Final Animatic [Clean]

 Over the Christmas holidays, I was able to draw the shots from my animatic again in Photoshop, as 'Part 2' of our hand-in requires a "clean and more detailed" animatic. I decided to draw and colour the frames in a purple colour scheme in line with the final colour plan as described in earlier posts.

 There were a few aspects I needed to change from presenting the rough animatic to my tutors on the 12th December.

These were:
- In the teacher scene, the angle where the teacher's shadow appears on Babbit needs to be changed back to the first angle used in the first animatic.

- The background/overall colour visualisations need something more. The idea for having purple coloured characters on purple backgrounds might not work and you need to test this. Perhaps add more colours in the backgrounds?

-The montage scene (time-lapse) in the middle needs to be shown more clearly in the next animatic.


 Also, over the holidays I was able to visit my composer. I showed him the rough animatic (as I had not completed the clean animatic by then) and we discussed the sort of music I would like and what mood I wanted to get across. He said that he couldn't really come up with a track until the animation was all done and the film was timed out. So this has given me a deadline to work to in that I must finish and compile the animation by mid-late April to be able to give enough time for my composer to compose and record the final track. It won't matter at this point if it's not all coloured, he just wants the timing to be finalised so he can work with the emotional beats more effectively. So my time management is of the utmost importance to be able to achieve this.

Here is the final Clean Animatic:

Babbit Animatic [Clean]

I didn't change much else in the final animatic, though there may be a few things that need altering throughout the process, but I will wait until the next feedback session before I decide on anything, as I now need to focus on the rest of the work needed for the 'Part 2' hand-in (due the 16th January), which in itself requires:

- 30 seconds of Animation/Feasibility tests.
- 1000 word Working Life-Industry Report
- 500 word Self-Reflexive Report
- Professional Practise work - Business Card designs, full and up-to-date CV, website links to portfolio, etc
- Final Clean Animatic

Here are the pages of drawings done for the clean animatic:

I tried to embellish some actions where I could. I wanted to show more actions in places, but it just wasn't possible in the time period we have been given to complete this. Therefore, some scenes are not as clear as they should or could be. Also, the last few frames were done on a separate document and were not saved in PNG form, these will be uploaded as soon as possible.

---jkl

Animation Tests...

This past week I have been producing a walk cycle for my main character, Mollie.

I had a lot of trouble at the start, as I was finding it hard to stop the character from limping. I did a fair few linetests at the start! I had drawn out some key poses taken from the reference as shown in the previous post. These very rough thumbnails provided me with some initial keys to refer to. However, they did not help as much as I thought they would..

Thumbnails of (the real) Mollie walking:

 Thumbnails of Ellen walking:

From talking to a few friends, they identified the problems I had were in the spacing of the feet. After they showed me the method of charting the position of the back of the heel for each frame and making sure they were all equal in length, I was finally able to complete a walk cycle properly!

I then faced a lot of trouble with the back arm of the character; the movement was hard to achieve, even with the front arm's movement working well. I had to stop re-working it, however, as too much time was being spent on trying to perfect it. The general movement of the cycle was working, so I then scanned and brought the images into Photoshop.

Here is a link to a video of the final rough pencil test for Mollie. I have coloured the lines purple (to resemble the style-inspiration of Sara Ogilvie's illustrations from "Rhinos Don't Eat Pancakes"). I then coloured it in two styles. First, a lilac monotone colour, which was suggested in the feedback from fellow students in the calss from the week 6 pecha kucha presentations. The second, a selection of colours that reflect a more realistic vision of what a real school uniform would look like:

Mollie Walk Cycle [rough]

I showed these to my tutor, James, today (Monday 14th Nov) at the seminar. He suggested I now try and composit a background in After Effects with the pencil test, which could then give me a clearer vision of what the final film could really look like.

Also, as I have been having increasing difficulties with my story, I was able to have some great feedback from James. He gave me some clear ideas on which way to take a certain story point, which I will discuss further in another post.

