'Pigment of Imagination' on UK-edition DVDs & Blu-rays of horror hit "Paranormal Activity"!

Pigment of Imagination, the short animated film that I made during my final year at Edinburgh College of Art, was last month shortlisted in an online film contest hosted by Icon Film Distribution (the company co-founded in 1989 by Mel Gibson); and it will now be appearing as a Bonus Feature on all the UK-release DVDs & Blu-rays of hit horror film Paranormal Activity, which is released today!



The contest, called Film Your Own Paranormal Activity, was run on Icon Film Distribution's PrepareToBeScared YouTube profile for several months until the end of January, and allowed UK residents to create & submit their own 3-minute horror films made in the style of Paranormal Activity.

I don't personally consider Pigment of Imagination to be a horror film (it's more a suspense film), however its setting within a derelict house does perhaps evoke a spooky sense of mystery and darkness similar to the classic horror films that helped inspire it such as: The Haunting (1963), The Innocents (1961), and Dracula (1931).
With that opinion about the genre of my film I didn't expect it to do too well in the YouTube contest, but then again, its success perhaps shouldn't have been such a great surprise...


...The only reason I submitted Pigment of Imagination to the contest was because I got informed about it by the promoters (via a YouTube message) who said they really liked my film. They asked me if I would like to re-edit the film down to a regulation duration of under 3 minutes, then add the edited film to their YouTube playlist of contest entires for the public to watch prior to the closing date.
The original cut of my film (as shown at the Edinburgh College of Art 2009 Degree Show) had a duration of 3:48, which was at least 48 seconds over the regulation play length for the contest. If I was going to enter the contest I really didn't want to cut anything from the story because the story was already running very bare in the original version: but luckily those last 50 seconds were end credits for the Degree Show premiere at the Filmhouse cinema last June - and because I already had the main credits featured at the start of the film I could simply cut the end credits to conform to the regulations while keeping the original story of the film intact.


Throughout the contest my film was displayed on the PrepareToBeScared YouTube profile along with more than 130 other short films. In the two weeks prior to the submission deadline my film had attracted little over 100 views (which was one of the lowest view counts of all the films), and an average rating from two people of 2.5 stars out of 5, which didn't look promising. However my film managed to get shortlisted to the top 50 at the end of January, and then a week later I was informed by e-mail that my film had been selected as one of the final 10 films and would be appearing on the UK-release DVDs and Blu-rays of Paranormal Activity!
If getting shortlisted into the last 50 was surprising for me, being told that Pigment of Imagination will be appearing on all the DVDs & Blu-rays was even more shocking because it had been my understanding upon entering the contest that only the one winning film would be featured!
Thereafter I had to e-mail a digital file of my film to Icon, sign official release forms, post the forms back, and then wait for over a month to publicly release this news today (the secrecy wasn't an official part of the contest regulations - I just wanted to do it that way - but it's felt like a really long month)!


The Final 10 films have been publicly available on the PrepareToBeScared YouTube profile for several weeks: Indeed the contest has already been reviewed (a couple of weeks ago) by Pete Stanton at Moviefone UK, who gave outstanding praise to both my Pigment of Imagination, and to Killer Flies From Mexico by Ollie Bostock & Johnny Eveson.

Stanton wrote that my film is:

A beautiful animation that shows more flair and imagination than Paranormal Activity and Heebie Jeebies [the overall contest winner] put together.

You can read the full review here. And you can click here to head straight over to the PrepareToBeScared YouTube profile and watch all 10 shortlisted films (as will appear on all the UK-release DVDs and Blu-rays of Paranormal Activity from Monday 22 March 2010).



I'd like to take this opportunity to again thank everyone that helped me with the film:
- Darryl Ryznar, Actress - sorry the day of filming didn't go entirely to plan.
- Chris Bathgate, Sound Designer - thanks for doing an awesome job with all the audio in such a short space of time!
- Annalise Wimmer, Filming of Snoopy the Beagle in Budapest - thanks for taking time out of your Christmas holiday to film all that reference material for me.
- Claudia Menting, Filming of myself as the Artist - Cheers for providing your camera & time.
- Alan Mason, Tutor - Thanks for providing all those film references, DVDs, Friday Film Sessions, and helping with the refinement of my script.
- Marianne Gallagher, Studio Assistant / friend - Thanks for providing support, and encouraging me to get the film finished!
- Ewan Green, animation classmate - Thanks for always being so cheery, knowledgeable, and for providing so many good suggestions over the years.
- All the students that I helped with their films prior to making my own - thanks for all the experience & tips.
- My parents - "for providing me with food and shelter; and for putting up with my all my equipment taking over the living room (for the past 12 months!)" - as it said in the end credits.

