Tuesday 27 September 2011

Miming in Perpignan

From Mat's recent visit to Perpignan in France, he suggested we look at the city for some inspiration.

Here are the images we found






Although it is a beautiful setting, the grassy banks aren't really fitting with our ideas of a plaza or square-type setting. As Mat said, time to keep on looking!

Miming in Venice

Checking out Venice; we already knew that there would be a lot of bridges there so that was our main focus.


Here are some images of the stone bridges, as you can see they are mostly very small foot bridges that have small of no barrier to stop you falling in the water. I think this is because the water level is so high and there isn't a great deal of danger if you fall in.



I like the stairs that go down to the canal, this maybe be something we use as Mat likes it too





This is a bigger bridge that isn't really something we want, it's simply too big.

Miming in Prague

After finally finalising our story decisions and synopsis, we developed the script. With just a few notes added on the bottom the lecturers are all happy with it! We plan to start the script breakdown by the end of the week...but before we do, we need to know what our set is going to look like.


That's where this post comes in...


For the first time since we started his project we both agree on something! The setting for the animation! 


We both had a European city in our minds, with a small river running through the centre of something like a plaza or town square, and a bridge going over the small river.


So we are going to do some research into these type of cities and towns, including; Prague, Perpignan, Venice, Paris, Moscow and Copenhagen, gathering a lot of reference images.


Here are some images of town squares in Prague, these are the sort of building fronts we both imagined, the pale painted brick with rusty red accents.


I think we will take a lot of reference from these images as the buildings are exactly what we pictured together.







The old style of the buildings is something that we want to capture in our animation, especially on the old timer's side of the river or square.

Plot Breakdown

For a little more of an idea of how things are going to pan out and the feel of the animation, here is the plot breakdown.


'Mime Plot Breakdown


An old timer mime sets to work, setting down his hat to collect money, and taking off and hanging up his mime coat, and begins his act.
A new young mime turns up on the opposite side of a river, bringing with him a stereo, a coat, stool, and many other props. Eventually he begins his act.
The old timer notices he has lost his audience to the new young mime.
He tries to mime better, pulling out his most impressive moves, but strains his back.
Frustrated, he looks around and spots something on the ground.
He bends down, and pretends to pick up a rock, and throws it in the direction of the younger mime, who is struck and falls over.
The young mime gets up rubbing his head, and glares over at the old mime, who is acting inconspicuous, but breaks and starts to laugh.
The young mime is annoyed, and mimes blowing up a balloon and begins to bend it into something.
The old-timer mime notices, pulls out a bow and arrow and pops the balloon before he is able to finish it.
The young mime then strides over the bridge angrily, while miming rolling up his sleeves, and walks right up to the old timer.
The young mime then mimes taking off his glove, finger at a time, grasps it and slaps the old mime across the face, challenging him to a duel.
The old timer is stunned for a moment, staring at the young mime. 
He then holds up his hand, and blows mime dust in the face of the young mime and begins to run on the spot, facing away from the young mime.
Rubbing the dust out of his eyes the young mime begins to run on the spot after the old mime (neither of whom have moved anywhere).
The old mime the stops and sits down, pretending to read a newspaper.
The young mime stops and after looking around, asks the old timer if he has seen a mime pass by.
The old timer, points him off in a direction and the young mime begins to walk away.
Realising that the it was the old mime with the newspaper, the young mime turns around looking for where he went, and spots him miming to his (young mime’s) own crowd on his side of the river.
The young mime, ties a lasso and spins it over his head and throws it at the old mime. Pulling him towards him at the centre of the bridge.
They are now face to face again, right across the dividing line on the bridge, and begin to argue silently, throwing fists around and pointing out that they are on each other’s patch.
Eventually they notice that the crowd has grown, and people clapping for them now surround them.
The 2 look at each other, smile and take a bow together.
As the credits roll, show the 2 mimes working together, e.g. on a tandem mime bike, swinging across the river etc.'

As you can see from the breakdown, half of the town and animation is going to be in 2D and half will be in CG.  This is to accentuate the difference between the two characters and add a hidden sub plot into the storyline.

Synopsis...Finally

Now that we've finalised our decision on which story we are going to go with, we finalised our synopsis too...

