4th Year Film - "Eich Bhana" Animation and Post-Production

Well, it has been a very busy semester! First of all, I finally gave the film a title - "Eich Bhana" which means "white horses" (as in the crest of a wave) in Scottish Gaelic.

So, here is a break down of what I've been up to in the last 4 months...

Animation

I threw myself fully into the animation in January  and animated pretty intensely until the start of April. The time that I spent honing the story and animatic in the pre-production phases of semester 1 proved to be a good base to organise the production and help it run smoothly. I tried to edit and colour as I went along also, but most of the time was devoted to animating and long days in front of the lightbox. The hand-drawn animation is the heart of the film. The two characters needed to be brought to life and tell the story through their movement and actions. I also wanted them to be likeable and for the audience to emphasize with their journey.

While animating, the film evolved and scenes were cut out and changed. This was partly due to time-constraints but also because these changes felt right. There were scenes and shots in the animatic that, when it came to animating, seemed unnecessary for telling the story. The time-consuming nature of hand-drawn made me strip the story back to it's heart - which was a good thing and I am much happier with the result.

Overall, I really enjoyed working in hand-drawn again and on a longer project! I really like the pencil drawn/sketched look of the frames and the smooth movement that can be achieved. There was a lot of hours spent in front of the lightbox, drawing all day, and using up mountains of paper, but I feel it is worth it for the final result. The longer I animated, the better my animation became and the faster and more efficient I worked. If there were time, I would have liked to have gone back and remade some of the scenes (particularly the first scenes I animated last semester), but generally I am happy with how it turned out.

*(some photos of all the frames to follow soon!)


Creating the Setting

Once all the animation was done, it was time to focus on creating the environment for my characters to inhabit. The wild west coast setting has been an integral part of my film since the beginning. I wanted the environment to be like a character in itself alongside the man and horse. The landscape in the film is fictional and created by myself but strongly based on real places. Before starting on the final background art, I spent some time sketching the location to get the right look and give me a sense of how the characters will move around it. I had a good idea in my head of how I wanted the landscape to feature in the film and what it needed to be like - so the next step was just to get it down on paper.

  

Along with visualizing the semi-fictional landscape, I needed to figure out exactly how the croft house would look and some of the props such as the horse harness and brass (brooch). The current design for the brass is based on a real artifact I found in a small museum on Orkney.

4th Year Film - Pre-Production

It is coming to the end of semester 1 now; the phases of pre-production are coming to a close and I have started animating my film. So time to write an update on the development of my 4th year film!

Storyboarding/Animatic

I wanted the storyboard/animatic to be complete before the end of this semester, so I spent a good bit of time chopping and changing the animatic till I was happy and ready to animate the story. I have stayed fairly true to my schedule but did spend more time on the storyboarding and animatic that I had hoped. However, I also feel this is one of the most important stages in the pre-production and I wanted the story to be right for me, so I don't feel this was time wasted.

Character Design

One of the first aspects of the visual development that I wanted to tackle was the character design. Once this was finalised, I would be happy to start animating, and could continue working on things like background and colour design while animating.
The best way for me to figure out characters is by lots of sketching! So I spent a good bit of time with my sketchbook, drawing my two characters and trying to get the right look for them. I wanted the designs to be in my usual 'style' but be easy enough to animate (so not too time-consuming).

I also wanted the two characters to mirror each other somewhat. They both exhibit shared characteristics of a strong-headed and stubborn nature. They are a little unruly like the landscape.
I looked at photographs and paintings of 19th century/early 20th century fisherman for ideas of clothing. The horse is based on the hardy Highland Pony. I didn't want the horse to be too elegant or skinny legged but a heavy work animal. As I said, both characters are meant to mirror one another and I want them to be a relatively equal match, but at the same time the horse is a much more powerful animal with a much more hefty structure!

I would love the character's to have more texture and form to them than my usual flat/block colouring. This is of course dependent on time however, and will require a little bit of experimenting to see how texture/shading/lighting could be added without too much time consumed. While designing the characters, I tried out traditional-style Photoshop brushes to add texture (above images), which I liked the look of...

Setting Design


I have also been focusing on the environment/setting design in the last few weeks. I hope that the landscape will act as another character in my film - and be visualized as an integral part of the narrative and of importance to the fisherman and horse. Plus, the film should paint a picture of a real place, and I would love if the audience could be transported to these kind of remote and beautiful corners of Scotland. I guess you could say there is a theme of isolation in my film; the literal isolation of such a remote location, or being literally cut off by an island, and the isolation felt by the characters. But I also want to show that this environment is not as isolating as one might think! The characters need to engage with their environment to conquer their fears and find a sense of place. It's a harsh environment (as will be characterized in the opening scenes), but can also be a beautiful and rewarding home.

For the island's abandoned croft, I have been drawing upon croft houses near my home and from the traditional 'black houses' in the Hebrides. In the film, the fisherman also finds some old horse tack in with an ornamental harness brass in the house. This was inspired by an actual brass I found in a small museum in Orkney (top left corner of photo montage above).
The fishing boat design is based on traditional boats from the 18th/early 20th century (but isn't strictly accurate - more inspired by boats of that time than resembling any certain model/type).