Shortlisted in film contest!

My animated graduation film, Pigment of Imagination (2009), has been shortlisted to the final 10 of an online film contest; and as long as no issues arise over the coming days, then I should have some VERY exciting news to announce soon!

But in the meantime: Yay!

Pigment of Imagination: film now online in full!

BEFORE WATCHING: Please use headphones to get the best audio experience (built-in laptop speakers will not play any of the important low frequency bass & synth sounds, which ruins the atmosphere of the film!)



Pigment of Imagination is my short animated graduation film, which premiered on Monday 15 June 2009.
It is a 3 minute suspense story inspired by the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard, along with an eclectic range of other influences in order to try and create something new and interesting that doesn't conform to the usual animation storylines and commercial restraints.

CREDITS:
- Written & Animated by: Andy Macpherson
- Script consultation by: Alan Mason
- Sound Design by: Chris Bathgate
- Woman performed by: Darryl Ryznar
- Woman filmed in Edinburgh by: Andy Macpherson
- Woman's voice by: Moira Paton
- Painter performed by: Andy Macpherson
- Painter filmed in Edinburgh by: Klodya Menting
- Dog performed by: Snoopy
- Dog (Snoopy the beagle) filmed in Budapest by: Annalise Wimmer
- Dog noises by: Sofi
- Thanks to ECA staff: Alan Mason, Marianne Gallagher, Morten Jonmark, Neil Kempsell, Madevi Dailly, Donald Holwill.
- Thanks to: Julia Petitperrin, Alison Cross, Aaron Johnston, Jessica Cope, Natasha Harrison, Lora Jensen, Ewan Green, Owen Rixon, Paul Morris, Chris Gough, Michael Oliver.
- ..."And Thanks to my parents for providing me with food and shelter; and for putting up with my equipment taking over the living room (for the past 12 months!)"
- Special Thanks to: Erica Weiste, Marianne Gallagher, Johanna Wagner.
- Edinburgh College of Art, MCMIX


Lots more information about the development of the film is available by clicking here and then scrolling down the page to access older articles about the development of the film].

The full film can be watched by anyone from my profiles on both Vimeo and YouTube

Pigment of Imagination: Summary

Andy Macpherson's debut film Pigment of Imagination was produced as part of his final year course work at Edinburgh College of Art for a BA (Hons) degree in Visual Communication (specialising in Animation).
It is a 3 minute animated suspense film inspired by the work of Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, I Confess) and Jean-Luc Godard (Bande a Part, Alphaville), with many other eclectic influences helping to further enhance the unique style of the work.

The story follows a young woman searching for her lost beagle in a spooky old mansion, unaware of the psychotic artist lurking behind one of the many doors.

Produced over an 8 month period from November 2008-June 2009, the film utilised live-action referencing similar to A-Ha’s Take On Me music video, and was drawn with black ballpoint pen on A6 paper to create a vibrant and much-praised visual style.
The drawn animation frames interact with watercolour backgrounds that are painted under Expressionist influence in order to enhance the unique visual style of the overall film and break away from the constraints of modern commercial animation.
Further to this, digital shortcuts were kept to a bare minimum during the production of this film, and assistance from other people was restricted in order to keep the film looking as personal and as hand-made as possible. This makes the film look like a piece of traditional artwork and helps to counter the commercial industry’s reliance upon CGI for almost everything these days, which this director feels is ruining the magic of film and television.

A 30 second trailer for Pigment of Imagination is embedded below, and more of his video work is available to view on both his YouTube profile and Vimeo profile.


Pigment of Imagination premiered on Screen 1 of the Filmhouse cinema (Edinburgh), on Monday 15th June 2009 as part of the Edinburgh College of Art animation degree show 2009, and had a repeat screening on Tuesday 16th June 2009.

His full film (plus a small selection of portfolio work) was on display along with the work of another 12 animators and 400 other graduating artists as part of the Edinburgh College of Art 2009 degree show held from 13th-23rd June.