Also today, I finished a 'Babbit' walk/run cycle. Another friend on my course was able to get me some brilliant reference of their pet rabbit running around which helped extensively for this task.

This video shows my pencil test for the character, 'Babbit'. It is a walk/run cycle. There are a few areas that need refining. I will either come back to them at a later stage, or fix them in the final production of my film. I coloured the lines of 'Babbit' purple to match the walk colour test with Mollie.

Babbit Walk/Run Cycle [rough] - Vimeo Link


I will be re-storyboarding the entire film this week with the new and improved ideas from today's seminar. I will also need to attempt the background for the walk cycle's as part of a test to see how the final film may look. This will require me to research more into the design of the backgrounds I really want, so I will be posting some background designs and tests as soon as I can.

I will also be working on my "working life" report; an 1000 word report as part of our entire project hand-in. We are asked to write about a work experience placement if we had one; to talk about the industry we are aiming to go into; what business is like at the moment, what we learned from the experience, etc... As I was fortunate to have a brilliant 5 week placement in London over the summer, I will be writing about that.


---jkl

First Storyboard Draft + Script + Feedback

  The first thing I did once I had received the feedback on my initial rough storyboard stills, was to finish a film script! At this stage, I realised that the script would still need a lot of alterations, and so would the storyboard, but I thought it was best to start, "to get the ball rolling", so to speak.

  I had changed my ideas from the previous script, so had new ones to write down and work at. Once I had the general moments I wanted, I started to draw the shots on wide post-it notes which I stuck on large pieces of paper. As I began to draw, the script fleshed out with every shot, and more story ideas came. After a day and a half of storyboarding, I had finished the first draft. Even as I finished it, already there were parts I was picking out that I didn't like; be it for story, composition, or any other reason. However, I wanted to keep it as I had written in the newest script so that when I had another feedback session I could really dive into parts I wanted to change as well as have my tutor and friends' opinions help shape new ideas and directions I could take.

So here is the first drafted storyboard:

 
And here is the script I wrote for this storyboard. Note that the script is much shorter compared to the first act of the script I wrote in the previous post. I wanted to get the main points down quickly and clearly, so felt I needed to focus on the actions more than the detailed descriptions at this point. Only once I've really got a solid direction for my story structure will I then re-write the script in a more detailed way.


In the school library. Mollie is looking out the window watching the kids running around and playing. She looks upset, lonely. She could be wearing her coat (as it is break-time).

“Ehem”

Mollie turns around in surprise. The school librarian is there looking annoyed. She gestures for Mollie to go outside. Mollie walks past her and out the door.

A box full of tied up skipping ropes is placed into the shot. Hands grab the ropes quickly until only one is left. Mollie walks up to the box and picks the last one up and looks at the children skipping. She then looks down at the skipping rope in her hand and starts to skip, slowly, feeling embarrassed. As she does, she begins to speed up, until she trips and falls onto her knees. Mollie, ashamed, stands up quickly and runs off with the rope away from the playground.

Once she’s safely away from everyone, she starts to skip again along a path. As she nears the bench by the pond, she trips again and holds onto the bench for support. Angered and upset she throws the rope down and sits down on the bench and begins to cry. When she finishes sobbing she looks up, and wipes her tears from her face. Blurrily, she looks up. There is something big in her vision, though unclear. Mollie frowns and blinks more. A large white rabbit is sitting at the edge of the pond, lapping water. Mollie is surprised and scared, but curious. As she watches, the rabbit looks up and glances at Mollie. It’s ears flick, he blinks and his nose is twitching. Mollie turns her head, left and right, but noone is around. When she looks back at the rabbit, he starts to hop over gently. Mollie reels slightly into the bench, but remains inquisitive. When the rabbit stops, he is at Mollie’s feet. He rests his large head on Mollie’s lap, and continues to twitch his nose, and blink. Mollie breathes in and out, and relaxes with the rabbit’s calm and peaceful nature. She leans forward and strokes his nose. The rabbit closes his eyes in content. Mollie then leans further into the rabbit’s face, and hugs him. She has a quiet, lonely and forlorn look on her face, but the hug is reassuring her a lot. She continues to stroke him and the camera pans up and dissolves to show a day transition. 

