de0996williambrighouse

[de0996williambrighouse]

The first animatic for my animation.

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The storyboard for my animation.

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Justification of Changes

I decided the store should be a toy store rather than a carpentry store as it makes more sense for a young child to be interested in a toy store. I also decided that she should simply be tending to the store while there are no customers rather than preparing to close up, as the entire plot would have to take place over the course of a whole night otherwise.

As for the omission of the dark figure, I mostly did this as I feel it’s purpose was not clear or strong enough to justify the extended third act. This story is supposed to be told as though it were a children’s book, thus I feel keeping the story simple is important.

Bearing this in mind, the third act might need to be cut down further as the text summary of it is currently too long, though it is possible it won’t be this long when story boarded as I tried to make the wording descriptive.

Despite the omission of the dark creature, I will still attempt to capture feelings of chaos using the “Dutch Angle”, a subtle technique in film that involves tilting the camera during chaotic or dramatic moments to increase the tension. My plan is to make the screen more and more tilted as the chaos ramps up.

[de0996williambrighouse]

Three Act Summary (Revision)

Act 1:

Fabra is organising her Toy Store when she notices three boxes of cards on one of the shelves. One of the three appears slightly uneven while the other two are perfectly aligned with each other. She tries to adjust the position of the uneven box, but it still looks uneven.

Act 2:

Fabra heads to a nearby closet and re-emerges with a box of tools. She pulls out a large ruler and measures the boxes. Mathematically, they are completely even, yet the middle box still looks wrong. She tries measuring the surface with a level and measuring the sides of the shelf with a tape measurer, and yet by all accounts everything LOOKS like it should be even. But it still isn’t. She then tries swapping the boxes around, but the same box still looks uneven.

Act 3:

Fabra grabs the uneven box from the shelf and measures it with a smaller ruler. It is still completely even on all sides. She clenches the box in frustration before throwing it to the side and collapsing, head buried in her hands. Fade to later, she is wearing her coat and heads towards the store entrance to change the store sign to closed, having lost her motivation to keep the store open. As she is holding onto the sign to turn it around, she notices a parent and child on the other side of the door. The child looks up curiously. Unable to leave the child disappointed, she lets go of the sign and opens the door for them. The child runs into the store happily as the parent follows. Fabra, still standing by the door, looks over to the boxes of cards. She picks up the uneven box from the floor and places it back on the shelf. It still looks uneven. She looks towards the boxes for a brief moment before shaking her head, smiling and walking away.

[de0996williambrighouse]

Three Act Summary

Act 1

Fabra is closing up her carpentry store when she notices three matching yet unalligned carvings. She tries to adjust one and doesn’t seem to be able to be happy with the result no matter what she does.

Act 2 

Fabra tries several alternate methods to allign the statues, such as using a ruler, moving them to a different shelf, removing one of the statues, and even adjusting the floor. Eventually she gives up and removes the statue completely, but this only makes the problem worse as everything else in the story suddenly seems out of place also.  As Fabra tries to correct the new whirlwind of problems by removing everything she sees, her shadow manifests into a dark being, representing her OCD, and follows behind her.

Act 3

The being points to everything wrong with the store, causing her to panic. Eventually she goes as far as to close the store. As she begins to lock the door, a family with two children shows up to the door and looks upset that she is closing. Unable to turn them down, she lets them in and notices that the shadow creature is gone. Knowing people rely on her helps her fight her problems.

[de0996williambrighouse]

Story Revisions

Before moving into the next draft of the storyboard, I will be revising the story. Currently it has a lot of content that doesn’t add to the message or plot in a meaningful way, so I’m going to start by stripping it down to it’s base elements. For starters, the subplot of the main character opening her store isn’t needed. The initial reasoning was to justify why she never had the OCD issues previously, but in my own experience with the condition I have found that it can surface in new ways for existing aspects of my life, so I feel it would be suitable to keep this as it keeps the plot simple and also maintains the message. OCD is also known well to develop in teenage/adult years, so this still keeps it accurate.

This also makes the current iteration of the ending work better as it is more understandable that customers who are regulars would be upset that the story is closing than customers who were excited to see it open.

I also feel the segment when Fabra walks home is perhaps unneeded. Instead all the problems she faces can be represented when she tries to continue her work at the story. This shows the problem actually being a detriment to her work and life, and thus make the conflict a lot clearer.

I will summarise the reworked story in an upcoming post, and make additional revisions based on time and feedback.

[de0996williambrighouse]

A series of several animation tests. My intention was to create a basic shape for the animation, and then add in the details for each frame to turn it into Fabra. I created the animation at 24 fps, but found it played too fast in some parts. I then tried 12 fps, but it played too slow. A reasonable compromise seemed to be removing some frames to make the 12 fps version play roughly the same speed as the 24 fps version, but I feel 24 fps would work better with stronger keyframes and improved spacing.

A dilemma I’m currently struggling with is how I’m going to efficiently make my coloring method work. Converting an outlined drawing in Adobe Animate is not as efficient as it is in Clip Studio. I will be researching into alternatives over the next couple entries.