I also took a wee museum break to find inspiration in the Celtic/Pictish artifacts there. I'm thinking that the animation of elements like the waves and underwater scenes will be a bit more stylised/abstract than the character animation...

Colour Script

I have also just started on a quick colour script - so far I have been working on the opening scenes. Like the setting design, I think the colour is going to be an important tool in the film, so I want to map it out in advance before I start creating the backgrounds/colouring the frames. I'm hoping to be finished with this before semester 2 starts.

So, the visual development and pre-production phase is almost at a close! I have a bit more work to do, primarily on the setting design, but am hoping to have this finished early in semester 2. Next step really is to get all the animation done! The film stands at just under 6 minutes right now, so there is a lot to do...

4th Year Film - Idea Development

I thought it was about time I wrote a bit about the progress of my final year film. Over the summer I was mulling over ideas and seeking inspiration, and in the last month or so I've been busy getting these ideas down on paper!

Inspiration and Research

First of all, the main inspiration for my film was the remote North Western corner of Scotland. I spent summer exploring the area (plus taking a trip to the Outer Hebrides), collecting stories and information, and sketching as I went.
I wanted my film to conjure up a feeling of this particular location; of the sea, the mountains, the wildness, and the rural way of life. Since the beginning I have also wanted my film to involve themes of nature and the environment - which is perfectly suited to this setting.

This brought about ideas of the relationship between the two worlds of land and sea, and between people and the environment, that are brought together dramatically on the West coast.
My own experiences of living in this kind of environment, research into folk stories and traditional ways of life, and observational work, provided me with a basis for my story!

Fishing is the most important industry here and plays a big part in many peoples lives. Crofting is the next traditional means for making a living. These livelihoods are tied to the landscape. I wanted my film to represent these two distinctive worlds that define the way of life here.
Thus I decided my main characters were to be a fisherman (the sea) and a horse (land).

The horse was initially changeable, but I liked the idea of a horse due to it being a large and powerful animal that is more than a match for the fisherman and that could hopefully echo (through the animation) the force and rage of the sea. I was also inspired by folk stories about 'water horses' and horses that could travel on both land and water. In summer, I used to help out at a local trekking centre which provided me with experience to draw upon (and living subjects to draw from) for animating the horse character!

The story so far...

To sum up my story in one sentence: a troubled fisherman must try to rescue a horse stranded on an island.

My film will revolve around three equally important characters; the fisherman, the horse, and the environment in which they both live. All three characters are connected. They all provide the problems for one another but are also needed to solve these problems, for example; nature is partly what caused the fisherman's grief and troubles, and he is a bit frightened of the horse, but he needs both these things to find his feet again. All three also share characteristics. They are all temperamental and changeable -  a bit 'rough around the ages'!

Most of the film will focus on the struggle between the man and the horse, and the landscape and weather will feature prominently in establishing the mood and the action. The fisherman has had an accident at sea and is having difficulty returning to his normal life on land. He is caught between two worlds - he doesn't want to return to sea, haunted my his bad experiences, but he is also not content on land. He feels isolated and an outcast. Then he finds the stranded horse...
The horse has been abandoned on an island. She is literally isolated and turned semi-feral, and like the fisherman, is not too happy in her situation. The fisherman decides to try and bring the horse back to land and the majority of the film will be about the undertaking of this task.

After scribbling out many notes and drawing many thumbnail storyboards, I now have the structure of the film and the general direction of the plot down. At the moment I am still storyboarding; I am working on piecing together some of the more specific action in the film (how the action will play out, trying out different shots and ideas). I have also started to create some conceptual art and thinking about the 'look' of the film.

Next steps - working on some more final character and set designs and starting to do test animation.
I've been using Gantt to create a general schedule and been checking/updating it regularly (apologies for the terrible image - just to give an idea!) It has been very useful for thinking ahead and having a visible plan to stick to. At the moment, all seems to be on schedule! I hope to start animating in November once I am completely happy with the story and design.

Illustration Work - More Animalia!

Just a wee note on some illustration work I did this semester. At the beginning of the year I spent some time making trial illustrations for a possible client on the theme of childrens book style jungle and farm animals. In the end it didn't work out, but it was still a good experience and I got to try my hand at illustrating. This was something quite new for me so I had to experiment a bit - and it was strange spending so much time on just the one drawing (a rarity in animation!). At the moment I am working with watercolour more and more, so I drew some animal characters in my usual style with a mix of watercolour, ink and pen.

 

Horse Anatomy Workshop

During 'Innovative Learning Week', I went to a horse anatomy and wire sculpture workshop at the Vet School. The workshop was run by the Vet School and the Society of Wildlife Artist's president Harriet Mead. It was a fascinating workshop where we were given a lecture and demonstration in horse anatomy, then were able to draw and create a wire sculpture from live horses. We were provided with A2 sheets of paper for drawing - I loved sketching at this scale! Here are some of my sketches from the day:

 

And here is my attempt at wire sculpture... (it wasn't as bad as I was expecting actually!)

It was an excellent day; as always the chance to draw from life was valuable practice, as well as trying something new!