A shot of the sky, morning. Birds fly past, flutter of wings and song. The sound of talking, children laughing and chattering starts, and we see Mollie at the end of a line, lining up for morning registration outside on the playground. She is on her own again, speaking to noone as they are all talking to the person next to them. Mollie’s head is down and she shifts awkwardly looking at her shoes. She glances to the (left) and looks across the playground. Her eyes widen, as she sees the large white rabbit again. Her face lightens, and she smiles shyly, giving a little wave, before she is ushered into the classroom. (Babbit gets a little smaller…not noticed much by the audience) Babbit watches and then continues to nibble at the grass. Birds flutter in a tree next to him, and go stand next to babbit, curious.

The bell rings, and Mollie runs outside and goes immediately to the pond and bench again. Babbit is there and Mollie smiles, patting him on the nose. The skipping rope is still there from the day before. Babbit reveals it and picks it up to give to Mollie. She looks anxiously at it and shakes her head looking down. Babbit urges Mollie to hold one end, so she does. Babbit stands back, with the other handle of the rope in his mouth and starts to swing it. Mollie joins in with the swinging and realises that Babbit wants Mollie to jump in. Mollie bites her lip, frowns and jumps in. She does it! And now she is skipping gleefully with babbit by her side. Babbit is happy. (babbit shrinks again….) Mollie notices Babbit’s height in the first “montage” scenario and looks confused. Babbit looks down at himself for a moment, but when he looks at Mollie happily, she doesn’t worry about it…Maybe as Babbit gets smaller, Mollie does worry, but Babbit continues to comfort her, being happy, so gradually, Mollie begins to accept that Babbit is changing and still being happy, and that means she can change and grow and be happy too.

Now there is a montage of lots of things showing Babbit helping Mollie. Hopscotch..Yo-yo-ing..Superhero.. Helping mollie tie her shoelaces could be a running theme..
Scene ideas: Mollie and Babbit eating lunch together..Mollie getting more confident and tickling him..



Then Mollie and Babbit are playing tag..As Mollie runs, she and Babbit both bound towards the playground. Mollie picks up speed and overtakes Babbit, running ahead. She smiles looking out onto the playground. She is bright and cheerful and knows she can be confident now. She looks around for Babbit, and doesn’t see him at first. She spots him sitting on the edge of the playground staring at something intently. Mollie turns to look in the direction of Babbit’s stare, and sees a younger boy sitting on a bench on his own, looking very sad. Mollie realises something and starts to walk towards Babbit. When she’s beside him, she kneels down and picks him up, lovingly. They look at each other, and Babbit looks once again at the boy. Mollie smiles and hugs Babbit and puts him back on the ground. She look one more time at Babbit, then turns and runs onto the playground again. The camera stays still as Mollie runs out of shot. Then slowly the camera will turn towards the bench. And there is Babbit, big again, beside the boy. The boy dries his eyes and puts his hand out to Babbit and strokes him softly. Babbit closes his eyes, and the boy rests his head on Babbit’s. 


The End.

Lecture and Feedback Seminar - 24/10/11

In the lecture today with Caroline we watched Michael Dudok de Wit's beautiful short animated film, "Father and Daughter". The lecture was aimed at trying to help all of us think a lot about interesting composition and pacing and shot construction for our films. We watched the film twice, so to analyze it thoroughly. It is a truly stunning piece, and I was really inspired to try and develop my own film with better shot construction, better pacing, more subtle and expressive animation as well as poignant and strong backgrounds and characters.

'Father and Daughter' - Michael Dudok de Wit

Feedback:
Today I received feedback from my friend, Bry, as well as my tutor, James.

