Category Archives: Uncategorised

Development

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  • Turtles
    • Baby turtle/ smaller scale turtle
      • Made this for the sole use for those longer and wide shots to really emphasise the how big the beach is in comparison and to show the audience how small the character really is and to gain more sympathy from the audience as they see how tiny and small the character is compared to its obstacles and predators that it already has to face.
      • I made the smaller turtle using needle felt. It is still animatable to work with even though it will be seen from a distance.
    • I had also created an eye library and a mouth library to create the expressions for the turtle.

  • Crab claw

  • Vulture (bird) legs

  • Setting/ landscape
    • Sand
      • I managed to get some kinetic sand – as this is not as fluid and quite stiff therefore holds its place quite well without all the fuss of keeping it all in one place, yet still fluid enough to animate with.
  • Water – ocean
      • For the ocean I had decided against using any liquids, such as gels, as I didn’t want to get the sand wet or to ruin the puppets and to mainly stick with the aesthetics of a fabric based setting and film.
      • I had decided to go with blue pieces of fabric – a light blue cotton fabric underneath with a dark blue mesh material on top, which reflects light off of it – this helps to mimc the way light often reflects of the water in the ocean.
        • For the beach scenes I used a light blue sheet under the mesh material and for the underwater scenes I used a dark blue tie dyed fabric underneath the blue mesh instead.
        • Also for the oil spill I had experimented with using a black bin bag, however opted for a black cloth instead.
  • Greenery/ backdrop
      • Realising I needed a backdrop to show the back of the beach which is usually some greenery/ bushes/ long grass.
      • Painted some long grass on a wide piece of card board.
  • Sky
    • Using a white sheet hung up and taped on the wall and also using different coloured light gels to create a sunset sort of sky and atmosphere – this has also helped to determine the time of day this film occurs during – which is just after or during sunrise, as it will add a very warm and cozy tone to the film.

Animatic 3

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I have made a few changes to this animatic. I have changed the beginning to be more accurate, as sea turtles eggs are buried in the sand, therefore the baby sea turtle would be climbing out of the sand and not hopping out of an egg. Furthermore, I have added more to the scene where the character has finally been submerged into the “safety” of the sea, and is surrounded by fellow friends and other fish. I have extended this scene to give the audience a sense of happiness and hope for the character before the actual horror begins, and to also give the character some sort of happiness and break. This also puts the audience on a whole emotional roller coaster – where the baby turtle survives the first obstacle, however fails to completely survive the rest.

Workshop 1: Storyworld Exploration

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  • Most dramatic part:
    • When the vulture attacks but the drama stays present throughout
    • The vulture swooping down and then feeling like it safe at last in the sea but then it encounters much worse in the sea
    • Most dramatic part – when the turtle dies/ its sad death
    • When the character thinks that he is safe in the ocean but finds that the horror just begins there
  • Key words:
    • Environment, nature, pollution, surviving, human factor, cycle of life, disrupted by human kind, survival, suffering, destruction, death, sadness, loss, hope, denial, grief
  • Needs and wants:
    • Safety, clean environment, breathing, surviving, security
    • Physiological? – water, survival
    • Survival, food, happiness, life
    • To explore, food, help, a good environment, survival skills, to learn fast about the real world

  • Contrast between scenes – in the beginning its bright, happy, full of life, very cute and adorable, then the turtle gets attacked and it goes a bit dark and tense, but then it manages to go to the water and there everything is colourful, nice, free and then trash starts to appear and the ocean grows dark and BAM dead!
  • Cute wholesome baby turtle, tense-ness with the vulture, we fear for the baby, finally makes it to the sea!! Happiness, aquatic, splish splash, happiness playing with fishy friends, sense of dread when theres even more negative encounters in the sea, curse humans and your pollution, baby turtle ends up struggling to survive, we want it to keep fighting and persevere but sadness at it dying.
  • A feeling of grief and disappointment of humans causing the pollution in oceans and spreading death, braking the natural circle of life and death in nature
  • Turtles feelings: happiness, fear, then overjoy by the view inside the ocean, confusion, panic and finally suffering

Film 5: Proposal “The Journey”

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I propose to create a narrative short animated film. This film will be about the journey of a baby sea turtle, and the “unusual/ unnatural” predators and obstacles that they would face on the way back to their group. This film will highlight the destruction that humans cause against wildlife and nature (the earth in general) and how we humans are the main cause for ruining the planet and endangering animals. This film will be exploring the dangers of waste and plastic debris in the ocean due to the carelessness of human activity and how that severely harms the earth and the wildlife. It gives us a chance to rethink the way we live and being mindful of the fact that we share this earth, that we are not the only ones to inhabit it. It emphasises that we need to take responsibility for our actions and take better care of our environment.

The film will start off with the turtle hatching and coming out of the egg and onto the sand as it begins its journey to the sea and back home. As it almost reaches the safety of the water, it will encounter its first obstacle/ predator – a black vulture. After it has successfully escaped the first threat and gained sanctuary in the ocean, it continues on with its journey. However, it will begin to experience the real threat that endangers its existence – pollution and waste in the ocean. As their journey continues and it travels further/ deeper into the ocean, the more troubling things get. These unnatural remains that contaminate their environment will begin to disrupt the turtle’s course, making the journey harder and more difficult to survive. Plastic bags become dangerous for their digestion as they are easily mistaken as a source of food, jellyfish. Also, they will manage to get caught on and entangled with materials such as fishing nets and can holders that would weigh them down and immobilise them. Therefore, they will struggle to carry on swimming, eventually failing to do so due to their restraints, and eventually die.

This aspect of an unnatural predator being the murderer in this story only adds to the morality that our actions have much deeper consequences. The fact that a vicious animal such as the black vulture wasn’t the cause of the animals death, and that it was man made waste and the consequence of our carelessness for the environment and all living things.

Therefore, having the main character – the baby sea turtle – die in the end, causes a big impact on the audience as it is only a child, as it creates sympathy for the character that represents majority of endangered animals in the world that have been effected and harmed by humans.

Metaphorically – this film could also be an indication for our everyday lives and not just taking the film literally. In the sense that the actions we make can easily affect others; a drunk driver can effect another harmless and sober driver who may or may not have anyone else in the car or even a pedestrian. Or with the way people think, their harmless thoughts about a certain type of person and their negative views can cause harm to an innocent person. This metaphor is repeated through out life – carelessness has consequences.

I intend to make this film as a stop motion film. There will be a total two sets; the beach and the ocean. Although the ocean will mainly be created using lighting to achieve an underwater effect. The beach will consist of using certain materials to mimic that of sand and water; using a rough like material to create the illusion of sand (carpet/ curtain, gravel), and to use a light fluid material such as silk or cotton as water and using stretched out cotton wool as the foam along the shore. As well as making an armature for the baby sea turtle, I will be making a partial second character – the bottom half of the bird (black vulture) mainly just the claws; made out of twisted wire and use thread and cotton to wrap around it and create a ridged texture. For the main character, i will be using cardboard as the base for the shell and wires for the fins to make the outlines and then sew in some sponge for the filling and the character will be covered in felt material, exactly the same way I had done for my puppets ears during my stop motion film last year. the materials in the sea will be used with a rig to make it float and maybe using strings to hold up the trash and give the illusion of it floating in the water.