Character Study 2

Now that I've developed a general story I need to make certain revisions, refinements of my animatic that would a) condense the film length and b) clarify the meaning of the message I am trying to convey.  Right now, the best plan of action to do that is to step away.  This refers to my last blog post about Thinking vs. Making. I am currently in making mode and if I step away from thinking about the story for the next while I can come back to my animatic with a very fresh set of eyes.

So, what I've been doing instead is animating and developing the visual look of my film.


An essential way of expressing your character's personality and testing out how they will move is through making a walk cycle.  I was excited to finally get down to animating again.

Here's the rough lines I animated in TV Paint:

It was interesting seeing how it looked with the shoulder rotation and the slight limp.  The reference I used had some and I wound up exaggerating it a little bit - which I think has to happen when translating any live action footage into animation.

So after that, I coloured it in, brought it into Adobe After Effects, then matted the textures of his clothing:

The most important part of this for me was creating animation that's coloured in with fully-refined line quality.  Something I actually haven't done before.
I do admit he seems a little more youthful than I was going for, but I am going to go with it for now - as a character this can be seen as him in one of his moods.

So after that I brought it into a scene I've been experimenting with in After Effects.  I used a few different assets from various software and brought it in to create a dark, stormy atmosphere.  This isn't necessarily the final way I will be compositing my grad film but it's a start.
In this I used:
Flash
Photoshop
After Effects
Premiere
TV Paint

I compiled a few walking shots with some music - The Only One by The Black Keys.  This song (pretty much their whole album) I think speaks to male angst which suits the tone of my film.

Character Study 2 from Jay Castro on Vimeo.

I'm currently looking into other ways to create the clouds using:
Maya Special Effects
Felt Needle (stop motion)
Torn Paper (stop motion)
Flash Animation

Acts One & Two... and a rant on Thinking vs. Making

I've been working on this for quite a while now, but here it finally is - my animatic.
Some sections will be going through revisions, as this is still early in the year but here are the first two acts of my film as it currently stands.
There is a third act completed and was part of the animatic but I decided to leave the final scene as the changes I'll be making will greatly affect the film's impact and meaning.  Apparently it's good - but it's not what I want.

A struggle for an artist is a balancing act of creating for others versus creating for yourself.

Also I want a do-able film.  This animatic's length is 6:42, and with the third act it ends up being 7:44.
The expected length of a student film at Emily Carr is 3 minutes.  So this isn't good.

I'd be setting myself up to be doing more than twice the amount of work that is expected.
Of course, there is the argument that being ambitious will bring out good things and will show how passionate I am about the things I am pursuing... but there's other ways to show that.
Making more than double the length of a film is a disservice to me and my well-being.

Overall, I'm glad I was able to flesh this out.  In writing the story there were a lot of things that I couldn't piece together or articulate - not until something was drawn out.
This speaks to the nature of my artistic practice in knowing that development requires both making and thinking.



Thinking vs Making

This is an important lesson for myself, artists in my year, for other visual artists, and for anyone who enters the arena of creating something.

Theoretical analysis is important... writing out your thoughts and creating a framework for your work to function in.  Designing a story meant writing the plot, writing the main character, antagonist, conflict and dilemma that will happen.  Components need to be tied together and make sense on a theoretical level as we make sense of what we are creating.  Maybe we are capable of creating the entirety of a film from that process alone, but I am not.  More and more, I am finding that others aren't either.

Artist block happens.  We work, work, work, but reach a point where things are no longer being created.  Thinking about wanting to do this or that, but not being able to because of that or this.  We feel paralyzed and have worked our way into a corner.  It has been frustrating seeing talented people go through this.

Not saying this is the solution, but what works for me and maybe others, is redirecting the thinking process and applying it in a different arena.  Making.  To simply make things.
This has to be uninvolved with the theoretical thinking process, as the two can disrupt each other.  If there is too much thinking, an artist has to find a way to simply make things without intellectual consequence.  That's how making can happen.

That's what I had to do to start making this animatic because there was plenty intellectual fodder to keep myself from opening up Photoshop and drawing these frame by frame - questions that were left unanswered in writing my story.

