Jasmine Masters, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester.

Recap:   Linear storytelling is where there is no time displacement and keeps with a consistent reality of always moving forward with the plot and keeping with the linear time of the film. There are also no Flashbacks/forwards within the linear narrative of the film. Non-linear storytelling is where the plot jumps backwards and forwards in time. So an event that has already happened could be retold in the present, for example The Titanic starts with meeting the lead character Rose as an old women with the dive team and then she retells the story of when she was young in the past on the Titanic, only to then finish back with the older Rose with the reaction of the dive team. With Non-Linear storytelling comes reality framing, this can be where the story starts in one place and then you ‘go’ back in time where the event is retold; to then go forward in time to where the story started. An example of this can be seen in Forrest Gump where he goes through his life story to strang...

Adding in Anticipation and Follow Through to the animation from last week. Quarter-Side view. Side view.

After further discussion with the group last week, we have agreed to adding a secondary character to counteract our original character actions within the skits. With this came with reworking the original skit ideas and also dropping the video store skit to allow for better story within the other 3 skits (Rolling Diner Waiter, The Hotel Bellhop and The Launderette Attendant). For our second character we decided to go for an older character in his 50's who comes across as very serious and grumpy and tends to have an air of self-proclaimed importance. Adapted slightly from Kim's original profile. Moom Sr designs by Kim Davis . Through adding this secondary character it should in theory allow us to have better dynamic within the scenes, since now there is a cause and effect (action/reaction) happening within the scenes. To gain better understanding we each attempted to create 'beat sheets' that follow this action and reaction structure; to then combine our outcomes to get m...

For todays lecture we looked at structural theories within films. This came looking at the 3 act structure - linear narrative structure - proposed by Syd Field who modernized and wrote about Aristotle's initial theory of narrative structure who stated that  “A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end” Poetics 335BC. Field  also stated that the 3 act structure   doesn't   necessarily  need to follow Aristotle's  proposed time  schedule and that the middle act (act 2) is usually twice as long as act 1 and 3. In Field's Paradigm, he lays out the Acts and their structure of what happens and when. Exposition - introduced to the film’s main character(s) and situation. Inciting Incident -   Complication/ incident that sets events into motion. End of Act 1 : Plot Point 1 -The event in which the character takes on the central problem. Mid-Point (Act 2) - The main character faces increasingly intense and complex problems / obstacles. End of Act 2 ...

Today we looked at character facial expressions for human and animal characters and considered how inorganic characters would express themselves. We also looked the type of props a characters would have depending on their cultural/ historical setting, as well as consider clothing folds, hair flow and side kicks within a cinematic universe.  For my side kick I decided to go with another mouse that would have similar interests to my lead character but is more cautious when it come to approaching man made things and humans in general. I still need to figure out may style for the main mouse character; but feel I am getting closer, as I want something that is seemingly realistic but had a more of a comic look to the character as it still want the mice to move the same way as they naturally would. Outside of Class. In Class.

So in this session with Moom's weight lifting, I looked at adding in slow in and out as well as looked at adding in hangtime, moving holds and overall rhythm to Moom's actions. Below is the are the following outcomes and lecture notes.  

In this weeks sketch jam with Meg, we looked at creating characters by using the shape of the colour blot we laid down and then drew over the top to create a unique/abstract characters. Below are my outcomes from the session and feel that it has opened up my concept of how to approach designing characters.