The full film will be available to view online late-2009...

UPDATE: Please click here to watch the full film on YouTube.

Filmhouse premiere

We finally had our big Animation premiere at the Filmhouse cinema in Edinburgh on Monday night.
Despite having my debut film on show for everyone to see, the evening didn't feel particularly special to me, and when my film came on I felt really laid-back (despite expecting to be a nervous wreck)!
I'm also disappointed that the duration of our film show was so short (I don't know exactly how it compares to other years, but it certainly seemed to be over much quicker than previous years)... Although I suppose it is better that it feels compact than for it to seem to be dragging on and on.

I'd like to thank everyone who has spoken to me about my film after seeing it (either at the Filmhouse, or at our degree show exhibition space in the Evolution House cafe); but I'd particularly like to thank Hazel Leszczynska because she is the only one so far to have given me some criticism (and it isn't like I didn't try to get people to say bad things)!
My preference for criticism may seem odd to many people (particularly those at ECA), but I strongly believe that you can learn/improve a lot more from criticism than from positive comments... After all if you only ever hear about the same old good things then you are less aware of what people don't like/understand, and are therefore going to find it harder to mitigate in your future work.

Sound design (graduation film update)

I've been working with my sound designer (Chris Bathgate) all week, getting my film ready for the Filmhouse premiere on June 15th. The film is now very nearly complete, and with all the sound added it has come together much better than I originally anticipated back in January, which is nice.

Today I got to record foley sounds; play with a synth; and create a suspenseful little piece of violin music with a computer!

It has been a fun day despite all the not-so-good stuff that happened, but this blog post is gonna remain positive... For example, my friend and classmate, Ewan Green, got a 1st Class grade for his degree today and also started his first day of work at Django Films today, meaning that he gets to do his best Forrest Gump impression as a runner for the animation company of Sylvain Chomet (Belleville Rondezvous)... And apparently after hearing my violin composition, I've been asked by Dreamworks to conduct their next animated feature....
Did someone say It's Zimmer Time?

Pigment of Imagination trailer

Here's a trailer for my graduation film, Pigment of Imagination; which premieres at the Filmhouse cinema on Lothian Road in Edinburgh on Monday 15th June 2009 at 20:30, with a repeat screening on Tuesday 16th June 2009 at 18:00. Tickets can be purchased (once they become available) from the Filmhouse website here.



There should also be an opportunity to watch my film for free at the Edinburgh College of Art degree show from 13th-23rd June 2009.
As far as I'm aware a selection of animation portfolio work along with the films are getting displayed in a glorified cupboard behind the cafe in Evo House (on the corner of West Port and Lady Lawson Street)... But the films may also get screened in the Main Lecture Theatre at the college campus on Lauriston Place.

Obsessive planning + the unexpected = tense conclusion

It was the big bad assessment hand-in for all us 4th Years at 5pm on Friday, and for me it was nothing more than a big anti-climax, but those last few days sure were tense/hard-work/exciting!!! (Especially the last 30 minutes)...

I had spent the final week working desperately hard trying to finish my animation as soon as possible so that my sound designer could begin synching the sounds before Friday, but that took me until 8am on Thursday... After working all of Wednesday night to get the animation complete I began selecting a bunch of video clips to document my production process on the DVD presentation, and then I spent all of Thursday evening until Friday afternoon preparing my work for assessment. (All I had to do was print a bunch of notes, bind 6 production diaries, and design/print the DVD disc label and case sleeve - but it somehow took over 12 hours! And I only expected it to take a couple of hours!!!)
In the end I had to make-do with a basic job on the creation of my DVD (which I'm quite disappointed about), I had to do a rushed job regarding the design of the DVD presentation, and even after everything was complete and checked a hundred times I still felt the need to double check everything again and again...
I was so concerned about the presentation of all my work and making sure that I had everything ready to deliver that I became oblivious to the amount of time it takes to get to Edinburgh and how serious the deadline is supposed to be: so much so that as I left the house my dad pessimistically queried whether I had enough time to get there. It was only then that I begin to realise my misjudgment and feel anxious, but once I got in the car everything seemed fine again... (Mathematically, it would take 20mins to get to the P&R, 25mins to get into the city centre, and 15 mins to get into college, which from the time of leaving home at 15:30 would give me 30 mins spare). However just as the bus was pulling up to my stop 20 mins away from college at 16:30, the bus driver decided to change his route and really test my patience!!!
Instead of the usual route along George Street (where I'd usually get off), the bus driver for some unknown reason decided to ignore the route and head along Queen Street directly to the bus station without stopping once. (When he began doing this it was 16:35, and would take me about 15 minutes to walk to college, giving me 10 mins spare; but it was almost 16:40 before I got off the bus at the bus station, and from there it takes 19 minutes to walk to college - which would leave me seconds to hand everything in!!!)
Luckily, with a whole lot of route planning and power walking across the roadwork-ravaged city I managed to make it into my studio at college with 4 minutes to spare, and thanks to all the meticulous planning/obsessive checking that I had done over the last 30-odd hours all I had to do at that point was to empty everything out my bag and plonk it down on the table.

