Story boarding
This mornings discussions we spoke about the type of characters we wanted to create and we discussed our ideas and how we need to develop our individual characters for the Narrative Constance has created. Constance's' idea is either that of a meerkat in a zoo who can hear all the predators around him but never see them, as well as, having all our different animals in cages around one another and them seeing the escape. Both of these ideas seem really good however I'm struggling to storyboard these with my character as the main focus so I've decided to remove the narrative from my brain right now and just focus on my initial character and the story I've created for him in my head. I feel ashough this will help me find out more about his personality. The three main point that we need to look into are; - Where've they come from - How they got there - Important features/charateristics about them
I've decided I definitely want on of my characters to be a bear and as of right now I am planning on creating a puppet head, overall body and a paw all which have their unique features and movements to bring to life my one bear. I also think I defiantly want to use a 'selfie bear' as they call them, with a ring in its nose and missing a few patches of fur.
While looking at pictures of bears I possibly want to use in my narrative, I came across some strange images of antique teddy bears who have nose rings and chains attached to them. This really socked me as I realised that they were made like this for children as this was the only way they would have seen a bear in the flesh - With a nose ring and chains. This really made me appreciate how far we have come within our care for animals and I'm glad I don't have to see bears in this state today even though we do this have quite a way to go to abolish animal cruelty across the globe. I also really like this image and even though its a stuffed toy I think its a good reference for my puppets character as I feel as though he has the old and unkept l The three main point that we need to look into are; - Where've they come from - How they got there - Important features/characteristics about them I'm struggling with working remotely as although were all in a group and attempting to create similar amounts and type of work I feel as though were all in different places and despite me trying really hard I am struggling to keep in with the team whist working alone. STORYBOARD - RESCUING SELFIE BEAR (Explanation below)
- In the first frame we see an old unkept bear obviously in a tight area, we know he's in a cage because we can see the light of the outside world shiny onto a small portion of the floor next to him (presented through a puppet of just a head of a bear and maybe a claw). He has a ring through his nose in addition to scares from where past rings have been pulled through, he also has numerous scars on other parts of his face on body with chunks of fur absent on to of his scares. His eyes look sad and cold, almost as though he's given up. - In the next frame we see a shadow figure grab the chain his nose ring is attached to we see the bear being pulled around and a lot of noise but we don't actually see his surroundings apart from a partial shadow of a person who the bear clearly is scared of. - In the next frame we once again see the bear back in his cage looking deflated and depressed. - We then again he the same shadow appear and pull the bear back into the noisy area. This time along with being aggressively pulled around he is also forced to do tricks such as standing on his hind legs and dancing. (This will be presented through a puppet of a full bear but with more movement of the body and limbs) - For a third time we see the bear back in his cage with the light from the outside world particularly covering his face. - We see the cage door open once again however this time the shadow is bigger the bear looks confused, there is then quiet gunshot and the screen goes black. - When the picture comes back we see the bear sleeping on the floor of a different location (we can tell this by the colour of the floor) we then see a few shadow figures enter and block the view of the bear.
- When the figures move we can see that the bear has had his ring and chain removed, the bear then slowly opens his eyes and begins to stand up. - The next frame I decided to use my research images to show how he begins to look around at the new world around him. -Although I haven't illustrated the next few images I then what to see him exploring the new sanctuary he has been released in. I feel as though He would be quite timid at first, picking his paw up at down very slowly making sure he knows what's under his feet and he's not going to be injured like he has been before while being trained how to dance for the public. After a while once he's become comfortable and knows that he's safe in his surrounding he them starts to bound and shake his head, running across the grass with joy coming to his eyes which he didn't have before. I like the idea of him acting like a cub, even though he is clearly an older bear I feel as though this will show how he's grown up in captivity always being restrained and controlled but he no longer has that issue and is free to play as he's always wanted to. Earlier on today, after our morning chat, I felt confused and a little separate from my group. This lead me to have a slow start to the day questioning myself and what I was producing was what was being asked of me. However, after our afternoon catch up I'm really happy with what I have achieved today and feel as though I'm on the right track to developing my characters. I will now be able to proceed to tomorrow with more confidence and develop my other two animals personalities quicker and easier after self assurance that I am moving in the right direction. Storyboarding and finding my characters Today I'm looking at my Elephant and Tiger's personalities. I think I'm going to start with the Tiger as I feel I already know him a little bit better than my elephant.