Feedback from Bry:
-Babbit needs to be seen helping Mollie tie her shoelaces at their first meeting.  In the first draft, Mollie is seen to have untied shoes throughout the film, as I decided I wanted to keep this a theme and a metaphor of Mollie "growing up". Bry noted that there was no evidence of Babbit helping Mollie with this towards the start of the storyboard, and there needed to be if the audience were to understand that Mollie needed Babbit to help her at the beginning.
-Mollie needs to be seen interacting with the other children otherwise the audience won't understand why she is shy/unconfident/sad etc. This is something I really want to develop. I think it could make soemthing quite subtle but poignant if done cleverly. It needs to read clearly, the audience need to understand that Mollie is unconfident and shy amongst her classmates and the consequence of that.
- The first part of the storyboard needs more shots of Mollie in a big/lonely environment. The start of the film needs to show more depth and setting. I need to do some shots showing how big the world is compared to Mollie which would overwhelm her at first, but towards the middle/end, become something calming and pleasant.

Feedback from James:
- The story needs more structure and meaning. There needs to be 3 defined "moments" to the story. The first moment being the "crisis", ie: Mollie in the worst situation possible to make her upset. Then Babbit helping her through the next two "moments" until she feels confident and content again. At the moment my story has little parts/moments that are better than others. I just need to work out a proper structure and meaning, looking even more into the emotive thoughts and subtle acting/shot construction/expression I can use to portray certain scenes. The last "moment" must be dramatic to give the conflict right at the end.
- The start of the film could show Mollie in the school classroom (at break-time when she's supposed to be outside) feeding the class rabbit, possibly with a name-tag which says "Babbit" on it. I really liked this idea. This way, there is a "real" Babbit the audience can relate to immediately, and then there is the process of having the audience trying to work out whether the large rabbit who will appear is actually the class Babbit or just Mollies' Babbit. It could create a nice dynamic right at the start.
- Babbit could disappear/turn invisible when Mollie is not with him...? A suggestion from James that I will have to ponder. I can see how this could work, but I need to really sit down and work out more story ideas to fully try and potentially incorporate this idea into the script.
- As well as this, James then suggested I try and draw up a "Character Diamond" personality test for my character, Mollie. It is a device used by various people when defining a character's characteristics.
At one end of the diamond you note the character's Strengths, and the opposite end, you note their true feelings, and what they would liked to achieve. The other two ends are opposites too. One end you note the character's 'supporting trait" and the other, their 'fatal flaw'. As shown in an example diagram below:

I will draw up a character diamond in the next post...

Overall I was happy with the feedback session today. Even though I have to go back and change a lot, I feel that the story is going to move in a better direction because of it. I really want to explore the emotive and visually simple but expressive side of story-telling in animation. I want to really experiemnt a lot more with shots and simply telling thoughts and actions in a visually effective and engaging way. I want the audince to understand what is happening clearly, and I want them to empathize and care for Mollie and Babbit.

Back to the drawing board it is!!

---jkl

Initial Idea/Storyboard and Script

We were asked to prepare an initial storyboard for the 17th October. I started writing the script and drawing the storyboard simultaneously. In retrospect, this was the wrong way to start, though I felt I had to be able to show something at the session on the 17th. By this point, I had done the first 1/3 of the script and storyboard and had a clear vision of what the ending would entail too. The difficult part was the middle section of the film, for which I had very little ideas on how to approach.

In this version, I was focusing on Mollie being bullied. She is scared to go outside and play because the bullies always tease and taunt her.

Here is the script written for the first 1/3 of the film:

Sc1
Opens with a shot of Mollie sitting on a beanbag in the school library, her back to a wall of windows. Children are playing outside, it‘s break time. She is sat, reading, looking quiet and content. Her lunch bag is next to her.
    She suddenly hears voices she’s all too familiar with. The voices are those of her bullies, who run by the window. Mollie ducks, covering her book over her head in an effort to hide from them. She holds the book there for a few seconds before lowering it and glancing out the window with a worrying expression.