Job done.

Pretty pictures (sleep deprivation)

This is something like my 38th hour without sleep while working on my film, but I don't feel too bad - I'm actually pretty excited about it all now!
I was in college for my second ever 24 hour working session at eca, which went smoothly (I got almost all my backgrounds sorted out), I did the last piece of rotoscoping for my film in the darkroom (the only shot from the entire film that I've rotoscoped at college!), I've been organizing things with other folk in relation to the completion of my film, and also trying to decide whether or not to include dialogue in my film - and if I do include dialogue, what language should it be in???

Just to break the monotony of 38 hours without sleep I thought I'd post some nice pictures from my film, just because I feel like it...

hmm... deadlines, posters, and confusion

One of my sources in the eca Jewellery department is quoted as saying "Degree show crunch time has hit ECA hard" (Fools Gold, 2009), but I have not realised any change... The animation department is near empty, and I still feel little stress).
There is only 15 days until the assessment deadline, and like my source at Fools Gold I got nothing done yesterday in terms of studio work. Instead I spent all day doing things that I don't remember, but which seemed important at the time, and then I stayed up all nite (from midnight-7am) trying to create the first version of my film poster for the eca Design school degree show catalogue (which nobody has been given definite instructions for)... Last nite I was aware that our image for the catalogue had to be 30cms tall at 300dpi and in portrait format, which therefore renders all my animation stills useless as they are only 12cms long at 150dpi and in landscape format). I therefore made what seemed like a sensible decision, and decided to create my film poster now so that it can be used for this catalogue as well as for the degree show exhibition.
I created my poster in a painted/design style inspired by classic film posters such as Jules et Jim, Les Quatre Cents Coups, Casablanca, Contempt, La Fiancee du Diable, La Strada, Nosferatu The Vampyre, Questa e La Mia Vita, The Trouble With Harry, and especially Psycho)... Below is my poster design as it currently looks, but I'm going to improve the fonts, repair the badly Photoshopped painting, and hopefully add more useful names to the list on the right hand side at a later stage...

After spending the best part of 9 valuable hours over two days on this poster for the Design school degree show catalogue, I received an e-mail from staff stating that there is a possibility that we, as filmmakers, may be getting permission to use our native landscape format instead of being forced into a portrait format - but we will find out for definite tomorrow (which seems a bit daft, after all that is just a day before our original catalogue image hand-in deadline)! If the powers that be decide to change their minds about the format of our pictures, it means that the time I spent making my poster was a waste of important rotoscoping and sleeping time (cos my workload obviously isn't yet stressful enough for me to go completely without sleep until the deadline)...

Some backgrounds for my film

I survived my "acting" debut on Monday, and despite being the director I've not yet seen any of the footage... The whole process actually went really well, but I doubt I will be challenging Heath Ledger or Anthony Perkins for the most convincing psycho award.

Over the past week I have been adding coloured backgrounds to my rotoscoping. I've never had the opportunity to do precise backgrounds for character animation before, so this is something new to me, but it works well enough so far... My only concern is that the backgrounds look pretty flat, although if I have the time available I will manually add more depth with blur and focus frame-by-frame in Photoshop, which should really enhance the images. In the meantime here are some of my first backgrounds...

Storyboarding for a psycho

I'm shooting live-action for my third and final character (a murderous psychotic artist) on Monday so that I can complete my film.
Due to popular demand (well, two people) I am going to be doing the 'acting' for this final character, which is going to feel awkward to say the least! (Who in high school EVER imagined that I would do some acting?!) But with a little help from Ally, Jess, and Topher last year I pretty much perfected that character, so it's not completely new to me!

