Influences: Lost and Found

A great little short film by StudioAKA, 'Lost and Found' has very much a timeless quality to it, appealing to any audience - young or old. As the makers stated in the making of documentary, they didn't restrict the story to any place or time, and I think this works extremely well.

Based on the childrens book (by Oliver Jeffries) of the same name, Lost and Found tells the story of a nameless boy who encounters a penguin on his doorstep. The boy decides the penguin must be lost and tries to return him. But no one seems to be missing a penguin. So the boy decides to take the penguin home himself, and they set out in his row boat on a journey to the South Pole. But when they get there, the boy discovers that maybe home wasn't what the penguin was looking for after all!

A very simple narrative, with a childlike visual style - but beautifully done:




























The characters interact well with their environment, with none of these elements fighting for attention, everything clicks together in place naturally. The soft, subtle nature of the lighting seems to be a new phase in animation filmmaking, as more and more companies seem to be using this as a creative tool in their work. For one, it can be very dreamlike and innocent - very much the world perspective of a child. I think Lost and Found clearly proves that its not just the big corporations that can create good content, completely made on British soil, I hope Studio AKA continues its reign in making these highly imaginative pieces of work. Jeeze, that sounds like a review...

Lost and Found may be an obvious choice to post here, since its an influence for many in my year, but the overall look of the film really stands out for me and is actually very relevant to our projects. The mixture of realistic/stylised objects and textures, with the added dreamlike haze which floods every shot, adds a lot of dimension and appeal to the visuals. Edgley suggested the texturing used in Lost and Found would be a good reference for the textured look he would like in Polished Off. I don't intend to replicate the style, but I think this is a great starting point..

I had quite a busy weekend with work, and didn't have much time to concentrate on the projects. This is another piece of concept I started at home, then completed in college today:

I really tried to push the style of artwork and the texture in this piece. Overlapping textures of metal and rock to achieve a really gritty, tactile feel - this is something we hope to achieve in the final film. Im really happy with this image, and even the colours seem to be working better.

Monday hasn't been the most productive of days for the team, but our critique with Mike and Dave Bull (the screenwriter from Aardman Studios) was very constructive and helped us enormously to push the stories of both our short films, addressing issues such as developing character and creating suitable finales. Dave's lecture on storytelling was also very helpful, and I imagine will provide much use during the storyboarding process.

At this point I have done enough concepts for Splay and will now move properly onto Polished Off.

I've been enjoying working at college this past week, but sometimes it can be easier to work at home, without any distractions. I made this piece of concept in Photoshop, developing a thumbnail Phil had made of the village environment in Splay. I like the simplicity of the terrain, along with the tall structures which the characters inhabit, and the more simple it is, the more effective it can be, without being too overpowering for the story. I have stuck to a colour palette of ochres and browns, as used in Phil's work - personally I think these colours work very well, but I agree they need to be more vibrant, so I have also tried to add more light into the scene. I am happy with the texture of the buildings, and the softness of the lighting, but the style of the clouds and colouring does need a lot of developing...

After consulting with the team, I moved onto developing the look of the clouds - making them look more stylised and abstract, and experimenting a little with colour:

This was the first time I had properly used my graphic tablet to create artwork, so a mini breakthrough for me. I drew the clouds, then superimposed textures on it, changing the brightness and contrast to give it a glow. The team suggested I experiment with different types of colour schemes as many of these images look too similar. I really like this colour palette, but it would be interesting to see the results of different colour combinations.

Edgley liked some of the texture concepts for the hospital ward I had done at home last night, but in all honesty they were not as good as I had hoped them to be. I intend to develop these further during the weekend.

I concentrated on more concept for Splay today, returning to colour again. I scanned in a pastel drawing I made the other day, then in Adobe Photoshop, added texture layers as well as altering the colour to achieve the right look:


I think Splay will be a difficult project to get the style right for - the story itself is a lighthearted and meaningful one and we don't want to reflect the opposite of that. So far, the style is quite dark and harsh and Phil has stressed that more light needs to be incorporated into the environment. The style of the clouds in the sky will also be an aspect which will have to be carefully addressed - after our tutor Dan Dalli suggested that since Splay is set on another world, we should try to avoid making it look as realistic to our own planet as possible, and so I aim in other concept pieces to make the environment and other elements more abstract.

Today I concentrated on finishing my black and white pastel concepts for Splay this afternoon. Firstly creating an initial mood board, then coming up with various landscapes/shots, referring back to some of Phil's earlier sketches:

The main aim for these thumbnails was to consider composition and experiment with lighting. Whenever I have seen rays of light shining through clouds I have always been amazed by how beautiful it can be - I think this could be a really nice touch to add to certain shots - it can be quite symbolic (new beginnings, hope, bright futures etc,) as well as add intensity and atmosphere to the environment.

After mounting pressure from (uber-bully) Dan Edgley, I will work on a few concept textures for the walls in the intensive care room in Polished Off. I hope to get these completed for tomorrow...

Day One

This is the first full day devoted to the project. I arrived at college EARLY before most of my group, I hope to keep this up..

It was a nightmare trying to find a computer to use, since most ICT facilities in the building were occupied, but we sorted it out in the end. This just can't happen every Tuesday throughout the year, so we've spoken to Mike and asked him if he could timetable the Red Cave room (for BA Animation) on those days too. Hopefully we'll have a space with computers to use next week.

While the others focussed on getting the timetable together, I was given the task of generating concept designs for Splay. My initial concepts in pastels weren't as much a success, but Phil showed me some of his earlier sketches and suggested to thumbnail my work on white paper and only stick to black and white for the time being, then progress onto colour later.


This was a much better method for me, and I was pleased I achieved something today.

EDGLEY'S DRAWING OF THE HOSPITAL

WHAT A WASTE OF EARTHS NATURAL RESOURCES