Off screen:            “EHEM.”

Mollie turns towards the noise, surprised.

An old woman librarian holding several books and looking grumpy stares across the room where Mollie is. She raises her arm and points towards the window, gesturing for Mollie to go outside. The shot stays on the librarian, and Mollie walks towards the door just beside the woman, and walks out. The woman glares and watches Mollie leave.

Sc2
Mollie steps out a door to the outside, holding her lunch bag to her chest. She looks from side to side and starts to walk but freezes as she sees her bullies run past her. She pushes herself against a wall and watches them, holding her breath. They do not see her and run on. She breathes out, relieved and begins to walk away quickly.

Sc3
Ext. A secluded area, the quiet area for pupils, with a large willow-ish tree and a tiny rectangle pond and two benches facing towards it. The pond is slightly lower, as the benches are on a slight incline. The tree shades the area and gives it a calm and peaceful ambience.

Mollie sits down across from the pond. She opens her lunch bag and pulls out an apple and begins to eat it silently. Out of nowhere someone throws a rock which smacks into Mollie’s face. The shock makes her jump up. Her apple flies out of her hand and her lunch falls on the ground. The apple rolls down the hill and splashes into the pond. She turns around, one red cheek flaring and tears beginning to well up.

Offscreen: The sound of running footsetps and laughing.

She looks for the culprit(s), but noone’s there. Her face turns into a frown, and angrily she cries as she kneels down to pick up her lunch from the ground, putting it back into her bag.
    She stands up and starts to make her way towards the pond for her apple when she stops suddenly. There is a large white rabbit, 8 feet tall, sitting next to the pond, lapping at the water. As it continues to drink, the rabbit glances at Mollie, before bending it’s head and drinking some more. It starts to get up and as it does, the Rabbit picks up Mollie’s apple from the pond and bounces softly over to her, placing the apple at her feet. Mollie is still stunned. She bends to pick up the apple, and looks at the rabbit again. She turns her head to look for somebody, anybody who could be witnessing this too. But she is the only one. She turns towards the rabbit and wipes her tears from her eyes before offering the apple to the rabbit to eat. Its ears prick up excitedly and the rabbit eats the apple quickly off her hand. Mollie laughs and begins to stroke the rabbits nose, hesitantly at first, but softly and lovingly as the rabbit lets her.
Off screen sound: A bell rings for the end of break-time.

These are the first storyboard drafts. As you can see, they are not complete, and so don't show the last few moments as described in the script. These were done using a tablet on Photoshop.

At the seminar on the 17th we were asked to pair up with someone whose story development we hadn't seen much yet. I paired up with Pablo, who was able to give me some great feedback on my initial storyboards. We talked about the "bullies" situation in the story. He pointed out that it would be difficult to show Mollie and Babbit overcoming these bullies in a 'good' way without Mollie and Babbit 'getting their own back' or something of the sort. It was a tricky one to try and figure out, and we both agreed it was too complicated to be able to fit into a 3 minute film.

This I had already encountered at the initial storyboarding stage too. I had cut a scene down considerably from the point when Mollie first arrives at the pond. In the scene, Mollie has just sat down and begins to eat an apple. She then turns around and freezes when a bully is sitting right next to her on the bench, leaving Mollie terrified and frozen in fear. The bully then starts to tease Mollie until she jumps and the bully smacks the apple out of Mollie's hand which results in the apple rolling down towards the pond. This was instead cut down to having the apple fall out of Mollie's hand by having a bully throw a rock at her (as seen in the storyboards above) Here are the sketches from the cut scene:

So instead of focusing on the 'bullies' situation, I suggested some ideas that I was still thinking about, in that Mollie would be unconfident because she couldnt skip very well and therefore couldn't play with her classmates for feeling shy and embarassed. She will have made herself a recluse, and by Babbit coming into her life and showing her how to be confident and how to grow, she would learn how be happy and play with her friends the way she'd always wanted to. Pablo also pointed out that he liked the simple one-tone colour scheme used in the storyboard. It is definitely an element I will have to test in future colour/background/character design experiments.