In preparation for my acting debut on Monday I have been storyboarding some murder scenes from various films (for research and development), and I'm now trying to create an extensive collection of original thumbnail images (that don't copy shots from other films) with detailed notes for my own film.
I thought I was doing really well and had created a unique sequence, only to discover that the composition of some shots is almost identical to some of the shots in Hitchcock's Psycho... (dammit!)
But at least I'm getting some really useful stuff done, and hopefully these thumbnails will give me a good shooting schedule to ensure that I do not forgot to shoot any important shots (like I did in January while filming stuff with Darryl).

I'm pretty excited (if not also nervous/self-conscious) about attempting all this crazy stuff on Monday, but I've arranged for Klodya Menting (whom I also worked with last year) to come into college and film it all for me - so I can't back out of it now! And even if Klodya pulls out, Marianne had also offered to film it for me - so I have to commit to it now! (Those responsible for the "popular demand" had better appreciate it!)

In other news:
- I've been creating some backgrounds for my film with watercolours after a few earlier tests produced intriguing results.
- I made a 2 minute preview of my film (one that doesn't ruin the ending) to show the family on Sunday, and during this quick editing process I devised some more interesting revisions of the film... I really liked the climax "ending" so I'm going to fight hard to keep it in the final version.

Film update & words of wisdom

I've spent a long time away from my film this month, and after what a particular Quentin Tarantino character may recognise as "a moment of clarity", I've decided just to stick with all the rotoscoping and ballpoint pen colouring.

I've finally come to terms with the fact that this film (using the drawn process) will never look as great as I ideally desire (which requires more experience, resources, and time than are available to me in 4th Year). This realisation has helped me to 'enjoy' [I don't think that is the most suitable word] the production process more and just see what happens... The final result will be decent by my own perfectionist standards, so it should be fine for other students too - and I suppose by not meeting my exceptional expectations first time around will mean I've still got something to aim for with my next project! I've certainly got enough obscure influences/inspirations/ideas/drive to get started on a new auteur-style film after this project is concluded.
Anyway, I thought that this post (with it's "moment of clarity") would be suitable for publishing some of the words of wisdom that I've received over roughly the past 12 months...

- "We as an art college should be striving to produce innovative, exciting new works, and attempting to break new ground for the future animators. We shouldn't be trying to imitate someone else in the professional world, or settle for what we know and have access to. We are the explorers of today (like Len Lye, Walt Disney, and Norman McLaren were in the past); we have the rest of our careers to comply with the industry and do as someone else tells us, but for just now, as students, we should do what we want to do". (Neil Kempsell, March 2008)

- [about the concept selection for a graduation film] "I think it's best to just pick a simple concept right from the beginning. Many people go into 4th Year expecting to produce a 10-minute masterpiece [of the quality like Disney, Petrov, or Burton] and then they realise much later that they won't be able to achieve it, and they will have to cut it all right down - which ruins the story... It's only a student film after all, it's not a big expensive industry film". (Erica Weiste, April 2008)

- "Try not to be too much of a perfectionist". (Erica Weiste, March 2009)

- [about the work load/scheduling of a graduation film] "Start planning it all right now [the end of 3rd Year] and make sure that you've got the story, the style, the process, EVERYTHING, completely sorted out by October [the start of 4th Year]. That way you can get as much time as possible to develop it and work on the animation". (Louis Hudson, May 2008)

- [about the dedication required on a graduation film] "There's so much to do that it will mean not sleeping for the next few weeks". (Alison Cross, April 2008)

And finally, just because I think it's pretty humorous, a quote I found on the internet from an actor talking about his job... "I'm an actor... I do a job and I go home. Why are you interested in me? You don't ask a truck driver about his job". (James Gandolfini).

New showreel! and other news from an unusual day

I've spent the last 4 hours putting together a shiny new showreel of my animation work... Tis available for viewing here at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goh9tYXSTA0

Earlier this evening I tried making an abstract audio track for my film with bits of soundtracks from other films... Those films were: Psycho, Vertigo, The Killers, Casino Royale, and something else I don't remember... It doesn't really work, but it was a decent way of wasting some time.
Did you know that there is very little music in Hitchcock's The Birds?! I have been planning on keeping the music in my film as minimal as possible, but everyone else thought that was a bad idea... Well I checked some of the most suspenseful moments in that film, and none of them had music!

