The Pitch

I didn't go that well. I took a bit of a wrong angle pitching it and the "panel" (4 people from industry, i'll write their names when I find the bit of paper) decided to really pick up on that and ask a few personal questions which are now, having slept on it, thought about it and in the comfort of my own room, quite easy to answer but on the spot with about 150 looking at you are very difficult to answer and to be honest there were certain things I was trying not to tell 40 of my fellow 3rd years, and most of the 2nd year (the majority of whom I don't know that well).

But I could have pitched it better and maybe avoided those questions. Of course now 24 hours later I have thought of the perfect angle and things to say. As is the way.

In response to what all my tutors were saying in tutorials I spent the preparation for the pitch really focusing on questions for things like, how are you going to make it? Can you make a puppet? What's the sound track? What style is it? What are your influences? And all those kind of ones.

So when they were asked I think I answered them confidently, concisely and well.

They picked up on a contrast of styles when I said I've been influenced by the Brothers Quay and Susie Templeton's "Dog" but it was kinda sewn into a perso

nal question. So i mean, the question wasn't;

I see you've looked at Dog and Street of Crocodiles, please explain how you're using them to make your film.

I can't remember the exact wording but it was much more directed at the story rather than the style with a little bit of a personal jab between the relationship of me and my mother. And like I said, on the spot that's a bit tricky and I completely bombed. It really threw me.

If I had another chance at it I'd explain that Dog and Bothers Quay is purely for visual influence.

I was looking at how Suzie Templeton manages to subtly avoid lip sync with her puppets but you're still able to tell who said what and that I also took the poignancy and slightly dark feel to Dog.

Where as I also like the abstractness of the Brothers Quay, and the weirdness of it, but what I've particularly taken is their use of sound, minimal sound track and real emphasis on foley. (I said this in an answer to a question about sound but didn't say that this was the main thing I took from the Brothers Quay)

And then I would have declined to try answer the more personal stuff.

But the way the question was worded and directed, being infront of the majority of the animation course, it threw me and I fucked it up. Because it was in essence a simple question just asked in a difficult and complicated way. Thats what I thought any wa

y. But I can't blame anybody because I failed to decipher it. A couple of friends said they wished I had earpieces because they knew the right things to say, but it's much easier to think of answers to someone else's questions when you're in the audience.

The only annoying thing is none of them said anything remotely positive about anything I'd done. I'm not going to name names or projects, and I'm

not saying that mine is the best idea or the best concept by any means, but there were some drawings, and some ideas that were a lot weaker than mine that the "panel" had good things to say, and compliments. And I'm not the greatest, I know, but I think at least one of my pictures might have deserved a comment like "that's not bad you know". That's what's got me down about the pitch thing. It was a wholly negative experience.

However this didn't happen to just me, the project Wife Left Home also succumbed to negative questioning and criticism despite the fact that it was a decent idea and probably one of the best drawn projects that was pitched. I gave it a 9 f

or concept and style.

Anyway, rant over.

There's not much point doing any major work on this until I know if I got approved or not. At the end of the day though it comes down to the tutors really and they've all seen the script and been working on it with me and so know more about it than I can tell someone in 3 minutes.

So yeah I can do my dissertation for a bit and catch up on the chronic lack of sleep I've had the last week. I don't mind not getting approved either because the other stop-motion ideas are awesome and I'm more than happy to work on them and other 2D and 3D projects (helps being a jack of all trades sometimes). And I'm also going to work on an promo for the Falmouth Tridents (our uni american football team for which I play a

s a Defensive Back) and use animation to help raise awareness for the NFL in the UK.

you know what? Maybe I should have pitched that whole idea instead.

Patchwork Pitchy Pictures

Okay so because I'm obviously not going to have time to manufacture clothes by Friday I've taken Ann's suggestion and just wrapped a bit of a shawl around her but she looks a bit of a granny like that but I think that's due to the overload of white. It's padded out with cotton wool underneath. Also I haven't decided on the hair, may use something other than cotton wool, but that gives you an idea (also if I did use the wool I'd paint it). The hands are supposed to be blocky, but they're scooped out on the palms so she can hold stuff.

Oh and I need to get rid of the nose bit, but that'

s easily done.

So either one of two things has happened. I've either bought a brand of super sculpey that stays white when it's baked, or I've not had it in for long enough. I've baked it at about 140 ish for an hour, and the packet says 130 for 15-30 minutes.

If it has stayed white instead of going that nice light umber pinky colour then I'm going to plan B or C.

Plan B is to paint the face. Plan C is to wrap it in string like in t

he below film "Zero". However I'll only wrap the face in string, and it's purely visual. Because just white like that is shit. I'm favouring Plan C, so a trip to the fabric shop is in order tomorry.

It's like painting.

This was shown to me by a second-year, said my character reminded her a bit of these. I'm very intrigued and now toying with the idea of making my puppets 'skin' into string like this.

This isn't really a concept....just....muckin aboot.

I has re-done her with no eyes! Maybe need to fiddle around with the hue on her clothes a bit more but not right now because Photoshop is having a tantrum....well the computer's been on all day so probably time to give it a rest.

This is what I finally uploaded. Apparently she looks like a grandmother though. I disagree, but then again I would/have to. The face re-do was in conjunction with criticism (constructive obviously) that she didn't look stop-motiony enough. So I had a quick look at Coraline and some other Tim Burton things, and some Aardman, because they're the only main-stream stop-motion that I can think of, and came up with that. But now she looks too Disney and too old and too expressive. Well there's just no pleasing some people. It's kinda hard to work on this project because every tutor tells you something different and they always contradict so you have to chose who to ignore and who to listen to.