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The design PDF I will be using to present my final idea.

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A very early design of one of the nightmarish creatures that will appear during Fabra’s OCD crisis in the second act.

The main inspiration for the idea came from the scene in Disney’s Snow White, when Snow White is running through the dark forest and sees nightmarish faces and imagery everywhere she looks.

The above version of the design is inspired by Haunter from Pokémon, and The Snatcher from A Hat In Time. However, I’m not going to use this design as I feel it is too similar to both of these designs, particularly Haunter. However, I would like to try and utilize a very twisted and triangular design somehow, as triangles are typically associated with craziness and unpredictability in character design; two very familiar concepts when dealing with OCD.

[de0996williambrighouse]

I tried testing out the character colors with an example of the background style I would like to aim for, using the primary colors of a carptenter’s store.

As I suspected, the outlined version pops out way more. It will be easier to judge which style works best after animation tests, but it immediately seems like the outlined style works far more effectively with her colors.

One possible solution is to change the character’s hair and skin color, as they are the worst offenders. However, there may also be some shading that could fix this. I’ll continue to experiment with the colors.

[de0996williambrighouse]

Mood board for the main character. The main character’s name is Fabra, which is based on the latin word for carpenter, “fabrefacio”.

I originally considered the name “Fabré”, but discovered that it was a boy’s name and decided to change it for that reason.

[de0996williambrighouse]

An attempt to draw the main character, along with several design inspirations.

I researched carpenters and noticed they usually wore pretty casual clothing. Obviously they’d wear a helmet while working, but there is no “outfit” per say, and this character will not be doing any actual carpentry in the animation, so I gave her a simple red shirt and jeans.

Above are four drawings, the first being the original line drawing. The second is colored with all the outlines still intact, while the third uses only an outline on the outside, with inner outlines replaced with darker shades of the corresponding colors. The fourth has no outline at all, and is much closer to the style of a traditional children’s picture book.

The color method I use will most likely be either 3 or 4. 3 matches the style of a children’s book more closely, as mentioned above, whereas 4 has the advantage of being able to be placed in backgrounds of many different color pallets while standing out, and also has it’s own unique aesthetic.

[de0996williambrighouse]

Various examples of the animation style I would like to utilize for my project.

I really enjoy the no-outline style, though appropriate use of color palletes and shading will be more important than ever without an outline to separate objects from the fore/background.

In a store where most things are made of wood, this may prove an interesting challenge. A possible compromise would be to experiment with different strokes for the character outlines, or to have them on the outside of their silhouette only.

[de0996williambrighouse]

Various inspirations for the visuals. I feel that using stylized cartoon visuals with exaggerated expressions is a very strong way to convey the emotions of my animation, as it will mostly be silent. The childish nature is also very important to me as I want to make sure this animation grabs the attention of all ages, as the message is supposed to relevant to ANYONE dealing with OCD, or anyone who knows someone dealing with OCD.

I would also like to experiment with a style that doesn’t use character outlines. This is very reminiscent of young children’s picture books, and is generally associated with innocence and purity as a result. There are many children’s picture books that explore themes which are hard to comprehend for young children, and aim to help them understand (which I will be researching into over the next few entries).

One of my biggest inspirations is the Cartoon Network show Steven Universe, which frequently explores very progressive or complicated themes in a way that children can understand, such as same sex relationships, dealing with irreversible loss, mindfulness meditation, etc. While the show is aimed at kids, the message it conveys are relevant to audiences of all ages.

My traditional art style also developed from inspirations from these children’s cartoons, so I feel it would represent my agenda well to work with this in addition to teaching children about a condition I am familiar with.

#coping

[de0996williambrighouse]

Final Choice

I will be choosing my first treatment as the idea for my final project.

I feel that out of all three ideas, this one works the best as far as portraying OCD.

While keeping things clean and tidy is generally an OCD stereotype, I feel it is also the most easily recognisable form and opens up the gate for more in depth exploration of what it’s like to actually deal with OCD for people who don’t have it or aren’t as familiar with it.

[de0996williambrighouse]

OCD Treatment 3

A penguin lives the luxury life in an igloo if built itself, until the home is destroyed in an accident.

The penguin finds a cave to live in instead, and tries to recreate the same layout in tje cave. However, this leads to the cave collapsing also as it gets damaged in the prrocess.

While the penguin doesn't recover from the obsession, a friendly polar bear allows the penguin to stay in its cave, so it can live comfortably until it is ready to rebuild its life.

[de0996williambrighouse]

OCD Treatment 2

The story features a space warrior who travels the galaxy fighting monsters and saving worlds. However, one day their weapon is damaged in a fight. Due to the precious memories associated with the weapon, she tries to repair it rather than fix it.

After arduous toiling away at fixing the weapon, the more she is unhappy with it. Eventually she does her best to make do, but the small differences are so distracting that she struggles to fight.

Eventually she resolves to try a new weapon altogether, reinventing herself while cherishing her old memories.