I then had a feedback session with our tutor, James, who looked through my storyboard quickly and told me to go back and finish the script and go about the process in a different way. As I was still having trouble with my story in the middle, he encouraged me to draw 10 images that defined my film to help me focus on the story points and the important moments in my film.

From left to right:
1 - Mollie is lonely, sad and unconfident.
2 - She wants to join in playing with her freinds and classmates but feels inadequate and very embarassed that she can't skip very well.
3 - Mollie starts to cry when every attempt at skipping fails.
4 - Babbit appears and offers Mollie a 'shoulder to cry on'. She is comforted and feels a little better.

5 - Babbit helps Mollie to skip.
6 - Babbit is urging Mollie to step forward and face her fears. Mollie is unsure at first, but with Babbit there, she feels she can start to move on and gain more confidence.
7 - Mollie looking out at the playground watching her classmates all playing together.
8 - Babbit grows smaller, and Mollie is standing with the skipping rope in hand, looking a lot more confident than before, but slightly worried about Babbit's shrinking habits.
9 - Babbit notices a little boy who is upset on a bench. Mollie and Babbit both know what to do. Mollie must say goodbye to Babbit and Babbit must move on and help this boy now.
10 - Babbit has grown big again and the boy is stroking his fur and leaning in to him. Babbit has his eyes closed in content.


---jkl

Poster Task and another Story Direction.

In the lecture on Monday 10th October, our class were asked to create a poster design for our film. The exercise helped us all focus on layout which was helpful. We will be doing this task several times throughout this year, so we can all develop the right image for our films.

As it was only a short task, it was done loosely in pencil. I wanted to show Mollie sitting beside Babbit, back to back. Mollie is looking at Babbit in an inncoent way, making her looks as cute as possible. Babbit is shown smiling, and Mollie looks somewhat surprised, so this poster gives the clue that this will be Mollie's story of Babbit. Or at least, I hope that's what it says. As stated, this poster design will change within the next few weeks/months. I want to create a slightly more dramatic poster next time, perhaps not showing Mollie or Babbit's face at all, and play a bit with silhouettes and good posing of the characters to show a clear action/thought/inclination.

In the last post, I had just seen Leonie and had begun to develop a new story idea where Mollie is feeling lonely, sad and upset when a new baby brother comes along and the parents are too busy to pay much attention to Mollie. I drew a few more images..

 I was finding it hard however to really develop this story without having to bring in a sub-plot of the parents reacting to Mollie's loneliness. (Babbit was going to appear visible only to Mollie and the audience, but the twist at the end would reveal that Mollie's parents knew about Babbit the whole time and had asked him to look after Mollie/be there for Mollie...) This would put more strain on the film, as I wanted to keep the number of characters to a bare minimum, and with the parents and new baby as well as Mollie and Babbit, I really couldn't think of how I would be able to portray all of the relationships and story well without going over the recommended time of 3 minutes.

On Tuesday 11th October, a few friends on the course and I asked to meet with our tutor, Matt Gravelle, to go over our story ideas with him. Matt pointed out the difficulties I would have developing the story with so many main characters saying it would require a far more complex story, which I agreed with. He liked the idea that Babbit grew smaller as Mollie grew in confidence. He told me I should definitely focus on their relationship. Mollie needs Babbit. Matt suggested some ideas such as, Mollie is being bullied, or Mollie needs to win a contest of some sort and needs to build in confidence with Babbit's help. He also liked the picture books I bought for inspiration and wanted me to definitely keep to that style.

I liked the ideas that Matt suggested, so I then started developing ideas focused on Mollie and Babbit's relationship in a new situation.

---jkl

New Inspiration, a new style...