...'An old has-been mime works his daily routine boring his audience with his old moves and his failing body. When a new rookie mime turns up with his fresh face and starts stealing the old timer’s audience. This won’t fly with the old mime, so he starts to sabotage the rookie mime’s act. The rookie then retaliates and they argue and fight in a miming style with great finesse and skill, using invisible things and great miming to try and get one up over each other. Until it escalates so much that the audience think it’s all an act. The two draw a bigger crowd together and soon realise that they work better as a team than they ever did apart. The Rookie has given the Old Timer a new lease of life, whilst he helps the Rookie with his green moves.'...

It is a lot longer than initially stated by the lecturers, but they seemed to be happy with it...personally I think it's pretty difficult to summarise a plot in 3 sentences.


Here are the synopsises that we developed and progressed from;


1. 'An old mime works his daily routine when a new kid on the block turns up and starts stealing his customers. This won;t fly with the old Mime so he starts to sabotage the young Mime's act, who retaliates. they argue and fight in a miming style with invisible things, until it escalates so much that the audience think it's all an act and cheer the two who unwittingly take a bow'


2. 'An old has-been mime works his daily routine boring his audience with his old moves and his failing body. When a new rookie mime turns up with his fresh face and starts stealing the old timer’s audience. This won’t fly with the old mime so they begin to fight in a miming style using invisible objects, until it escalates so much that the audience think it’s all an act. The two have drawn a bigger crowd and soon realise that they work better as a team than they ever did apart.'


3. 'An old has-been mime works his daily routine boring his audience with his old moves and his failing body. A new rookie mime turns up with his fresh face and starts stealing the old timer’s audience with his dazzling performance. This angers the old mime so much that he starts to sabotage the rookie mime’s act. The rookie enraged by this provoked attack that he retaliates, and they argue and fight in a miming style with great finesse and skill, using invisible things and great miming to try and get one up over each other. This battle escalates so much that the audience think it’s all and act. The two draw a large crowd and soon realise after their conflict they work better as a team than they ever did apart. The Rookie has given the Old Timer a new lease of life, whilst he helps the Rookie with his green moves.'

Monday 26 September 2011

Buttons From Mat

Mat knocked up some buttons for you to click, taking you to different areas of his blog that are to do with either his 3 Minute work or Futures work. I have used the same buttons and changed the coding to send you to my other blog, with my Futures work on it. Just on the right of the page.

Some Mime Design

It has been very hectic recently, Mat and I spent a lot of time developing one of his ideas, however after speaking with the lecturers and getting their feedback...we have decided to go with my mime idea.


We were very determined that the Alien idea of Mat's would work and look great, but after some brief development with the Mime storyline, it seems more realistic and achievable...also playing to each of our strengths, as it is now half 2D and half CG. This works as a sub plot within the story, helping to distinguish the 2 characters even more.


As mat said in his recent post, the Mime idea is yet to be named. We haven't actually brainstormed anything about this, but it's not greatly important right now.


What was important was the script we began working on 2 days ago...after discussing some aspects of the set design we were both totally confusing each other! It turned out we had 2 different set ideas in our heads...so we set about "rationally discussing" the designs we each thought the set would look like and how the divide of 2D and CG would work.


And here are the visuals we used to try and make the other understand...




We included camera angles and everything!!


As you might be able to tell from the image (though probably not) we saw the set and style split in 2 different directions. Mat's vision was with the bridge going across the view and the mimes working on opposite sides and the split being right down the middle of the river. I however imagined the same, but if the whole set were turned 90ยบ, making the split go over the bridge as opposed to through the river...The drawing on the right above.


It took a while, and some more of those loud "discussions", until Mat drew out a new sketch with more detail that I definitely liked and made a lot more sense in terms of shots and the style divide.



As you can see the divide is through the river and the two sides over the bridge are different styles, 2D and CG... I think this is definitely the best way to go about it.

Sunday 4 September 2011

Final Characters

It's been a while since my last post, mainly due to the fact that I have been working a lot and my social life has been pretty busy these past few weeks and due to the fact that I have pretty much finished my 3 minute work for now and I'm focussing on my Futures assignment.


However...here are my, mostly, finished character design sheets for all of the characters in each of my ideas, just so you can see some final designs.







As you can see not all of the bios are finished but that won't take very long at all. Now jus to put them into a powerpoint presentation and present to the class!