Reflection

As with every project, I immediately hate it the moment I've finished it. Well, that's not true. There's plenty of it I like. I like the art style and a lot of the monologue. 

On reflection I should've paid more attention to pacing, not cutting between the lines so fast to reach the end of the character's emotional journey. Also, I'd have liked to have made some styleframes to consolidate the art style before proceeding so boldly.

Lip sync, or a moving moustache, would've been a useful addition. I didn't include it because I didn't have the time, and because Premiere was being a NIGHTMARE that kept breaking my project whenever I saved it, so I found it hard to splice in edited clips. However, I feel that a lack of lip sync removes some connection between the action and the words and puts a barrier between the character and audience. A disembodied voice can instill a sense of unease.

Furthermore, I must better consider the flow of my shots and storyboard more thoughtfully for effect

Style Inspiration for Practical Work

In researching my practical piece, I came across Mikey Please's 'The Eagleman Stag' which addresses a similar topic to my monologue about the finite-ness of time. It also heavily features a monologue and I liked voice actor David Cann's dry delivery. I drew inspiration from its dramatic tone.

In Please's video 'Making the Eagleman Stag, Please animates God as an abstract-looking character. I used this as inspiration for my own character design as it seemed easy to animate fast and it was expressive and stylised. One of my goals this year is to make no two animations look similar, so I'm keen to draw inspiration from outside my regular well of sources.

Finished Animation

I finished all my animation today and will stitch it together tomorrow. I'm pleased with it. I think I may look a little into some ambient sounds to heighten the MOOD as at this point I'm aiming for a complete film. 

Had I more time/ done more pre-production, I would have condensed the monologue further and recorded it in a few moods, from despondent to bold and outraged to frantic. As it stands, the recording is sombre and reflective, which I think is excellent and I adapted the visuals to fit that. However, for the sake of experimentation, it possibly would've been nice to have experienced a slew of tones.

Animating largely on 3s looked better than I suspected it might and I saved time by giving the character a boiling line effect, reducing the need for total precision.

Finishing my ESSAY

With 40 seconds of line animation left to do which I WILL do (I'm so so so so so close), I've finally finished my essay and will take it to be bound today. I was advised to get it proofread so I got my Mum who is a proofreader to do it. She helped me identify some grammatical errors, mistakes in referencing and such things and now it's lookin bloody ship shape, let me tell you.

I'm pleased with the outcome of my essay, generally, and I think the tight deadline helped us all work faster. 

Now, to animate incredibly fast.

Academic Posters

Writing my academic poster was a ROARING success. A useful study task that forced me to summarise my practice during this module in only a few words.

This is a small version of it. A major criticism of it was my TERRIBLE resolution. Everything looked quite pixelly. I must familiarise myself further with Adobe InDesign to avoid this mistake a second time. Otherwise, I was told that it didn't look very interesting but the info was clear and concise.

That's just how I work, normally. I don't waste my precious poster space with a bunch of ornamental rubbish. I'm there for the cold hard FACTS.

ANIMATINGGGG

I'm 28 seconds through my 1 minute 30 second animation. I'll probably just submit line art to convey the character performance, the whole point of the exercise, but after that it won't be too much of a stretch to actually finish to a point where I'm happy to upload the film online. I feel I have to complete the film now, since Barry Purves recorded it for me.

I won't colour in the characters. That's unnecessary. I would like to add a spotlight and some grain to certain elements of the scene to add visual flair but right now I just care about finishing the performance.

Russell's brain, with a trippy art style.

Russell Wagner in the real world

With the real world character, I'll keep the animation traditional. With the abstract character I'm animating on threes and the whole thing is a lot more loosey-goosey. This has the added benefit of speeding up the animation PROCESS
Happy with how it's goin so far.

Tutorial 28/11/18

My PENULTIMATE tutorial yielded insight. Finally, I'm approaching the home stretch. Ahead lies a lot of arduous line animation but I'm sure it'll be FINE.

Firstly, my monologue is far better received than before. The most valuable thing I've learned from this module is that you can cut dialogue quite savagely to the piece's benefit. To think my initial draft was 7 pages long. Now I've condensed to fifteen lines or so.

I've considered further why I'm making this film animated, and have storyboarded some interesting shots and abstract imagery to punctuate the words. Barry Purves' generous recording was great, and his cadence and tone influence the character's physicality.

Essay-wise, I was told to triangulate better and to guide the audience to my natural seeming conclusion. My essay has the substance, I'm told, but doesn't read naturally as I swerve between quotes and my own opinions. So as long as I re-jig it and consider flow, it will all be good.

Draft Handin & Practical Development

While I wait for feedback from my essay, I've been stuck in limbo and unable to continue the project. I sent my monologue to two people for feedback:

Barry Purves said he liked the idea, that I could play more with alliteration and cut to make it punchier. Also, I could make the audience think he'll do one thing, then add in some misdirection.

I edited the monologue afterwards.

Harry Dorrington, Creative Director at Nice Shoes in New York who very kindly took me on as an intern over the Summer, said he liked the monologue but struggled to see why I was animating it and not simply shooting in live action. I thought this was a good point and decided to make the art style incredibly surreal and bold when inside Russell's head, to visually illustrate his frustration and add visual flair unique to animation.

