Animatics

Using the storyboard as a guide I have created two animatics. One using the storyboard to figured out the timing of the scenes and another more detailed animatic to get used to the movements in the scene. This will be incredibly useful when I start the animation proper.

Storyboards

I have completed the initial storyboards for my animation. I have set it up in a word document so that I can print it out and look at it at anytime.

Synthesis Crit

I had my Synthesis crit today where I showcased my idea to the rest of the group. The way that my practical would synthesise with the written element is that it would show an example of a well-rounded, developed female character from the research that I have looked in from my written element.

I got a lot of feedback from the presentation. One of the main points that people made is that the character I have made is too androgynous. This is a fair point as I wanted to avoid a more traditional female shape in animation, however I know it is important that the audience can identify that the character is female straight away. This practical will be difficult as what makes a good character is ultimately subjective, however with the research I have I believe I can make an educated attempt at it.

Practical concepts

I have made some concepts for my practical element and I have identified a fairytale that I want to adapt. I have chose The Bee and The Orange Tree, an old, obscure french fairy tale. I chose this because I didn't want to adapt a well known fairytale  and the story features a female protagonist which has a good amount of agency.

Practical ideas

I have been thinking on what I want to do for the practical side of my Context of Practice module. For my extended writing piece I have decided to write about the representation of women in animation. As such, it seemed natural that for my practical piece I should make a short animation featuring a good example of a female character.

The two main hurdles I have come across when thinking of this practical is what the story should be and how one creates a strong character (not literally). For a while I wanted to write my own story for the animation but initially struggled to come up with any good ideas for it. Instead I have decided to adapt another story, as I believe that would provide more synthesis with my extended writing piece. Disney often adapted stories for use in their animated features so I will do the same. Unfortunately this has produced the new issue of deciding which story to use. I could use a story that everyone is familiar with such as Little Red Riding Hood or Snow White but I would prefer to do something more obscure . The story also has to be quite short, as the time constraints of the module means I can only make a 2 minute animation at most.

I need to understand what makes a good female character. I believe that making a good character can be applied to anyone regardless of gender so I should look at examples of good male and female characters in animation. I know that I should definitely avoid stereotypes such as the classic Disney princess and the 'emotionless badass'. Too often I feel that people try to make strong female characters by making them physically strong however I feel this is a cheap way of making strong female characters. It's also important to not make the character too perfect, a strong character has flaws and makes mistakes sometimes as it makes them more relatable, an invincible character is a boring one. These flaws also need to be visually apparent for the animation as I will not have much time to showcase them. I would also like to experiment with different body shapes for the female character. Disney princesses are essentially all the same shape and all have sex appeal. Ideally I would like to make a character with little sex appeal (but not ugly) so that the audience can focus more on her character.

I would like to deviate from my style of drawing for this practical element as I believe it is too simple for what I want to achieve. I would like to draw and animate with more realistic proportions and definitions while maintaining the simple, solid shapes that Adobe Flash does well. This will require me to go out of my comfort zone and improve my art skills drastically. It may be worth my time to attend some life drawing classes and start using more traditional drawing skills.