amanda

After a few weeks into pre-production, we were told to create our own mini-pitch with storylines we have created with the several workshops that we have had throughout the first few weeks of the first term. We were also expected to use our given artist's (in my case, it was Lorenzo Mattotti) style in this pitch.

I had two storylines, the first one was created in a writing workshop with James Henry. The whole storyline created in that workshop could have filled out a possible full fledged 2 hour movie or 2 seasons of a particular cartoon series. It was all twists and turns, and it got my head just spinning thinking of it.

Another storyline that we picked up was in a workshop with Derek, Andy & Kathy. They gave us picture cards, and we could pick any item that they've laid out on the table. My team received these three cards, and we picked a fork.

Chosen item with three given cards.

The plot of my mini-pitch was: A footballer that became seriously injured after a football match. After being told that he could never be a footballer like before again, he started pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming a chef (and became a good one at that).

This is the "wow" image that I came up with for this mini-pitch.

"Wow" image for mini-pitch: 'FoodBall'.
Aaaaaand, here's a slice of the animatic (with sound):



The feedback that I've gotten back was that it reminded Derek of Gordon Ramsay. Although my mini-pitch did not get picked in the end, it was a great experience all around!

Ultimately, after sorting out the character sheets, we sat down as a group and finalised the outline for the story. Our main script is shown below:


Finalised script for ShelterBox.
After that, we made a rough outline of the beats of the script, to break down the storyline into even more details.


Rough beats for ShelterBox.
From there, we split up the beats into even number of parts for everyone to do the animatic. We didn't want one person to do the entire animatic as we had other tasks to do as well, and it was also for everyone to know how to pick up the continuation process of the film. At this point in time, we had another member join our group and it was Ross!

This term, we were given an opportunity to work with a client for a live brief. The two options that were given to us were a brief with ShelterBox and a Space Brief. Ultimately I leaned towards ShelterBox- because one: it's an amazing non-profit organisation, two: it's a versatile project. I didn't particularly have an interest for the space brief as the brief itself stated that it required a lot of precision and accuracy in the subject, and it also leaned towards a big chunk of 3D which I wasn't ready to take on. At the end of the project briefing with a representative of ShelterBox, it became clear that I wanted to pick this brief a lot more than the other one.

ShelterBox: for more info, please visit their website here.

I ended up being grouped together with Ting, Kuan, Margarita and also Johana. During our first meeting, we started out with deciding to go towards a narrative approach for the project. Ting took on the director role and I took on the producer role.

Our main concept was to produce a hybrid animation piece, merging 2D and stop-motion together. We wanted to have a stop-motion background/stills with 2D characters on it. The setting of our story was the beach with toys as our main characters. We had everyone go back and do some sketches of some toys that they came up with which would then be included in the animation. We also had everyone practice drawing the main family which was originally done by Kuan.



Pigeon character (designed & drawn by me).

Mr. A (designed & drawn by me).

For this year, I chose to go through with the pre-production route of the course. During our introduction class to the pre-production module, we had Andy, Derek & Kathy there in the room, giving us a short talk each. At the end of the session, they split us into twos and gave every duo an artist that we have to study on. What they wanted us to do was to study the art styles of the artist given to us and try to adapt to it as in animation, there is no such thing as one static style forever. Sometimes we'd need to adapt to another animator's style. This exercise in turn helps us loosen up and make sure we work a little out of our comfort zone.

I received Lorenzo Mattotti as my artist. The first thing that came to my mind was that my artist was definitely Italian. I didn't know any of his work, but after searching for him online, I was intrigued at the his art style and couldn't wait to mimic it. Mattotti often uses pastels in his artwork, giving it a grainy texture. I tried replicating it with colour pencils but unfortunately, that didn't work out well.

Some of Lorenzo Mattotti's illustrations playing with a variety of colours.
Some of Lorenzo Mattotti's illustrations in ink on paper.
Mattotti is a very versatile artist, constantly playing with shape, colour, light and also lines. He manages to convey emotions into every line that he draws. I tried copying it but I have yet to try it digitally.



Until the next task, then!