I have a few posts in the pipeline that will be posted in the coming weeks but I thought to myself…
…Is there anything in particular that people really want to know about when making a short film?
If you do have any questions please post them in the comments below and hopefully I can either answer them with either a quick response or it could also inspire a new post to discuss the issue in greater depth.
CHARACTER DESIGN - RATS OF THE SKY!
The Pigeon designs for ‘Bird Food’ were always going to be difficult.
We wanted to create something that stood out as being original, but as there have been so many animated version of our feathered friends it was always going to be a challenge.
The first thing that you should always look at when designing a character that is based on an existing creature is to research how it is in the real form.
By studying the mechanics and its mannerisms you will be able to get a better understanding of how it works and what are the most important things that define it.
Once all of this information is taken on board and preliminary sketches are made then it’s time to look at the script again and see if it can be improved by any of your discoveries.
Here are some exploratory designs Andrew Crotty did…
CHARACTER DESIGN - THE CREATION OF MAN!
Apologies for the lack of making-of posts recently but as you will read we have been very busy and lots of things have been checked off our extensive to-do list…
In the last post we saw how the Man’s design was being redesigned for the better by Nicky Phelan. Well now we can reveal the final version of the man!
Here he is in lovely 2D…
Oh but wait that’s not all!
You also have the privilege to be the first to see him in glorious 3D!
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CHARACTER DESIGN - THE EVOLUTION OF MAN!
Just like a script is never complete on the first draft, the same goes for the character designs. To get to the final version you will always do designs and redesigns until you are happy with them.
The starting point of designing the character is always to read the script. This will give you all of the clues you need to start going about creating a character. The design needs to match the descriptions of the character in the script but also take note of the actions they are doing, as it will inform you how they will need to move etc.
The main character of “Bird Food” is described in the script as:
“A BUSINESS MAN with his sleeves rolled up and his briefcase in hand, walks along a path under trees whistling with the birds. He is a tall, skinny man in his early thirties with 50’s styled brown hair. His tie is slightly undone and he walks with a swagger, happy to be in the sun.”
These lines give us a lot of information about how the character looks and also it starts to give an idea on how the character will move.
Once the script was completed I gave it to several artists to explore possible designs.
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The day usually starts off around 7.30am (what can I say, I’m a morning person!). It gives me a chance to catch up with all the odds and ends and emails i really should have read and replied to the day before. Most people in Brown Bag know that if they need something from me they should come find me and give me a friendly poke with a sharp stick.
Then I will spend half an hour or so in research mode, going through some of my favourite animation and art sites. I’m always studying and learning from different people by their approach, style, use of line, composition, character design, layout etc…you can never have enough research.
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8:30am. I arrive in to the studio early as I live in the countryside (Clane, to be precise) and the next bus will have me in late. There’s Derek, our 2d concepts artist, also in early to learn 3d in his spare time. I’ll just hide behind my monitor so I don’t get a torrent of questions about the model he’s working on! Sign into our timesheet software and I’m ready for the day.
8:32am. Derek’s spotted me and comes over with 3d questions. I promise to help him once I’ve had my 1st cup of coffee.
2d Artist Derek Horan at work
8:40am. Coffee in hand I come over to help Derek out with his personal project. It’s a Hover Car and looks pretty neat. Only advice I have for him is a couple of basic geometry tweaks.
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I was delighted to learn this week that Brown Bag Films’ latest short film has been selected by the Irish Film Board for this year’s Shorts Shorts scheme.
The short is called “Bird Food” and is about a man who plans to eat his lunch in the park ….while the local pigeons have other ideas!
It’s a jazz-like animation piece featuring slapstick physical humour with sinister undertones.
It will be done in 3D but feel very much like a classic 2D short.
I wrote and will direct the film, and it will be produced by Laura Roche. It will premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh next summer.
More updates will be posted throughout the year but until then here is the teaser poster for it…
Please friend the Bird Food Facebook page for updates and artwork throughout the year.
Darragh O’Connell has been blogging all through the production of his new short film, ‘23 Degrees 5 Minutes’, and now we can finally show you the teaser trailer!
‘23 Degrees 5 Minutes’ is Brown Bag’s first short film since Nicky Phelan’s ‘Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty’, which earned Nicky and Darragh an Oscar nomination.
In the short film, an old explorer close to freezing in the Arctic re-lives the events that brought him there in the first place. He recalls his student days at Trinity College in Dublin when he studied under the enigmatic Professor Orit, the professor who was driven to madness by his obsessive pursuit of the unified theory.
Convinced that the answer somehow lay in the relationship between the numbers two, three and five, Professor Orit’s obsession started the journey which has led his former student to the top of the world.
Featuring the voice talents of John Hurt and Stuart Townsend, and produced by Colm Tyrrell, the film was scripted by Darragh O’Connell based on a short story by Austin Kenny. The film is being made with the support of the Frameworks short film scheme and will premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh this summer
Thanks for all your comments on last week’s posts. Really appreciate them!
This week I wanted to talk a bit about the backgrounds for ‘Origin’.
The film is a progression of the man’s attitude towards his environment and situation, and how that changes both physically and mentally. To help show this we plotted out how the colour would progress through a colour script. A colour script is a simple storyboard of the colour palette of the film and how it changes from shot to shot. The colour script informed the background painting and decisions on what colour and tones should be used for each sequence. I feel it is important that the mood of the background is aligned to the man’s thought process.
This image shows the 6 paintings from the first sequence of the film. At this point our hero’s mind set is supposed to be closed, frustrated and uninspired:
