BLOG - PITCH BRIEF
04/10/2023 (WEEK 3)
I feel really good about the direction our project is headed. I met up with the rest of the storyboarding team today to settle on an idea for our 30 second animation. We ended up lifting from everyones beat boards and included some new stuff as well, like Katherine having a locket of Abigail, implying a closer relationship and intention in her actions before they actually take place. I'm very excited to board my section, as it includes some new elements that I beat boarded, and I get to draw out some horse thrashing, which should be fun. Lauren is currenlty drafting up a comprehensive document providing information about the time period our story is set in to use as a reference for when we finally settle on proper character designs. I'm going to continue making some character drawings for Katherine until there are any glaring historical issues with her costuming. I also reached out to the university's Equestrian Club in the hopes of getting myself and a couple members of the team to sit in on a training session and observe the horses, having a bit of practise drawing from life.
09/10/2023 (WEEK 4)
Phil looked over our rough animatic. He pointed out that our carriage interior didn't really work, because when Katherine enters, Grace should be to her side, but in the animatic she's in front of her. This was something we actually already realised in the beat boarding process, but we tried to cover it up by making the interior seating a U shape rather than two benches. This clearly makes it distracting and obvious that the interior isn't accurate, unfortunately! He suggested that we go with one of our alternate entry methods, specifically the one where Katherine drops down onto the carriage and cuts her way through the roof, but given we already ruled it out in the beat boarding process and were keen on Katherine being rougher and violent, we decided that Grace would instead fall from her seat while the carriage was being jostled, and is in front of the door on the floor when Katherine enters the carriage. It doesn't seem like we'll have time to make these changes tonight in time for the presentation tomorrow, but Phil said our animatic is fine to show as is anyway.
10/10/2023
Today we had another pitch presentation, and although I was disappointed with my messy half of the animatic, I'm happy it was recieved so positively. Given it was only a rough animatic, it means I can implement changes in accordance with the feedback a lot easier anyway. One helpful tip came from a student who owns horses, that being for Shot 5, where Katherine's horse bashes into the driver. Apparently horses get pretty violent in Polo, so looking at reference footage of the sport should be useful. I will also develop the look of Katherine's horse a bit, seeing as it only appears in my shots of the animatic anyway, because another suggestion from the class was that her horse should have a bit more of it's own personality so that Katherine seems a little more mysterious in the first half. I'm very happy that the split screen shot of Katherine and Grace looking at each other within frames was well recieved, as I suggested that shot purely because of my love for split screens in films like Phantom of the Paradise and Carrie. Kirsty has been doing some frame research that looks fantastic, so I'm really excited to see that shot in the final composition. I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with the work load of this brief on top of other modules and a job outside of university, but I'm trying to believe in myself and make it work. I am also learning to trust and rely on the other members of my team, as it can be very easy to succumb to perfectionism and try to do a lot of things myself, but this is not solely my project. Group work is something I've always struggled with but I enjoy working with my team a lot and I think we are all pretty invested in the story of our pitch! So no matter what hardships we come across, I think this is going to end up as a clear labour of love regardless.
18/10/2023 (WEEK 5)
With the animatic pretty much finalised, we can begin rough animation! There's a couple of pretty long but simply animated shots that we can get done to reach the 30 second mark, but I'm hoping we can include rough animation for all the other shots too.
25/10/2023 (WEEK 6)
Although it's reading week, we held an online meeting to catch up and see what stage everyone is at. Some animators have already started working on their shots, there's just a couple more design sheets necessary to work on certain shots. I am currently wrapping up design sheets for Katherine's horse, as well as making minor changes to Katherine's turnaround to include the locket she opens up in Shot 04. We should be on track to get our key shots in the early stages of animation next week.