Saturday, 31 December 2011

Rush One



Ta-Dah!!! Here it is! My complete rush of scene 1 of Rime of the Ancient Mariner - the animation. Obviously, it looks a little blank here, as it has no background or soundtrack, however, I am happy with the quality of the movement and am excited to superimpose the background and thus improve the quality.

This scene is a LOT longer than originally planned - a whole 37 seconds longer! - however, I feel it is neccesary to have a longer introduction, as it really sets up the rest of the story! The originally planned 6 second intro just wouldn't have sufficed!

When you compare this rush to the first one, I hope you will agree that the quality of the animation has really improved!

First (not so good) Rush!



This is the first rush I have created... it is not great! I have re-filmed the scene, so I do hope that it looks a lot better now than it was! Furthermore, this one is shorter than the new introduction - I feel that it is TOO short - a longer introduction really adds to the feel of the piece and really sets up the rest of the story much better than a quick, rushed intro!

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Rushes

I have created several rushes (or practises) of my animation so far, including a scene between the Ancient Mariner and the Wedding Guest, a scene between Death and Life-In-Death and several short videos depicting each character walking (as a method of checking the fluidity of the movement). However, despite doing this, I am unwilling to post them just yet, as I don't want to ruin the suprise of the complete project! I will post them, but after the final piece is up.

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

My Behind the Scenes video



This video gives some information of each of the characters, how I created them and the difficulties I faced in designing them.

Tuesday, 8 November 2011

Storyboard


This is my storyboard for my animation, complete with timing cues for the soundtrack.

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Research: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the experiences of a mariner who has returned from a torturous sea voyage.

The Mariner stops a man who is on his way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience and fear to fascination as the Mariner's story progresses.

The Mariner's tale begins with his ship departing on its journey. Despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven south off course by a storm and eventually reaches Antarctica. An albatross (symbolizing the Christian soul) appears and leads them out of the Antarctic; despite the ship's crew praising the albatross, the Mariner shoots it. The crew is angry with the Mariner, believing the albatross had brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears, thus making themselves accomplices in the Mariner's crime. However, the death of the albatross arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land of mist and snow"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed.

The sailors change their minds again, this time blaming the Mariner for the torment of their thirst. They force the Mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck as a symbol of his guilt.

Eventually, in an eerie passage, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the Life-in-Death (a beautiful but deathly-pale woman) who play dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members, while Life-in-Death wins the life of the Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the Mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross.

One by one, all of the crew members are killed, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the dead crew. The Mariner's curse is temporarily lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as "slimy things" earlier in the poem he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them. As he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially absolved. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland, having seen the approaching ship, come to meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a dinghy. When they pull the Mariner from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes insane and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil. As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth and tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets.

After relating the story, the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest returns home, and wakes the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man".

Research: Tim Burton's Animations

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is a 2005 stop-motion-animation fantasy musical film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton. It is set in a fictional village in Europe, during the Victorian era. Johnny Depp led an all-star cast as the voice of Victor, while Helena Bonham Carter (for whom the project was specially created) voiced Emily, the title character. Corpse Bride is the third stop-motion feature-film produced by Tim Burton (not including his short film Vincent), the first two being The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.

James and the Giant Peach is a 1996 musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. It was produced by Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi. The film is a combination of live action and stop-motion animation. The film begins with normal live-action for the first twenty minutes, but becomes stop-motion animation after James enters the peach, and then live-action when James enters New York City (although the mutated insect characters remained in stop-motion form). Selick had originally planned for James to be a real actor through the entire film, then later considered doing the whole film in stop-motion, but ultimately settled on doing entirely live-action and entirely stop-motion sequences due to costs.