Advice I've been hearing from several teachers... sometimes you've gotta make, sometimes the answer will come through the visual.  Sometimes the answer won't be squeezed out of your brain.  If you've gotten here then there's a certain way you react to visuals... it is a habit you can develop by recognizing it and using it to fuel what you do.

This was a rant... but has played a big part in what these last few weeks (if not, years) have been like for me

He has a name

Farmer Shel.

Firstly I wasn't aware Shel was a name, but I was reminded of poet & cartoonist (interesting connection of interest here) Shel Silverstein:

.

Wikipedia image of Shel Silverstein

Oddly enough he even kind of looks like my farmer.

So Shel, as a name is a form of Sheldon, which means protected hill or valley with steep sides.
Emotionally these speak volumes as metaphors toward what this character stands for and toward the original name 'Shell' and what that stands for.


A shell can protect, can give shelter, and is the shield that keeps away harm.
My farmer has purpose in protecting and giving shelter for his children, his family.

A sheldon, or protected hill, refers to safety, a hill that is kept away from harm.
It also happens to be the actual landscape I've placed his farm on, a tiny plateau that is slightly elevated from the ground - his house rests in the center of it, the house that protects the hill.


A shell is also empty inside, is hollow, is only an outer layer.
My farmer's hopelessness describes an inner emptiness that doesn't achieve satisfaction.

A sheldon, or valley with steep sides, is a hollow area that is lined with a steep wall.
But it also illustrates a struggle in regards to where he resides, and the peculiar feature of steep sides describing the difficulty of that struggle.


This is why he is named Farmer Shel.

Full Character

Here's a portrait of my main character, my protagonist.
Right now, his name is Farmer Shell.

The main issue behind finalizing his design was that every time I drew him, he looked different.
A line would be different here and there and would stand out enough to make him look like a completely different character each time - but eventually I got a hang of it.

By the looks of my animatic (time-based comic version of a film) right now, this film is going to turn out being nearly 8 minutes long.
24 frames per second, 480 seconds, 11,520 drawings.
If this is my main character he'll be in a good chunk of that 11,000.
For the purpose of animation it's a demand that I be able to draw him several times over and have him look exactly the same each time.


Now lets go into the analysis of this as a character.
When it comes to breaking down a character in Ruben's class, it's qualities and number of dimensions (1 dimensional, 2 dimensional) are determined by the traits you can find in it and can be summarized at a term per trait.  Each trait for a character has to be diametrically opposed from each other.

The two terms/traits that my character had in my class critique were:
Hopeless Farmer.

Farmer came from
the overalls,
plaid,
his male features,
age,
and a few other traits.

Farmer means
male,
steady,
worker,
crop,
and other similar qualities.

Hopeless came from

observing the emotional qualities he exudes,

and responding emphatically to those emotions.

'thats the goal of a good character... is to make your audience feel'

[Here's Ruben explaining how he articulated this trait - how you have to tap in to your thinking:

'When I see this farmer and I think of all the conditions of what a farmer has to be and has to become and all the struggles they have to face, you know essentially I can feel all the emotions coming from farmer... but there's something conflicting with this farmer that does not make sense to a farmer that is a struggle for a farmer to feel, because now I'm feeling it.  And it does not make sense that a farmer should feel this and that is the feature.  That is the feature that is in conflict with the farmer that is producing the character.]

[someone in class suggests the term 'hopeless']

[Hopeless, beautiful.  Farmers cannot be hopeless because that would be against every farming intuition.  They always have to have hope.  That is part of the condition of being a farmer.]

A Fitting Word

This is a word that describes the tone of my film well, and it may even make for a good title.

ODIUM

odium

ˈəʊdɪəm/

noun

noun: odium

1.

general or widespread hatred or disgust incurred by someone as a result of their actions.

"he incurred widespread odium for military failures and government corruption"

synonyms:

disgust, abhorrence, repugnance, revulsion, repulsion, loathing, detestation, hatred, hate, execration, obloquy, dislike, disapproval, disapprobation, distaste, disfavour, aversion, antipathy, animosity, animus, enmity, hostility, contempt, censure, condemnation, disgrace, shame, opprobrium, discredit, dishonour, disrepute, ill repute, infamy, notoriety, ignominy, stigma, loss of face, humiliation, unpopularity; raredisesteem, reprobation "his job had made him the target of public hostility and odium"

antonyms:

approval, delight