This afternoon I made some random drawing/painting type thingys related to my film too... Below are two of those images.
So it's been a really productive day - even though it hasn't really progressed my film.

Graduation film update: The good, the bad, and the ugly

I am still pondering whether I should continue with my rotoscoping process (I've already done most of the film with rotoscoping), or if it would look better by re-storyboarding the film and making in-between frames of animation at the same 1-inch frame size...
Everybody in college who has seen my rotoscoping has said that it looks good, but (as always happens in college) nobody has offered any form of criticism, which makes the positive feedback seem unbalanced and hollow. Perhaps if a few people were brave enough to give a little bit of constructive feedback (rather than just "I like it") I would feel more inclined to continue with the rotoscoping... People tend to agree (once I raise the issue) that my storyboards look better than the rotoscoping, but so far nobody is keen on the prospect of me restarting from the storyboard stage (I think they are scared of a little bit of hard work!), but I still think this is a better option.
I think restarting would be a better option because the whole point of doing rotoscoping was to re-create the look of my storyboards (which would be impossible to recreate with my preferred animation techniques of Paint on Glass or stopmotion), but the rotoscoping is not re-creating the style of the original storyboards to my satisfaction, hence why I want to restart the animation process by using the storyboards as key frames for the final animation.
As this point in time is very likely to be the death of my rotoscoped film, and my final film is now going to look very different from the current rotoscoping, I am including a 50 second video of my rotoscoping, which I am calling "The good, the bad, and the ugly" because it is documenting how my whole rotoscoping process has been hit-or-miss with very unpredictable outcomes.

Graduation film update

Progress on my graduation film began to stall last week, and having spent the last 4 days avoiding the issue, I think I may be about to go into reverse... But fear not, for I am hopeful that this reverse will lead to a better destination.

I had only 2 shots left of the female character to rotoscope, and I had also begun the tedious colouring process (I am colouring large parts of every single frame black with a ballpoint pen), but the combination of a very repetitive colouring process, an aesthetic that I was not happy with, and the extreme isolation of being stuck at home for the last 10 days made this a horribly depressing situation that put me off the film as a whole.
I have always harboured reservations about the rotoscoping process because I felt that it didn't add much to the story, and some shots looked too lively or realistic for what I wanted to achieve with it. I have also struggled to maintain the excitement of my storyboards in the final rotoscoped drawings, which is dragging me down further. I read a quote in a blog a couple of years ago about storyboards and concept art having more vibrancy than the final animation, which the author found really disappointing, and I have found that quote quite inspiring ever since...

Lots of people have been interested in and have praised the look of my rotoscoping, and although I like the look of some shots, it does not look anywhere near as interesting as I had hoped my film would look when I began. Although the colouring process is very tedious (which is exactly what I set out to put myself under at the beginning of the project), I do not want to leave college having survived an epic endurance battle if it means I have a film I'm not at all happy with.
I also have an issue with my shots and the atmosphere of my film. It was supposed to be a slow and atmospheric film, but my longest shot is only 4 seconds, and I use cuts way too often. I wanted to have really slow shots that stay with the protagonist and barely cut away, but it would be torturous to animate (because I attempt to rotoscope at least one shot every day), and I feel that I could achieve a much more effective film if I made it solely in live-action with a purpose-built set and with no animation involved... But I don't think live-action would be suitable for my degree in animation...(?)

So my plan now is to return to the storyboards, re-draw them all as if I was going to make my perfect live-action version, and then re-start the animation process from there (using the 1" storyboard frames as the frames of animation). The reason for this is that I have always felt that the storyboard animatic tells the story clearly and that the animation sequences just fill the time by making obvious the character's movements - so in my opinion the animation is not enhancing the story in any way.
By re-doing the storyboards I can hopefully re-tell the story in a more effective manner with the stimulating aesthetics of my original storyboards (which I struggled to get into my rotoscoping).
By in-betweening the storyboard animatic I can have clearer motion for a general audience who are unfamiliar with storyboard animation, but it will hopefully maintain the atmosphere of the original storyboards, while the new jerky/limited animation technique should create a creepier motion and environment for the overall film...

If I do decide to go with this process it will mean I've wasted the time of Darryl, Annalise and Ewan who all worked on the live-action for my rotoscoping, and although they will all still get credit in my final film (regardless of what it is or contains), I want to make a film that looks interesting and that I am happy with so that they are not credited for some piece of rubbish that means nothing to me (otherwise I would just go to the bin and sign a piece of litter for you!)....
So here's to experimentation.

Graduation film: update

This is roughly the halfway stage of my final year at eca, so here is an update on my graduation film.

I have been animating for 2 weeks and drawn about 20 out of 100 shots, but only about 5 are fully coloured/etched/drawn (however you may want to describe the final look of the film).

I am trying to animate at least one shot a day, and my most recent estimate for the finishing date is April 14th.

I've not yet decided what to do with the soundtrack, and although I still really want to use Finnish dialogue, I don't think dialogue will add much to the story...

Finally, here is a short clip displaying what my animation currently looks like:

The shots with the dog are more or less complete, but the shots of the woman are still to be fully drawn/coloured, and none of these shots have the final backgrounds.

Influences part 11: Alfred Hitchcock

Doesn't this image look similar to the paintings of Edward Hopper? (See my earlier post about the influence of Hopper on my work).

The most obvious influence with Hitchcock's films on my graduation film is the suspense element that he is famed for. I have been interested in creating a suspense film since I started 3rd Year, but it was a long time before I considered writing such a story for my graduation film (roughly two months into my 4th Year, after having spent 5 months prior to that working on a different story)! But anyway, here I am (at last) with a suspense element in my graduation film, and I'm now much more enthusiastic about trying to pull it off.
In the last 6 months I have watched 14 Hitchcock films as influential research for developing the suspense element of my graduation film, as well as almost 100 other films for alternative research purposes. While the suspense element is what Hitchcock is famed for, there is no single/specific element that creates the suspense - it is built up with effective use of several elements together - and that is what I will try to focus on here...


Setting:
Hitchcock films are regularly set within common locations that either seem typical of any town in a Western country (for example within the town centre, library, church, motel, seaside resort), or in real-life locations that are well known (like San Francisco, Quebec, Mount Rushmore, Albert Hall). This gives the film a familiarity within which the audience does not expect crime or murder to happen, making the audience realise that such events could easily happen anywhere - including their own friendly neighbourhood. This prospect terrifies the audience, and the terror makes the audience anxious to discover what has or may happen, therefore creating a lot of suspense.
I feel as though this element of Hitchcock's work is not as effective in today's society because we get access to horrific news from around the world instantly through TV and the Internet. This means that we now get regularly bombarded with news of murder and crime, so it feels commonplace in the 21st Century, and this reality of commonplace murder therefore lessens the impact that fictional stories about death can have on us... This does not mean that fictional stories will no longer affect us like they affected people when Hitchcock made his greatest films, but simply that the setting of Hitchcock's films is not as relevant to today's society.
For example, I do not think that a film about war set in a Western country like America or Britain would have much impact on kids in those countries today because kids hear about their war in Iraq on TV but have little idea of the impact that war would have on their life, whereas if you show the same film to an older generation who experienced the Second World War, I think it would have a much greater impact on them because they have a real understanding of the story.
It is not that for a fictional suspense film to be effective today it must tell a story relatable to everyday life and set within a typical location, rather it is that the story should seem realistic without already being commonplace in the media.

Characters:
Aside from the fact that Hitchcock's protagonists are often played by the glamorous people of Hollywood, the characters in his stories are usually living a believable life (eg: a common man wrongfully accused of crime, a woman on the run, or someone in the wrong place at the wrong time) which helps the audience to relate to and sympathise with their situation.
The audience's sympathy for the character makes them more emotionally involved in the story, and therefore heightens the audiences response to the situation arising within the film. This emotional connection to the film is a key component with any film genre because without it the audience is likely to have little involvement with the story, and they will probably not care much for what is happening, or have any interest in seeing the film again.

