MAJOR PROJECT I - TASK I: PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT
MODULE PRJ 64904: Major Project I
Tristan Vaughan Sleep - 0365120
Major Project I / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Major Project I - TASK I: Animation Project - Proposal Development
MODULE INSTRUCTIONS:
“FEB - MARCH 2025: GCD 64904 / MAJOR PROJECT MODULE INFORMATION BOOKLET”
Major Project: Student lead Semi-Professional Animation (Weighted 20%)
Animation Project I: This Module is to be the first part of the students’ final year project in which the students will need to apply their theoretical knowledge of design as well as their practical skills of hands-on development. This is a preparation for students to understand the process and requirements for real, industry-level projects where they must be able to utilise their foundational studies gained over the course with the understanding of practical situations + variables when difficulties are presented. Students are required to produce a comprehensive proposition on a chosen topic and apply independent learning skills in a studio environment to formulate the desired content for their project which demonstrates their skills in design works and effective project management. The class will be delivered with blended learning materials such as tutorial videos, case study web repositories and videos of expert series’. These references are to facilitate the flipped delivery complemented with face-to-face consultation sessions, which is documented and managed online.
PARTICIPATED LECTURES:
WEEK I: Final Project Preparations - Grouping, Requirements, Narratives
Basics: For this final year project, my group (consisting of my two other friends) and I have decided to create an animated short film (expected to be ~ 2-3 minutes in length) - being supervised and supported by the lecturer Mr. Kamal. All students in this group are under the Digital Animations course and our goal is to represent our skills required for this line of work.
Week I: Following the briefing the students were given on the first week and being formed into our groups based on our specialisations, the groups were to begin thinking of ideas that would be able to be used for their projects. In our case, we needed to come up with a narrative which we could turn into a short animated film. Being a bit stuck with our ideas, we looked at existing examples from our senior students to look at their approach to choosing a narrative and how it may help us come up with a story. Looking at the examples, it appeared that our narrative needed to have a more grounded moral (in the sense it relates to personal decisions) or needed to have a ‘spectacular’ nature to it which would need to be developed through the animation itself.
Discussing Narratives: Despite the beginning research we had established, the group had a bit of difficulty deciding on a sole story as we had conflicting ideas on which ideas were better or how the stories should progress. Realising that this discussion turned into an argument wasn’t going anywhere, I’d suggested that we take our stories separately and write them up a bit more so that we can better explain them to one another so that the team has a better understanding of what our visions are and how we can better adjust them if necessary. Therefore, one of my group mates and I separated for the day and worked on our stories before presenting them to one another the following day.
My leading idea in this project was to create a more visually appealing short film centred around the acts of revenge and how it impacts the people involved in a traditionally harmful cycle. I’d started thinking of this story following the lecturers’ briefing where they suggested the project could be about adapting an existing work but changing it to reflect a different moral or outcome, as long as it could be rightfully argued. This would help me shape an idea of a narrative roughly inspired by the story ‘Sifu’ by Jordan Layani but, with adaptation such as removing the mystical elements (making it more grounded) and putting emphasis on personal action and the harm of revenge. The full idea is explored in this breakdown below:
“Story Idea One: Act of revenge”
In brief, the narrative was to centre around the main character who plots (and then in-acts) his plan of revenge on criminals responsible for his father’s death. Explaining his plan with a street-vendor with criminal ties, the vendor first tries to talk the MC out of revenge but eventually pivots to teaching him how to defend himself since MC won’t change his mind. Going through with the plan, MC is able to reflect on the pain he’s caused himself and others to experience and is ultimately regretful of his actions.
While this was my story idea, I had also been informed that my other group mate needed help writing their story and wondered if I would be able to step in and help write theirs as well. From what I’d gathered from my group mate’s work: they wanted to write a narrative focused on accountability and how making desperate promises can lead to people being harmed by your actions. Their main problem however seemed to be about making the story seem real and needing an impactful end. My changes can also be seen here:
“Story Idea Two: Value of Words/Promises”
Project timeline: Concluding the work for this week, the group and I got together where we discussed the timeline for the project and what work we would need to do for this module. This was mainly thought of due to the lecturers providing us a shortened timeline of what work they expected us to complete and update them with each week. This was a simple concept as we based our workflow around this provided timeline:
“Week One: Presentation & Timeline”
End of the first week of work, following week should see one story being chosen, moodboards being developed, confirmation of artstyle etc.
WEEK II: Final Project Preparations - Grouping, Requirements, Narratives
Developing Proposal: Opening this week and in preparation to meet with our lecturer, Mr. Kamal; I had begun working on the proposal document which was planned to be used to outline our project. This proposal document would contain the necessary information such as our narratives (Narrative themes & settings, completed synopsis, Logline, character plots) as well as other important information such as mood boards of each of the characters and settings, discussions of the art styles and possibilities.
It is important to note that at this point in time, the team still had two narratives written and did not know which one to go with. The plan would be to present both of these to the lecturer to get their professional opinion on which one we should pursue. This essentially meant that extra work would need to be put into the document.
“Week Two: Development of proposal and Current State”
Narrative Confirmation: With general completion of this document (as shown above) I had presented these ideas to the lecturer to get their opinions and recommendations for the project. When it came to discussing the two narratives, he suggested that the first one (The Homeless Man & Businessman) seems like the best one to pursue as it had a simple, easy narrative and would not be too time consuming to produce. Further adding to this, the lecturer also provided me with some additional points which he hoped that we would be able to incorporate into the final project. All recommendations can be seen on pages 16-20, the general idea has been referenced:
“Setup of Promises & Changes: It was recommended by the better setup story points such as the Homeless Centre and Un-kept Promises. During Establishing shots and some background, it is important to show the ‘Homeless Centre’ - putting it in the audience's minds which also plays in the narrative. For the ‘Promises,’ an opening line can be written in which the Businessman talks about making an older promise which he did not meet. This is a special case as it fits in the rules of threes (Business promises, social promises, personal promises) and it sets up the narrative immediately.”