I also changed the character design. I felt a character such as this would dress well and have a bold posture. I am yet to do visual development for how he looks inside his mind.

Barry Purves also generously offered to record his voice for the piece. I am waiting on him to check out the new monologue and let me know when he would be able to record for me.

Worst case scenario, he's too busy and I can get my Dad or something. He's something of a thespian. Either way, I am excited to get making this.

Considering my speech

I've been ploughing on with my essay and refining my speech.

I cut it significantly to a minute or so and I'm much, much happier. Its punchier with more subtext.

I also learned to consider MOTIVATION VS JUSTIFICATION.

MOTIVATION is why a character does what they do
JUSTIFICATION is why they say they do it.

Often a character lies to themselves, either to excuse bad behaviour or because they cannot face their inner selves. I considered this for my character. He is debating rejecting a lifetime achievement award.

MOTIVATION: A fear of death and being forgotten
JUSTIFICATION: He says he can achieve more than they say he can

Anyway, now I must consider cadence, pacing and tone to bring the performance together. I'll first record it myself and then find an old actor to do it, so I may begin animating it on the 19th.

I also did some character design which may need amending but it's a start

Tutorial 31/10/18

FEEDBACK on my monologue:

1) Originally I wrote it as a dialogue, with the artist literally talking to a manifestation of himself in his brain. This is the laziest way to write a monologue and left me in danger of being predictable, with a lack of subtext.

2) I must condense, remember that realistic dialogue is not cinematic. DOn't repeat myself.

I feel optimistic. The more I write, the better I'll get. I'll keep McKee's 'Dialogue' close to hand at all times.

In researching this, I watched Olivier's 'Hamlet' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. Blanche Dubois falls under the same archetype in the enneagram as my own character, and I wanted to see how her conflicted manifested itself onscreen.

Finding Primary Sources

I contacted Daniel Lundh who directed "People in Cars", a short that consists entirely of intimate conversations in cars. It's perfect for my research as it's incredibly simple and places great emphasis on complicated characters.

People in Cars (2017)

The questions I'll ask are along these lines:

What informed your own writing style?

How do you avoid writing clichéd characters?

What techniques do you make sure you always employ to give a character depth?

How do you know when to use dialogue and when to exclude it?

His response was really informative. It taught me plenty about how I should approach writing this monologue. Naturalism and believability are key and he encourages his actors to improvise, as long as they touch on certain plot developments.

"During improvisation I tell the actors to go from A to B to C, following the storyline but using their own words... their focus is on getting from A to B to C, and so their acting somehow becomes more natural and relaxed"

-Excerpt from Daniel Lundh's e-mail

I could either write quite naturalistic dialogue or I could make it a lot more extreme and exaggerated. I feel that both approaches have their upsides.

Building a character

To write an introductory inner monologue, I must know who I'm writing it for.

I'll establish the type of character I want to write using the Enneagram from Jason Lee's "The Psychology of Screenwriting" .

The ENNEAGRAM defines 9 different personality types.

Lee demonstrates how you can combine personality types on the Enneagram to create a more rounded character, e.g. "The Two with a One Wing", a character with the rationality of the One, a reformer, and the emotionality of a Two, the lover/helper.

It'll be interesting to play around with these types and see if I can create a character who contradicts themselves.

I've chosen an inner monologue because it's the most personal. Lee outlines Wagner's 25 questions to ask about your character, to get a better understanding of them.

What is the purpose of life?
What are your defence mechanisms?
What passions are like addictions for you?

And so on.

My only reservation about the enneagram is that I want to avoid making a character just to fit a category. Everyone is inherently different and this approach seems almost mathematical. However, I'm certain that the more I consider the character, the more depth I can add.

Next week I should begin character design with a firm idea of who they are in my head. 

Tutorial 25.10.18

This week's tutorial forced me to answer questions about my practical piece. My initial vague plan was to write some kind of monologue.

What is the context of the monologue? As in, who is the character and what has led them to express themselves as they do?

I was made very aware that nothing on-screen exists by itself. There are a plethora of elements that support it such as staging, cinematography, lighting, character design, the order of the scenes, etc.

I cannot write a meaningful monologue without considering these elements. However, I cannot weigh up the importance of every cinematic technique in relation to monologues because it would take forever. I must strip down as much as possible, focussing on the monologue, while acknowledging these cinematic techniques.

I will write an introductory inner monologue that establishes a character. I will employ a simple character design, one that is more physically expressive than realistic and technical. This will allow me to invest my energy into working out the voice and physicality and not get too bogged down with technical stuff.

 I still must consider the setting, as that will influence the character.

Tutorial 17.10.18 and research

I've streamlined my concept further, deciding now to focus exclusively on monologues. I can also look to musicals, as the emotionally charged songs are essentially monologues that reveal the content of a character and their motivations.

I showed a draft introduction and was told to shorten my sentences and apply correct grammar and sentence structure to make it more readable, but I have a solid concept to expand on which is good!