After watching 'Tiger King' and being baffled by how people just own tigers as pets, I've decided I want my tiger to be an ex exotic pet who was sent to a zoo once he grew too big.
I think this idea also came from a documentary I watch when I was little about 'Christian the lion'.
I love this image because it such an unnatural image for us to see of a Lion. However, for Christian its the most natural thing in the world to him.
Christian was born on 12 August 1969.
Christian was originally acquired by Harrods from the now-defunct zoo park in Ilfracombe. Rendall and Bourke purchased Christian for £3000 (In todays money)
Rendall and Bourke, along with their friends Jennifer Mary Taylor and Unity Jones, cared for the lion where they lived in London until he was a year old. As he got larger, the men moved Christian to their furniture store, where living quarters in the basement were set aside for him. Rendall and Bourke obtained permission from a local vicar to exercise Christian at the Moravian church graveyard just off the King's Road and Milman's Street. The men also took the lion on day trips to the seaside.
Christian's growing size and the increasing cost of his care led Rendall and Bourke to understand they could not keep him in London. When Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, stars of the film Born Free, visited Rendall and Bourke's furniture store and met Christian, they suggested that Bourke and Rendall ask the assistance of George Adamson. Adamson, a British conservationist and advocate for lions in Kenya, who together with his wife Joy raised and released Elsa the lioness, agreed to reintegrate Christian into the wild at their compound in the Kora National Reserve.
Adamson introduced Christian to an older male lion, "Boy", who had been used in the feature film Born Free and who also featured prominently in the documentary film The Lions Are Free, and subsequently to a female cub Katania in order to form the nucleus of a new pride. The pride suffered many setbacks: Katania was possibly devoured by crocodiles at a watering hole; another female was killed by wild lions; and Boy was severely injured, afterwards losing his ability to socialize with other lions and humans, and was shot by Adamson after fatally wounding an assistant. These events left Christian as the sole surviving member of the original pride.
Over the course of a year, as George Adamson continued his work, the pride established itself in the region around Kora, with Christian as the head of the pride started by Boy.
In 1971 when John and Ace were informed by Adamson of Christian's successful reintroduction to the wild they travelled to Kenya to visit Christian and were filmed in the documentary Christian, The Lion at World's End. Adamson advised Rendall and Bourke that Christian might not remember them. The film shows the lion at first cautiously approach and then quickly leap playfully onto the two men, standing on his hind legs and wrapping his front legs around their shoulders, nuzzling their faces. The documentary also shows the lionesses, Mona and Lisa, and a foster cub named Supercub welcoming the two men.
In 1973 Rendall details a final, unfilmed reunion that occurred. By this time Christian was successfully defending his own pride, had cubs of his own and was about twice the size he was in the earlier reunion video. Adamson advised Rendall that it would most likely be a wasted trip as he had not seen Christian's pride for nine months. However, when he reached Kora, Christian and his pride had returned to Adamson's compound the day before their arrival.
Rendall describes the visit he and George Adamson made:
We called him and he stood up and started to walk towards us very slowly. Then, as if he had become convinced it was us, he ran towards us, threw himself on to us, knocked us over, knocked George over and hugged us, like he used to, with his paws on our shoulders.
The second reunion lasted until the next morning. According to Rendall that was the last anyone saw Christian. George Adamson counted the days without seeing Christian from the late spring 1973 final reunion. He notes in his book My Pride And Joy that after 97 days, he stopped counting. I love this story and it has always stuck with me throughout my life. Although I am creating a Tiger I feel although this is a good reference to look at. My tiger is going to be an exotic pet that was also purchased from Harrods in London and was kept in a city home for a few years, rarely seeing the outside world, until he out grew his surroundings. However, unlike Christian his owners didn't care about where he went after they were done with him so dropped him off to the nearest zoo where he was held in a small cage with his only interaction being with the plastic grabber that feeds him. I think that when he gets out of his cage he will still be young still will big eyes and fluffy fur but not quite a cub. When he's released he might see humans and have his automatic response being to go to them but obviously they run away this will confuse him and make him sad however, When he finally sees and begins interacts with other animals he will attempt to inmate how they act and the movements they make as he doesn't know who or what he is (This could be a comedic element to our film). That is until he comes in contact with another big cat, maybe a tiger or maybe something similar such as a lion or lioness and then he realises that he belongs with them and they form a herd together. This would be an interesting narrative to take as Sophie is also creating a tiger character but one who is a mother, it would be a good idea to see how they could react with Sophie's tiger taking my tiger under its wing. Another area which would be interesting to look into is the 'pack' as a few of us have decided to look at big cats such as snow leopards and black jaguars, it could be a nice section of the film to see all the different big cats fall into a mismatched pack.