After the feedback from the tutors on Monday (26th Sept) I had a few things to think about. I decided to gather more research in the form of children's books, as the tutors seemed to like the idea of the film in a "picture book" style. I ventured to Waterstone's and had a great time looking through lots of books in the kids' section. (I've always felt that the children's section is by far the most exciting place in any book shop anyway...)

It wasn't long before I found inspiration. Two books by author, Anna Kemp and illustrator, Sara Ogilvie, caught my eye instantly. Their first collaberated book; "Dogs Don't Do Ballet", and their second and most recent book; "Rhinos Don't Eat Pancakes" are fun, cleverly written and beautifully illustrated. The illustrations instantly had me hooked for their vibrancy and charming style. As I read the books there in the shop, I fell in love with them! I had to buy them!

As well as the illustration style, the stories also inspired me to change/alter my ideas for my film too. The feedback from the session with the tutors, had asked me to try not to think of the film too realistically, and to be more adventurous with the story.

So now, taking inspiration mainly from "Rhinos Don't Eat Pancakes", I decided to turn the toy Babbit into a large rabbit which Mollie befriends. I had the idea that as Mollie grows older, the large Babbit will grow smaller, as a metaphor for growing up, taking on new responsibilities and embracing life, but not altogether losing your sense of imagination. My first story ideas for this were centered around Mollie gradually growing up with Babbit, and with every year she grows (represented by Mollie's new shoes; ie: from slip ons, to velcro, to buckles, to shoelaces...) Babbit gets smaller as she learns to adapt to getting older. Mollie would realise her Babbit growing smaller, and vice/versa with Babbit realising too, and both would become confused and upset. Then Babbit would one day disappear at bed-time (as Mollie would always sleep beside Babbit at night-time) and she would stay up and look for him, until, exhausted, she would have to sleep in her parents room. When she awakens and returns to her own room, she would find a toy rabbit, and Mollie would then know that Babbit would always be with her.

I started by doing some quick life drawing sketches of rabbits from a google image search. I will need to do more research at a later stage.

So here are the first sketch development designs working in a style inspired by the books featured above:

Mollie is featured in a few illustrations in her school uniform, as this is the "climax" of the film, when Babbit really starts to grow smaller rapidly as he notices Mollie growing up fast. This is also when Mollie would really realise Babbit growing smaller... The illustration showing a woman fitting Mollie's new school uniform is an idea for a scene which would show both Babbit and Mollie being curious and unaware of what this uniform means to them at that point. But as the story would develop (with Mollie leaving home every weekday to go to school) Babbit would then really start to notice the change in Mollie, and the change in himself.

  

I had a one-on-one session with Leonie on Tuesday (4th October). She really liked the picture books I am using as inspiration, and liked the idea that the Babbit is now "big" and the idea that he grows smaller whilst Mollie grows bigger. She brought to my attention that the story still had no structure. She suggested trying to tell the story from anothers' point of view, either Babbit's or the parents'. She suggested that, as Babbit is there for Mollie because she NEEDS him, I should think of all the ways the parents could be "ignoring" Mollie therefore NEEDING Babbit to "fill in the gap". So this could include swimming, riding a bike, holding hands while crossing the road etc... Leonie also suggested I should develop my own style inspired from the books I have bought. And for a last resort (ie: if my story just doesnt get sorted out); that I could contact the author and illustrator of the books and ask if I could possibly animate one of their books.

I still need to brainstorm more ideas... Overall the session with Leonie was great and really got me thinking a little more about the structure the film's story could take.

Almost instantly after having the session, I thought of another structural story idea that could possibly carry the whole film. A new baby brother arrives and Mollie is feeling left out and ignored by her parents. The big Babbit keeps her company, helping her do things as well as allowing her to cause mischief (to get attention from her parents). The ending is still not worked out, as this was just a quick story structure idea, but from a comment that Leonie made, there could possibly be a "twist" ending in that Babbit actually interacts and helps Mollie's parents as well, which Mollie may or may not discover.... It's still just little ideas. I will need to have another session with either James or Leonie to sort out more ideas soon.

 

 


---jkl