“Week Two: Recommended Changes and Feedback”
“Not a Strong scene: Feedback suggests the scene is not the strongest and needs more ‘action.’ While the Cinematography is intriguing, it's not engaging. This scene needs to have more happening within it than just a conversation and staring.”
“Have a Strong Finish: The Climax and ending need to be the strongest as it carries the moral and shows the change in character motives. From the feedback, this is going to be something difficult to write. Death is not easy and the Businessman needs to appear responsible for it. This is described to be a hard challenge as this scene of realisation needs to be gripping and unique”
Art Styles: One recommendation made by the lecturer was them suggesting a “Hybrid Artstyle,” mainly discussing the use of both 2D and 3D elements to create a scene. In this, he suggested that making the backgrounds in 3D may save time as the physical space is already mapped out and needs the manipulation of the camera to fit the scenes. The characters can be included as an overlay in 2D or can actually be made present IN the scene akin to that of “Paper Mario” By Nintendo or the works similar to IVORY SHARD on youtube.
WEEK III: Final Project Preparations - Grouping, Requirements, Narratives
Continued Proposal Development: Following our meeting with our lecturers the previous week, we would continue working on our proposal. As it was to be submitted at the end of the week, the group worked to quickly make improvements based on the feedback from the previous week as well as looking into adding additional resources which had been outlined in the Task I Rubric. In our discussions, a majority of the work appeared to be based on finally preparing the main story of the project - requiring us to fix some plot-holes within the original explanation as well as making the themes of the narrative more present.
For this week’s activity, I would mainly work on further developing the original narrative and would work to develop it through an Act-By-Act Structure which would set-up easy-to-reference story progression. I would then be able to later adapt this into a script in the style of a screenplay/write which would be useful in latter stages of production when discussing the story boards and cinematography. When the story is completed to an acceptable standard, I will then focus on helping with the proposed art-style and mood boards of the characters, hopefully allowing my group to produce acceptable concept art.
“Week Three: The Three Act Structure”
Feedback & The Three-Act-Structure: Building upon the feedback discussed last week, the main concern came with the setup of the main theme as well as the difficulty of making conversations/scenes interesting to watch. Finally, the finale was not fully developed as the final scenes need to be gripping for the audience and need to convey the emotions of the main protagonist. While the basic plot-points are there, they do not fully convey an interesting story which is something I needed to improve:
Fixing the points of contention: Setting up the main theme of the narrative - the importance of promises and the power of ones’ words. The main concern stated by the lecturer is the potential for the main agreement to feel like a passing comment which only shows its importance later which can catch the audience off guard. In addition, by only mentioning the theme once, audiences are not fully going to grasp it on a first time watch. To make the theme feel more present, it was recommended to introduce the idea of unkept promises into other aspects of the protagonist’s life such that he can make parallels at the end and show change. To achieve this, I added a new instance of promises representing aspects of the protagonist's life - one for his business, one for his personal and the main one, his social.
In the first act, the first set of dialogue added needed to reflect the main protagonist’s constant application of promises which he never honours. This is seen with him leaving work and discussing a presentation on the phone - stating he will get the material ready. Despite not clearly hearing the other end, the man comments on how ‘last time was different, he truly means it this time.’ This is then later built upon with him meeting the homeless man and changing the conversation to sound more like an offer rather than charitable help. This way we can show that he tries to drive things to a promise and can feel like he’s helping without needing to be in the now.
The second act continues this with this idea where the man reaches home and discusses helping the homeless man, explaining it to sound like it's from work and expressing that he promised to help-out. His wife would then jokingly reply he promises too much and delivers too little and how it gets him in trouble. Playing into it, the protagonist doesn’t believe he promises that much and that his work is useful which evolves into an argument. The wife says he focuses too much on work when he promised to mend their relationship and to work together and how his promises are only used to put things off. This again further explains his promises while making this scene a bit more eventful. This is further supported with the contrast of the homeless man who mirrors the actions of the protagonist as he discusses how promises ruined his life as well. The audience then should feel more invested in the protagonist's change as they see how it hurts others and eventually will hurt himself.
In the final act, the audience is shown the homeless man’s death and how the protagonist was unwilling to help him in the end. Feeling responsible he’s shocked and has a moment of existentialism which he only snaps out of when heading back to work. Before entering, he looks at his reflection in the door and where the homeless man was and decides not to enter work and go to the homeless centre mentioned by the EMTs. From there, he works to promote the centre while negotiating his business plan from the beginning - recommending investing in homeless care which we hear is a positive action from the person on the phone. After a day's work, the man sits down at the bench not too far from where the homeless passed and reflects how he was unable to help him but shows the protagonist the cost of endangering another. From there, he immediately calls his wife and demands to mend their relationship, forcing it to be in the now rather than later. Before he can though, he decides to bring the promised goods to the homeless centre before ending the film.
“Week Three: Script Written by TRISTAN V. SLEEP”
By setting up multiple small plotlines around the main one helps show a pattern of disregard by the protagonist but; in failing the main one, he is able to make a character change. The main theme expresses the importance of words while showing how it impacts different parts of your life and expresses how it's just better to work in the now.
“Week Three: FINAL SUBMISSION OF TASK I”
Comments
Post a Comment