Shot composition:
Hitchcock uses a lot 1st or 2nd Person shots (from a human perspective like head-height) that are immediately relevant to the viewpoint of a character in the story. This places the audiences directly into the action, and involves us with what the characters on screen are doing within our proximity. This places us in the same situation as the characters, allowing us to more-or-less experience their life, and feel what they feel. This shot composition makes the story situation feel real to us, and heightens our emotional response to the story - increasing the suspense.
Along with the regular use of 1st or 2nd Person shots, Hitchcock also uses what I will call "suggestive angles" (shot from a non-human perspective like the far end of a tunnel or from the ceiling - a position not immediately relevant to a specific character in the story) that takes the audience away from the situation of the characters in the story, but hints at something nearby that could be dangerous for the characters. This tells the audience of a threat that the characters in the film are unaware of, but rather than spoil the surprise for the audience, it makes the audience anticipate the threatening action, which then allows the film director to play with where, when, and how this threat will take place. It may occur immediately, or will occur after many false starts, or may not happen at all.
Regardless of what happens after the audience sees such a shot, the audience's anticipation of threat creates a natural suspense in the imagination of the audience, but the director will often choose to play with this natural suspense, and the less predictable the director's decision is, the better the suspense may be - so long as the director does not make it too recurrent.

Timing:
A basic film will be shot at a leisurely pace, but in order to create suspense the pacing will fluctuate more often. For example the pacing may slow right down to calm the atmosphere only for a sudden change to dramatically alter the story - creating a fright. The pacing may get quicker and build up to a frantic climax, or it may just steadily fluctuate to keep the audience guessing.
There are various rules commonly adopted by directors, but the key is to allow for change and not to be predictable or for the pace to be drastically off. As a general rule in relation to suspenseful moments, shots will slow down and there will be few cuts, so that the audience gets sucked right into the moment and is constantly expecting a sudden change to scare them.


Through the work of Hitchcock I have learnt a lot about pacing my film and shot composition, which has greatly assisted in developing the suspense elements of my graduation film.
There are a couple of things in my film that could be identified as being influenced by his work, but hopefully my eclectic range of other influences will make it more than just seem like an imitation of the Master of Suspense - because that is not what I have been aiming for.

To conclude, saying as I have barely referenced Hithcock's work in this post, here are some of my favourite Hitchcock films:
Vertigo,
North By Northwest,
I Confess,
Strangers On A Train,
Dial M For Murder,
Rear Window,
The Trouble With Harry
ROPE.

And here is a great website with lots of images from all of Hitchcock's films:
1000 Frames of Hitchcock

Influences part 10: Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper had been one of my favourite painters since I first saw his work at the beginning of my time in High School, and although art college has since drastically altered my perceptions of what is good art, I think that the work of Hopper still has a big influence on my work today.

His work seems to create a bizarre atmosphere within even the most standard of locations, and his work often features a strong composition that reminds me of Hitchcock films like Vertigo, Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, and Psycho - and Hitchcock is one of the biggest influences on my graduation film.


That last painting features a building with an architecture style similar to how I want the spooky mansion in my graduation film to look.

Hopper's less-accessable sketches are also very important for the aesthetics of my graduation film:

Not only do Hopper's sketches have the environments and compositions of his paintings, but they also have a drawing style similar to how I am approaching my graduation film.
(I'm glad that I posted this today, because I would otherwise not have realised how important Hopper has been to my film).


Related websites:
- Edward Hopper at artchive.com

Influences part 7: Rackham, Gorey, Cope

Although I would regard the drawing style of my graduation film as a natural development of my earlier artwork, the animation style of Piotr Dumala (previous post) has motivated me to keep this rough style through to the final animation rather than clean it up and make the finished film look cleaner or more 'commercially appealing'...
Despite the importance of Dumala to the aesthetics of my graduation film, here are some other artists with a similar drawing style whose work I find interesting.

Edward Gorey:
Gorey's black and white artwork best illustrates the drawing style for how I imagine my graduation film looking. This image also has an interesting hazy border (instead of being drawn up to the edge of the paper) that is similar to my concept sketches, and which I want to try incorportating into the final animation of my graduation film.

Arthur Rackham:
I prefer the style of Rackham to that of Gorey, and although I imagine my graduation film being in black and white, I will colour my animation with watercolours in a style similar to Rackham if I do eventually decide to use colour. I have used watercolours in my animation work in the past and I think it looks nicer than most animation colouring methods.

Jessica Cope:
Jess' drawing style is different to my graduation film but I have greatly admired her style since I met her at eca in 2006, and I would credit her with being the original influence for the direction that my artwork has since taken. Without meeting Jess I would probably never have gotten into the work of Tim Burton, expressionist art, and this general style of art...

Here is a sample demonstrating how their artwork (plus a lot more research sources) have developed my graduation film: