Progress

Since I last blogged progress has been slow and I had a week where my interest in the project was waning. But after much soul searching, watching of films and reading of animation literature; the enthusiasm is coming back.

Last week I looked at screen ratio sizes and worked on developing a base layer size for the background underlay. The overlay has not yet been sized given that I think that it will be a fluid part of the background development that will emerge once the underlay has been locked. Given that I am now looking to make this a  background only project that displays the backgrounds in context and then also in isolation for analysis I've decided that I will work in widescreen format as I think that this will best suit the sweeping pans and detail I want to include; especially in the external shots.

Methodology, I'm old fashioned, so I walked my way through the animatic and worked out the size of background safe areas for each shot.

In addition to working out background sizes and screen ratio, I've also been continuing to research to add more depth to the exegesis. Found a great book about layout by Fraser Maclean 'Setting the Scene: The Art and Evolution of Animation Layout.' Rare to find a book about layout and it worked well in terms of my study into the storytelling properties of backgrounds. Worth a look- some fantastic background and layout art as well. 

Recently had a birthday and got The Art of Brave book which has some fantastic concept art, colour scripts and storyboards. But for me the inclusion of on sight/ location referencing and the importance of the weather and texture in backgrounds as a means of adding meaning to narrative. I love it when my research requires me to analyse the 'Art of' books- so inspiring. 

So What You Been Up To Lately?

'So,' someone asked, 'Whatya been up to?' 

Well, many assignments that have taken me away from my project and then a chance to sit down and get stuck into some preliminary backgrounds to test the visual differences between modern day and 1930s-40s Sydney. The transitions are indicative only, I haven't decided on how the morphing or transformations of the backgrounds will happen yet, although I'm fond of saying, 'We'll do it in post' I'm pretty sure we wont. 

I started by mapping out the street first then layer upon layer I made it into a modern interpretation of Ashfield/ Croydon in Sydney where there are signs of urban decay and change. Then I redid the entire street scene thinking of how the older generation would remember it, the 'back in my day' syndrome. My choices of what to include and what to remove were based on research into the area and case studies with residents who remember things like vegetable patches and fruit trees instead of flowers in the 1930s and 40s.