My tutorial offered useful insight on how I can relate this topic back to animation specifically. I went and watched 'Negative Space', 'I am Tom Moody' and 'Creature Comforts' which all address monologues differently.

Negative Space (2017)

I Am Tom Moody (2012)

I enjoyed 'I am Tom Moody' for the two inner monologues battling it out inside the protagonist's head, each with different memories of the character's past that influence the way he is now. By confronting the trains of thought, Tom Moody discovers his true self and shuts out the noise.

Creature Comforts (2003)

Shot like a documentary, the monologues in these short clips are banal and conversational rather than dramatic and filled with complex revelations but the character is derived from how the characters wax nonchalantly about the mundane. Plenty is revealed from their tone of voice.

I would love to write and animate two types of monologue for my practical. One will be an inner monologue and the other will be an address to a crowd. I want to experiment with how it feels different to write each one.

Tchaikovsky: An Elegy (2011)

Dissertation Proposal

The role of dialogue and on-screen monologues in constructing complex characters - deconstructing the principle of "show, don’t tell" filmmaking in fiction.

I'm researching the role dialogue plays in constructing important characters and will apply my findings to animation, a medium which ordinarily undercuts the importance of speech in favour of exaggerated visuals. I'll examine the ways in which dialogue is most impactfully used and the extent to which it can impart character development that a silent performance doesn't allow. My essay will scrutinise the theory that cinema is a "show, don't tell" art form by addressing questions like; if a filmmaker is made to remove large amounts of dialogue from their film, is it handicapping them or does it force them to be more visually inventive? Does removing exposition, such as in the case of Mad Max, rob them of some character?

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

In researching this, I will touch on how the absence of dialogue is used creatively in films where characters communicate non-verbally and more subtly. I hypothesise that a tone of voice can communicate as much as a detailed facial performance. I'll also touch on narration as an example of how adding another voice, be it an omniscient narrator, a subjective or first person perspective, completely changes our relationship and perception of the characters onscreen.

I'll develop my own scriptwriting skills as I have previously shied away from using dialogue out of fear of writing clichés. By gaining a broad understanding of the impact of dialogue and physicality, I'll be more of a well-rounded filmmaker. I've always enjoyed dramatic monologues, so to be able to write my own would be an important string to add to my bow. I also hope to carve out my own writing style and not simply mimic existing filmmakers.

As a culmination of my research, I'll animate a short conversation between two people that conveys their characters, relationship, tone and general disposition. I'll keep the character designs and background minimal so the animation is the focus of the scene.

In Bruges (2008)

It's definitely worth exploring Tarantino's films as he uses dialogue not just to advance the plot but to provide detailed context about the characters in a social setting. I'll examine also Martin McDonaugh's work and "Anomalisa", in which every character besides the leads have exactly the same voice which lends it a detached, uncanny feeling.

Anomalisa (2016)

I'll also turn to Orson Welles, whose monologues were far more theatrical than those in many contemporary films. Drawing from a diverse range of filmmakers is crucial for understanding the kind of dialogue I want to write myself. I'll attend some events at Leeds International Film Festival to try and discover smaller scale filmmakers who use dialogue creatively. Then I'll contact the scriptwriters for insight.

Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight (1965)

Here's my bibliography so far:

·      Cavna, M (2012) ‘PIXAR TIPS: ‘Brave’ artist Emma Coats shares her storytelling wit and wisdom on Twitter (#Followher)

·      Corliss, R. (1970) ‘The Limitations of Kracaucer’s Reality’, Cinema Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1 pp. 15-22

faces-in-objects? Accessed (20/10/18)

·      Gibbs, J (2002) Mise-en-scène: Film Style and Interpretation, U.S.A, Columbia University Press p.43

·      Hayes, D. Webster, C (2013) Acting and Performance for Animation. U.S.A, Focal Press 

·      Hooks, E (2000) Acting for Animators, 3^rd Edition, U.S.A, Routledge 

·      Hospers, J (1980) Truth and Fictional Characters, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 14, No.3, p. 

·      Jaeckle, J (2013) Film Dialogue, U.S.A, Columbia University Press, p.58 (and the preface and intro)

·      Kozloff, S (2000) Overhearing Film Dialogue, U.S.A, University of California Press, pp. 43-48 

·      Kracauer, S (1960) Theory of Film, London; New York, Oxford University Press 

·      Mackendrick, A (2004), On Filmmaking – An Introduction to the Craft of the Director, London, Bloomsbury, p.160-164

·      McKee, R. (1999), Story – Substance, structure, style, and the principles of screenwriting, USA, Methuen, p.344 

·      Robson, D (2014) Neuroscience: why do we see faces in everyday objects? Available at: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140730-why-do-we-see-

·      Sampson, R (2015) ‘Quintissential Quentin Tarantino Template’, Film Inquiry:  Available at: https://www.filminquiry.com/quintessential-quentin-tarantino-template/ Accessed: 8/10/18 

·      Storrier, K. ‘The use of Narration in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, Shorescripts, Available at: https://www.shorescripts.com/the-use-of-narration-in-the-shawshank-redemption/. Accessed: 25/09/18

·      Thomas, F, Johnston, O (1981) The Illusion of Life, U.S.A, Disney Editions