I found this picture of a young tiger a I really like how light his fur is and want to use it as a reference.
Character 3 - Elephant I was struggling to create a personality for my elephant however after speaking to Constance about only focusing on a few elements of the Elephants body such as legs and his trunk I think I want to create an old circus elephant who is very docile and who just accepts her life in every situation and is just looking for her next meal. I think this too could be quite entertaining part of the film - seeing many of the animals interact with their newly found surroundings but the elephant only being interested by the different trees and the food she can get from them. She will probably be presented through a trunk, ears and feet, I think this will also put a lot of emphasis on how tall she is in comparison to the other animals. Brining my storyboard to life During my tutorial with Lucy yesterday she said it would be interesting if I could bring to life my story board of my bear by animating a stuffed animal to create the aesthetic of the image I had referenced at the beginning of this post. Lucky I have a bear laying around which I've had for all 19 years of my life which has that 'tatty look' about her. I thought this would be a really enjoyable to use a puppet which I haven't created to play out an idea I've had at the same time as practising my non existent film and editing skills.
I began creating my film by making a few props/ silhouettes for my story these were; a cage, two men and a hand, I decided to use silhouettes to allow the focus to remain on the bear. I also attempted to make a nose ring for her by using a safety pin and a chain. I then roped my two brothers into helping me with the recording and effects and then began to film. Originally I thought this was only going to take a few hours off my morning however it ultimately ending up taking the majority of my day away. Once I had all the footage, I imported it into a movie maker software I was able to download from windows and began to edit.
Although this movie is supposed to be very empathetic when watching it back I was crying but with laughter, which wasn't the reaction I wanted to have.
I think the way in which I animated the bears head and upper body was quite successful however I really struggled to achieve this and then control her back legs which then left them dragging along the floor behind. In my opinion the thing that made my film the most unintentionally funny was the effects I added such as the hand which comes to rescue her, This was supposed to represent how her nose ring had been taken out but the end result just looks like the giant hand is just caressing her face. My editorial skills also need a lot of work and I need to figure out how to blend the different elements of the film without using cross fading. The next time I need to film I will download use a different editing app and see the different things other apps can offer.
Mechanisms After feeling as though I wasted the majority of yesterday I have decided today to look at mechanisms that I can use on my final puppets specifically my Tiger puppet. I feel as though this will be my puppet which has the most movement in comparison to my other two. Before I began making the leg I sat down and watched YouTube videos of tigers specifically cubs running and looking at their leg movement as well as skeletons and x-rays.
During our lecture with Rachel Canning I really liked how she created Toto the dog for the wizard of Oz. I liked it because I thought the way she created the legs so they would just swing was a very energetic way to create movement which I thought would suit my tiger's personality really well.
I decided to make the leg out of paper and rivets as I assumed this would allow for the free flow movement of it. This didn't work out, the movement was far to stiff to have it swing, despite this I really liked the movement of the leg even though I'm unsure on how I would control all four in this manner. I attempted to recreate this movement with a few other methods however they didn't work, but Constance helped me out by explaining how they are constructed, at is now my task next week
Character development
Today we are looking into what our animals would do in 24 hours in order to get more of a general feel of their personalities.
During my tutorial with Dik and Jess we spoke about the possible rendering of each other the puppets and during the conversation I think I came to the conclusion that I want to create a full rendered bear, a tiger who looks like a tiger but created I'm a simpler style with simpler mechanisms and then have the simplest puppet which will be constructed of just a trunk, ears and legs. However this could all change as the project progresses.
Because my bear is the animal I want to set my focus that's where I'm going to start today.
A day in the life of an ex ring bear.
Wake up and run out of her cave to the nearest tree and stretch and scratch herself all over.
she walks through the forest and the mountains to find some food, where she comes across a sea of leaves which she rolls around in and even manages to find a nice branch with green leaves to have a chew on before she spots the salmon in the river and begings to hunt.
Once she's hunted enough fish to keep her satisfied she relaxes and starts splashing in the water even playing with the few salmon who are jumping out of the water.
Now tried she climbs out of the river onto the banking and shakes all the water droplets off looking very pleased with herself.
She then walks back home, more lethargic than before back to her cave for the evening ready for another day of new experiences tomorrow.