My story for the "Two Characters & A Setting" project went through a few different phases in development. The basic initial idea was to have a cat and an artist/animator, for the two characters, in some sort of studio-workspace for the setting. The cat would be a distraction to the artist and the film would generally be about the artist's difficulty in concentrating or in finding inspiration.
Above are some examples of my first storyboard. Initially I had the film taking place in a stuffy library with an artist creating some sort of manuscript, but this changed to an over-the-top artist in a studio in Paris (being the cliched arty city!). The story then took a different direction from being the cat simply distracting the artist to a competition between cat and artist. This new story could provide a good structure for the film I thought; the 'game' that would be introduced, have a 'to and fro' period, a turning point and then a resolution. The resolution/ending would have the cat triumphant in creating an unexpected masterpiece and the artist, who despite looking the part and his snobby artist air, is left with a blank canvas and frustration for being defeated by a cat.
Here is the second lot of storyboards (in animatic form) that I made for the changed final story idea. I also found a piece of music that I thought suited the film well, and incorporated that into the animatic:
Research & Development
Seeing as the film was going to be set in Paris, I wanted to try and incorporate the city's art history - such as Art Nouveau and the famous Chat Noir poster by Theophile Steinl. I went to Paris last year, so the city was somewhat fresh in my mind and I could also reference the photos I took (above), particularly focusing on the building styles.
While designing the cat's character, I wanted the design to be fairly stylised and possibly even a Chat Noir sort of look. However, the Chat Noir/Art Nouveau style was really too complicated to be animated in the time I had for this project. I wanted to create the film in Adobe Photoshop but wasn't sure how long it would take to animate everything, so it was best to keep the designs as simple as possible. But I could still aim to make the cat's design look sleek and stylish!
(Also, I did of course observe my own cats while at home for Easter, and they provided me with much inspiration for the feline character's movement and behaviour!)
The final scene was going to be the cat's finished masterpiece, featuring the title 'ECA', painted on the floor. For this I wanted to try and recreate the Art Nouveau style - in-keeping with the Paris setting, and as a fairly complicated style of art that you might not expect a cat to create!
I wanted the film to be bright and colourful, and for the setting to have a clear Parisian character. I have always admired the background art in Disney's '101 Dalmatians' and was hoping to attempt a similar style in my film, as well as play around with lighting a bit (I've added the concept artwork below, from Pixar's 'Ratatouille', as an example of lighting I admire).
Thoughts on the Finished Film
I really enjoyed making this film, especially doing the research and designing, and trying out Photoshop to make a longer animated film. I learnt a lot about animating in Photoshop and would definitely like to continue exploring and practicing this technique!
There are a few points to make about what I have learned or would have liked to improved on:
- First off for future projects, if time allows, I would like to spend more time developing the look of the film before I start animating. In particular the backgrounds; I had to rush the backgrounds a bit due to starting them last along with the colouring, and wasn't able to quite achieve the style or quality of background artwork I was hoping for (as mentioning earlier on in this post). It would have been better to have more thoroughly planned the setting and created some of the backgrounds earlier on. I also wondered later how a traditional background - such as a watercolour/ink drawing - would look with the digital animation, so something I will still try out in my own time!
- Furthermore, I mentioned lighting along with backgrounds earlier in this post too. I tried to add some interesting lighting into this animation but again was a little rushed at the end and didn't quite achieve the result I was hoping for. But adding that little bit of sunlight shining through the windows really added a lot more depth to the setting, which had before looked flat with little contrast.
- The other major point is that I think the 'to and fro' part of the film (when the cat is painting the masterpiece and the artist is onlooking frustratingly) was too brief. More spacing/time in this period of the film - one or two more quick scenes/shots maybe - may have given the final scene more impact. I think this may just take more planning and checking over what your doing as your doing it - seeing if scenes work together, what needs more time and work etc.
Otherwise, and overall, the film was great fun make!
I have also somewhat-unofficially named it "L'Artiste" - hope you enjoy it!
Finished Film
16/5/14 - Here is the updated version of the film. I have made some small improvements to the original; I have added a little more animation, to add more lively-ness to the characters and more movement to certain scenes, and have added some more sound effects. So here is the finished, final version of my film!
L'Artiste - Two Characters & A Setting from Ali MacPherson on Vimeo.
