Idea Development

Below is a series of notes and illustrations revealing the outline of the plot for the short film in my project. Though I have been working on this idea previously during the summer, I decided it would be a nice theme to work on.

I chose the setting of World War II, partly to my love of history and how I have always been fascinated with several non fiction stories during the war period. My main inspirations for the setting of the project are from various sources including "Band of Brothers", "The Pacific" Schindler's List, "The Red Balloon" and other war stories.

“A Trip Down Memory Lane”

Plot:

A little girl, clutching a tattered stuffed bear, wanders through bombed streets of London and upon seeing several objects, remembers the happy memories with her family before the Second World War began.

·       Genre: War, Drama

·       Use of Colour: Bombed street scenes will be in black & white while flashbacks will be shown in colour. (Black & White = atmospheric, sorrowful. Colour = warmth, happiness.)

·       Audience: 11 years +

·       Proposed Duration: 2 minutes

·       Possibly 2D Animation Style, CGI or Live Action

Original Character Design

Original sketch of the main character, with the original name “Annabel.”

The little girl, having picked up her stuffed bear from the debris after returning to her destroyed house.

Another pose of the little girl, sitting with her stuffed bear.

The little girl swinging happily. This sketch was meant to illustrate a flashback in the original story where she is happily playing with her family right before the war began.

References for setting

Introduction

The purpose of this blog is to show my progress and development of producing a short film project within a one year period. As part of this assessment, I shall be covering many assets of the project and make note of all changes, tests and stages of production throughout the 10 month schedule.

Originally I was to take part of a group project, the role of CGI modeler/texturer but due to being relieved of my role in said project due to certain issues between members, I have decided to produce my own individual project. The idea of my project is to produce a short film set in World War II, where a young girl wanders through the bombed streets of London. Although one of the main purposes of this project is to show off my skills in areas of computer animation, I decided to add a narrative to the film to make it more interesting and to show that I am able to tell a story in some form other than just producing character animation or environmental modelling.