So back to the blank face it is. I figured I'd do some expression drawings anyway in case somebody accused me of taking the easy road. Although that above image may be in the brochure it's not the end of the world because it's only in the brochure and it's not going to be massive massive HUGE. Soo another little tinker and I'll have it all sorted. The good news is I can chose images, I mean, I've drawn enough so I don't have to panic about creating more pretty pictures.

also have to get my puppet all dolled up (haw haw haw) and take a photo of her.

Just mucking about with different hair styles.

Ohhh look at me I'm a Disney character. The gaunt blank look seems to work better with the mood so I'm sticking with removing the whites of the eyes. Although in my brochure image I gave her big eyes, because I'm clever like that...

All I done is taken away the pencil lines. Looks kinda cool, no?

Disney mum's struggle with small but mighty terriers.

The dog has a reduced role now so doggy concepts are not so pressing.

Patchwork

Front legs are a bit weird I know.

These drawings weren't scanned in I had to take a picture with a camera, there's not a huge difference it just makes using the magic wand a bit trickier. So I'll scan (I have a bunch more too) them in on Monday and re-do them.

So this is going to be my wow image. I'll work more on it tomorrow because I'm knackered right now. I'd say it's about halfway done so far.

Also the puppet needs to look more like the drawing and the drawing needs to look more like the puppet. I think it's the hair that's making the difference. And then nose is a little low down.

I have actually made my armature. But there's constant niggles that mean I haven't animated with it yet. So, I'm going to fully puppitize it first then animate with it. One of the niggles is, one of the nuts (used in the feet to tie the puppet down, but as you can see she stands on her own! which is good news) is un-ringed. I think that's the right term, basically it's smooth on the inside so you can use the screw on it. Grr.

People like these ones but there's not enough background in them.

This is my storyboard, so you know I have done one basically. But.

I have changed the premise again slightly. There's less of the Dog and the ending has more clarity to it, but basically I do have to re-do the 2nd half of the storyboard.

She no longer just finds bit of rubbish, instead I've based it more on Kurt Cobain and the song Something in the Way. Where he claims (he actually didn't) lived under a bridge.

So now the idea is much more about coping with loss. The Mother builds a scarecrow frame with the driftwood but clothes it with the son's clothes.

There's also an exchange with a neighbour at the end. I'd rather not give it all away.

But in a few words, it's subtly clear what's going on and it's not cliched. Also it's only implied that the son may have killed himself as I'm drawing parallels to Kurt Cobain but it's not actually supposed to be a Kurt Cobain like character....also it's not about the son. It's about the Mother coping with the loss.

Week 2..or 3.

Okay so I finally admitted I'm ill today. I hate being ill...well it's not really ill, it's just a cold but I've managed to get the achey coughing one so going into Uni today is just not a good idea. Not least because I don't want to spread it around either.

I still did American Football practice yesterday though, although it's good because exercise is good. Anyhow. The point is these may be a bit shit because my head is aching and going WARAAAGGHHH and I have to go and blow my nose every 3 seconds and it makes me lose my train of thought.

ANYWAY. This is explains why I drawded this.

I don't like this one. It's not working right now. I'ma doing it tomorrow.

I've got a better angle I've doodled but I don't have a scanner at home.

If y'all remember this one? The Light at the End of the World, by the Owls.

I'm going to be mimicking the style of the opening.

Also for those of you (everyone) who haven't been reading mine and Derek's back and forth emails I've now changed 90% of my script! BUT! It's better. Muchos better. How?! HOW? Well, you'll have to wait til tomorrow when I scan my storyboard in because like I said I don't have a scanner here. Sure I could take a photo of it and upload that but how desperate are you for a storyboard? Probably not very.

The main difference now though, besides everything, is that she lives under a bridge. Well she doesn't live there. For some yet undecided reason (mainly because I can) I'm going to make this 2D flock of birds metamorphose (if that's the correct sciency term for 'change'?) into the Puppet. I'm going for a whole Brothers Quay, and The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb kinda feel.

In a nutshell, the Mother makes a 'scarecrow' of her son out of garbage and old clothes, with her dog, under this manky arched bridge.

There's a bit more too it than that obviously but I won't give away the ending until, well tomorrow I guess.

Also my armature is leg-less at the minute because I had a re-think and have made the legs better but tomorrow it shall be completed so I'll have pictures up of that, then on Friday I'm going to test the armature by itself. I've got a possible 'tailor' lined up too. So the plan is that next week I shall be doing animation tests with the puppet fully clothed and ready to go.

The best bit is I'm still on schedule...and I haven't even cheated and re-made my schedule.

Storyboard

Also here's my armature. It does exist. I need to pop into Tragos and get a vice so I can cut up my K&S though (the brass square tubing on the left)

Ignore the hands, don't laugh. They're going wrong. Very very wrong. It's incredibly tricky to twist a pair of hands to be exactly the same size, this is my 5th attempt. My backup plan is to carve them. Although that may be a better solution anyway because she doesn't actually have to clasp anything. Also I've realized the outline of the feet isn't to scale they are going to be much bigger than that so it can actually stand up. But yeah I've got the torso done it's just the extremities to do and then cloth her and do the hair and pop in her eyes.

It's about 7.5 inches tall so far which is pushing the max. It'll probably be about 8 inches once I've added the hair but that's to be expected since I designed it initially to be 6.5-7 inches high (they always go taller than you design).

This is more the colour palette I want.

(although ignore the actual drawing and everything because it's crap and texture-less

I'm just trying to get the colour right)

Digital painting mucking about. They need more style.

The Inspiration is coming from the Kansas prairie

The storyboard is a bit too colourfull at the minute but you get the idea; I'll give this a wash layer tomorrow but right now it's 11pm and the only break I've had today has been the bus ride home so goodnight.

p.s. in case you were wondering the opening shot is inspired by

Van Gogh's Wheatfields with Crows