Story Story Story

Today we had a session with Mike and Dave Bull which was mighty handy. We spent the morning learning about all the diferent things which make a story successful. We covered pacing, building a beat, sequences, scene structure, and constructing plotlines and acts (establish, complicate, resolve). I really appreciated his advice and have since adapted the structure of my story.

In the afternoon we had a one to one meeting with Mike and Dave to discuss the progress of the film so far. Again, this was very helpful as they identified the weak areas and the parts that needed developing. The main issue was to do with the patients actions during the ordeal. It was clear that I have the beginning, middle and end sorted, as well as Jeds wild anticsthroughout. However the patient has always been less thought out - often described as just getting worse, trying desperately to get attention, gradually dying. This was not clear enough, and as Dave said - was crying out for more humour.

Dave got me to think about all the different things he could be doing to try and get Jeds attention throughout the film, ranging from the civilised waving to the more extreme throwing of objects. We decided to have a think about how his attempts could get worse, and help build to the climax without distracting from the main punchline. I listed a number of different gags with the team:

- Frantically waving
- Throwing fruit/paper aeroplane
- Wheeling his bed across the room - only for Jed to knock it back during a dance
- Lasooing his wires
- Waving in a mirror reflection - only for Jed to notice the mirror.... and adjust his hair
- Stretching out only to be notcied and recieve a high five from Jed
- Screaming/changing colour
- Music to silence cuts
- Silent screams

I dont want the film to turn into a slapstick joke after joke thing, so I am going to stick with the more subtle attempts, which gradually get more ambitious. Below is the quick notes I made during the meeting.


I also made the big decision to give Ed a broken leg, as it will prevent him from leaving the bed and constrain his attempts to the less ridiculous. I also began listing objects needed to be modelled for the ward.

Done and Dusted

Below is the camera pan concept I finished over the weekend, coloured and all sorts.
The idea was to replicate the movement of the camera during the opening titles. The frames trail down from the title, to the patient in bed. I'm really pleased with these, as they not only demonstrate the introduction of the film, but they have helped me describe the colour and feel I want to the rest of the guys. As well as colour I have included a few subtle textures such as the white tiles, and cloudy blue plaster - which also helps the team understand my vision. Alec helped me achieve the night time version by adding a dark blue layer, bringing forward the LED and dial layers, adjusting the shadows etc.

The Perfect Pan

Today I developed the opening shot for P.O. With the aid of Alecs life support machine, I set about designing the camera pan from title down to patient. I spent the morning skecthing out a rough pan on paper. i then scanned it in and continued to colour it in PS during the afternoon. I will finish the piece over the weekend and hopefully achieve something similar to the disney examples I posted yesterday...

Pinch, Punch, First Day of the Month

Unfortunately Kieron cancelled contextual studies today.

After getting over the disappointment the gang continued to concept like mad throughout the day. Although yesterday seemed to be more of a Splay success, with grigsby & spence churning out masterpieces like nobodies business, today was quite the opposite.

Simon sorted his photoshop skills out, and produced 3 awesome colour concepts of the ward. He scanned in his rough drawings, then overlayed simple blocks of colour on top to achieve a colour palette effect. It reminded me of some old disney backdrops, such as in 101 dalmations and Aristocats. . .



I'm sure I've also seen this style used in Monsters Inc artwork. Anywho, he discovered a style that looked really nice - check them out on his blog. Because of the simple shapes I was able to sit with him and adjust the colours, changing the mood and tone of the room to somthing closer to how I invisage. We settled upon subtle blues, turquoises, greys and whites - clinical and not overpowering. I want the characters and life support machine to stand out as much as possible in the room. Simon definately deserved gold star today.

Alec also sorted his life out, and managed to spit out a really good life support machine design in flash. Its just an outline at the moment, but still - its pretty damn detailed.

Yesterday saw me sketching hundreds of variations until I stumbled upon one which the group deemed worthy of coloruing and developing, and so thats what I did today. I spent the day colouring the new design in PS. It took all day, but to do it properly thats what it takes - especially without a tablet. I'm pretty sure I have developed my own style in PS now - simple gradient shading, minimal detail, topped off with a gaussion blur glow ;). I try to achieve a 3D feel to the character, adding shadow and highlights where necessary. Below is the original skecth, and finished colour version.

I like it alot more than the original aztec design, simply because it matches Ed's goblin/worm style. In a nutshell - they now look the same species. I do still have to decide on skin colour however, as the room is beginning to take a very cool blue tone and so his blue skin wouldnt stand out enough. I quickly played around with different shades at the end of the day - a few tests can be found on the team blog.

Tommorow Im going to take a break from character and focus on the wards walls and textures. I want to plan out the camera pan from the wall to the patient during the opening titles. I want to achieve something like these ....

Kick off

bla bla

Pitch concepts