Focus Group

Feedback

A focus group is a type of market research. The group normally consists of 4 - 15 people, brought together to focus on a specific topic. We received back information on what they thought to it, beliefs and attitude.

They did give us mainly positive feedback: they commented on how it was different to other films with a quirky feel. They also said the animation was a suitable length, whilst watching they still wanted to know what was coming next and what would happen, but any longer it would have started to become a bit boring and if it was any shorter it may have look unfinished or rushed.

We decided to place Not Even Afraid productions at the end of the animation, but we were insisted by the focus group that it would have been better to place it at the beginning with Not Even Afraid productions presents... They said it would flow better and start off the animation with who created it. We took this into consideration and decided that what they had discussed with us was actually a good idea, so it has now been moved to the beginning. 

Furthermore, whilst Jack and Blair were in the process of editing, they purposely left a gap between the songs. The focus group didn't think this worked and it seemed like something had gone wrong. They suggested that we put the two songs together one after another, or fade them in and out. We highly agreed with what they said, and put the two songs back to back. Before we had actually put sound effects and foley in, we showed them the animation and asked whether they thought it was necessary to add it. They did say it would most likely work better with subtle recognised noises as well. So from this feedback we went ahead with adding sound effects. 

Making the Animation

Creating the Set

 

Myself and Sam created everything that will appear in the animation. We spent half a day on a wednesday and a full day on a Thursday. The process of painting was really time consuming and would have been better if we had longer, or had more people to paint. We used paper, acrylic paint and pastels.

This photo shows some of the backgrounds that we completed. As you can see there is a mixture, ranging from plain coloured backgrounds which will animate objects on and more detailed backgrounds that have everything that is needed in that particular scene. There are several flags as our character is travelling to each country it's very easy to show the audience where he is and we will also relate objects to give a representation of the country.

This photo shows some of the objects that we created. Some objects are relevant to him ageing throughout his life, for example GCSE results, 18th birthday cake, graduate hat and so on. Most of our objects are just to understand the scene easier such as books, different types of foods, cocktails, fishes, tree, etc. We also plan to make emotions with our objects, like a love heart for when the Bill and Amy fall in love, or tears when one of the characters is sad.

Character Profile

My set task was to create the character profile. Although our characters are animation and will not be real people, i still had to give the character real life characteristics so the audience could relate to the personality of the character.

Name: Bill
Age: Various ages - From a baby until 30 Years old.
Nationality: British
Hometown: London
Siblings: Two Brothers
Height: 162cm
Weight: 9 Stone
Eye Colour: Blue
Hobbies: Football, Shopping, Reading, Cinema
Best Quality: Not giving up when wanting to achieve something.
Greatest Flaw: But can be lazy when wants to be!

Bill needs to be drawn in a lot of different positions. The first silhouette that we will see of him is when he is a baby, this will be shown as crawling. But even when he is crawling he needs to be drawn several times with the knee's and hands in different positions giving the illusion of crawling. As well as giving the illusion of walking as he grows up, other silhouettes of him standing still need to be shown, simple things such as looking down, looking up, looking the other way, etc. When he is in other countries doing activities such as sky diving and swimming, we need to have him in these positions as well. Making our main character is going to be quite time consuming as each different position needs to be very similar so it flows through fluently. Bill won't be wearing any clothes or anything, he will just be a blocked colour silhouette. But he will have eyes, this is to show emotion more clearly. So the audience will be able to see happy eyes when he's feeling happiness, sad eyes when he's feeling unhappy, etc. The other character is a female, she will appear throughout the story as well, she has the same concept of lots a blocked silhouette.

Final Idea

'The animation will show a scrapbook about someones life. Pages will flick past and signify moments of our male protagonist's life will play. The camera will zoom on a still image in the scrapbook, and then the image will animate. At the point when the scrapbook gets to the higher age of our target audience, the page will turn over and the next page will be empty. This is to represent the audience filling in this page for themselves, so they will add something significant to the scrapbook. 

The scrapbook will be filled with quotes. The animation will start with a quote that will be decided at a later date, and this quote will get the audience thinking at the beginning, and hopefully be inspired throughout the animation. The quote will be overlaying on the torso of a lady, it will then animate into a ball then into a sperm, and then go into the belly button of the woman. The screen will then go black, and an ultra scan will develop. The camera will then zoom out to show the picture in the scrapbook. The animation will tell the story of an ideal life of a man, and will mainly focus on the travelling in his early 20s. A question will be asked at the end to ask what they are going to do next.'

This is a synopsis of our final idea. Once this was decided each member of our group was given tasks to complete in order for our idea to go ahead. We have started to paint up some backgrounds, the backgrounds are supposed to create a mood that the audience will be able to recognise. Anything extra that will appear in each scene will be separate on card and placed on the backgrounds so we are able to move them around. For example a grey-ish background may represent feeling gloomy, sad or upset. If we wanted anything else on the background like rain, we would make each rain drop separate to animate them falling down. When our character is a baby we decided we'd have a yellow background, as it's a bright glowing colour, with other bright colours we will create children's playing blocks.

Preparation

Last week we completed the following: proposal, showreel and pitch board.


We finally came up with our idea set in stone. We based it around three quotes: 'The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.', 'A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.', 'Ones destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things.' The animation will show a scrapbook, pages will flick past and significant moments of our male protagonists life will play. The camera will zoom in on the images in the scrapbook and then the image will animate. The animation will begin with a woman lying on the floor with a bare stomach, ink will appear on the stomach and move around until it manipulates itself into the shape of a sperm cell, then makes its way to her belly button. The blackness will grow until the mise-en-scene is a blackout, then a polaroid of a baby scan photo will develop out of the darkness as the camera zooms out, which will finally be shown in a scrapbook.

The showreel was a short clip put together showing our inspirations and what we wanted our film to make the audience feel whilst watching it. One of the films mentioned was 'Up', a computer animated film. The plot is about Carl Fredrickson meeting a girl named Ellie. They dream of going to a lost land in South Africa, 70 years later Ellie dies, he remembers the promise he made to her. He is forced to go to a retirement home, but before they take him, him and his house fly away with 8 year old Russell who is trying to get an 'Assisting the elderly badge'. Together they embark on an adventure. The film makes you feel all different emotions such as love, sadness, happiness, inspirations, etc. We want to make our animation to give the feeling of being 'hungry for life' after being inspired. Up gives this feeling to the audience.

Tangled, another animation, also inspired us with our final idea. The plot of this film is magically long hair Rapunzel has spent her entire life in a tower, but now that a runaway thief has stumbled upon her, she is about to discover the world for the first time and who she really is. This is what we want our character to go through, to discover the world and find his personality through doing so.

MindMaps

On this mind map i decided to look into different directors and what films they have been involved with. After this i researched the different types of animation that are available.

This mind map is when i put together all my ideas. My ideas were: google maps - images from google maps in different countries and travelling. A documentary on what people love and hate. A documentary on what animation actually is. A humour animation, taking over Karl Pilkinton podcasts. The meaning of life - an animation on how we are made, our life, emotions, jobs, etc. 

After gaining feedback on my idea, i developed it in more detail and wrote where my inspiration from.

Research

2D animation refers to animation that is created by using two dimensional drawings. 3D animation refers to computer generated images (CGI), it creates the illusion of a three dimensional space. Films such as Toy Story and Up are created by this. Computer Special Effects fits under this type of animation too, for example, the spells we see in Harry Potter are shown this way. A few different categories fall into Stop Motion Animation. Everything that is shot frame by frame, in front or under a camera is classed as 'stop frame animation'.  Clay Animation is the most common. Pixilation animates real life humans, instead of drawing the images, an actor is used, then the photos are shot one frame at a time and placed together.

This video shows a good example of pixilation animation. I like the idea of using human animation as it's quite quirky and gives a fun element to the film. I find it more interesting to watch as well.


I also looked into the 'meaning of life'. The concept provides an answer to the philosophical questions concerning the purpose and meaning of life. It can be expressed through answering questions such as 'Why are we here?', 'What is life about?', etc. This then ties well with the 'Tree of life', the concept has been used in science, religion, philosophy, mythology and other areas. Within my initial idea i thought about including the tree of life, with each step of the characters life appearing from a branch.


I then looked into some target audience research. I had a rough understanding of where i was going to place my animation if it was to be on television and who i wanted it to be aimed at. The lowest i thought i would aim my short film at would be 16, anyone too young wouldn't understand neither find it interesting to watch. This age group also fits well with BBC3, i had a look on their website and a few quotes state; 'Centre of gravity will be 16-34 year-olds: people who are young in spirit and mindset.' and 'BBC Three is ‘Never Afraid to Try new Stuff’ and that’s why we will continue to innovate with breakthrough comedy, stand-out entertainment, brave documentary and intelligent factual formats. Our content needs to have potential to innovate across platforms.' As my animation would be something different it fits in well with what BBC3 try to promote. 

Feedback

To gain feedback to help develop my idea i created an ideas board. I included a synopsis over-viewing the idea, the target audience, facts, a range of objects i could use, and where my inspiration came from. The target audience i am aiming my animation at is 16-24 years old. Although it is an animation, that could be connected to younger audiences, i don't think its appealing for anyone younger. I would place my animation on BBC3, their target audience is the same age and their motto is 'never afraid to try new stuff', which fits well into this category as i want my animation to have a quirky feel.

My feedback sheet consisted of two questions, 'what other types of animation/objects can be used?' and 'what do you think of the idea?' 

For the first question, an answer was 'would be better without animation'. If i wasn't to do animation i wouldn't choose this overall idea as i think it would be quite boring. The reason why i decided on animation is because from other videos i watched, none of them told the story in a simple way. This is what i like about animation as you can have fun and use hidden connotations to tell the story.

For the second question answers i received were; covering all emotions could be shown very well through this i like it, sounds like a good idea for a series, could use human bodies the whole way through, sounds interesting but you will need to stick to a really dramatic or quite simple type of life.

I like the idea of using humans to tell the story, this clip here is an example of what i was thinking of. The camera is placed from the ceiling facing the floor, and the actor is laying down. All the objects surrounding him move, giving the illusion that he is moving. I would like to include this type of animation within my story, although maybe not the whole way through.

First Idea

The first idea i came up with was a stop motion animation, it was to focus on 'the meaning of life'. The character would be born, then start a typical life of growing up at school, making friends, having jobs, growing old, whilst also including emotions such as love, hate, happiness, sadness, etc. I didn't want the animation to be told in a straight forward way, i wanted connotations to tell the story.

I gained inspiration from other animation stories. For example, this photo to the left shows how we are created by using a marker pen drawing. It gradually gets closer and closer to the belly button, where the baby is then born. The animation then moves onto paper, where they use paint to create different coloured backgrounds. I particularly like the idea of using a human body to create the animation, it makes it look more interesting and is definitely funner to watch. I also looked into other types of animation. I like the idea of using photos and placing them down one after another to make the images look like they are moving. As well as using lots of different objects such as; lego, buttons, crayons, pens, food, etc.