Storyboard

Finally my storyboard is complete. Hoorah. Well at least the structure and idea of it is complete. It is a little rough as of now. Right now it is just black and white, very simple and effective in displaying the idea of taking a journey that involves a train, since the tracks are the key (only) graphic element. I'm not sure if i am going to employ color, like i mentioned in the previous post, so this weekend, along with watching the after effects tutorials i am going to experiment with color, or some type of background. After talking with Krista i don't need to force a color or background if one doesn't stand out as perfection for me.

Here is my Darjeeling Limited opening credit sequence storyboard!

Color Palettes

I am still not sure if color will be important to my opening credit sequence, but if i use color i want it to relate back to the film.  Originally i pulled some colors from the movie's color and still shots, but here i found palettes either related to the film or that focus on the blues/teals/and yellow as a complimentary color.  

Darjeeling Limited:

Peacock:

Blue Seal:

A Canal in Amsterdam:

Updated Creative Brief

For who it may concern i updated my creative brief. It is in the same post as my original, but now with brand new information. AWESOME!


And a little side note, i have settled on my score. For Emma by Bon Iver. I feel that this song encompasses the mood better than the rest and the beat of the song will work well with the tempo i am planning on utilizing.

Concepts

Here are some rough poster concepts of what i want to explore
Concept 1

Concept 2

Concept 3

Concept 4

Concept 5

Concept 6

The single minded message that i am trying to possess in my concepts and the title sequence is a journey. I felt that the key value of the film as three brothers on a journey for themselves, their mom, their brotherhood and even a spiritual journey (something Owen loves to bring up). I focused a lot of using lines and or trains. The entire movie Owen Wilson's character says that they must stick to the itinerary, which actually causes some conflict between the brothers. It reaches a point that they let the journey take over and not follow such structure and thats when they say "fuck the itinerary" which is a pivotal point in the film.

The Score

Below are some possibilities i have considered using for my score:

'Play with Fire' by The Rolling Stones
'Strangers' by The Kinks

'I Summon You' by Spoon

'Our Swords' by Band of Horses

'For Emma' by Bon Iver
'Going On' by Gnarls Barkley (this one is too upbeat, but it could be interesting...)

'Never Looking Back' by Matt Costa

'Back to You' by The Pale Pacific

'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' by Radiohead

'Ghostwriter' by RJD2

Creative Brief

Project Details
Date: 10/19/2008
Prepared by: Curtis Dickie
Project name: Title Sequence
Design Lead: ?
Hand-Off to Production:
Product Release:

Project Concept
The value of this project is to create a visually interesting title sequence that also tells a part of the movie through a graphically short movie. I want to make the title sequence interesting, but also display the opening credits effectively.

Objectives
I am going to provide a brief metaphorical summary of what is to come in the movie. I plan on using strong visual elements including the train tracks and possible the train itself. It will rely heavily on a simple graphical feel that moves and takes the viewer on this journey with them.

Audience
The primary audience is the college-age students and people in their younger 30's. I would shoot for an age gap of 18-33, roughly. From all the Wes Anderson lovers i know, they are generally in this gap. A secondary audience would be males in general, if i have to pick between the two genders.

Perception/Tone
The tone of this sequence is going to be and hopeful. I want to use saturated bright colors that are appealing to the eye and give off a little bit of energy. Since the story is about going on a journey, i want it to be upbeat and hopeful for what is to come, not something like really exciting or visually loud.

Communication Strategy
I plan on using very limited graphic elements not to distract the viewer with lots of unneeded imagery. A lot of type and basic shapes will be applied to move and transform from lines, to railroads, to the credits, to the railroad moving to tell my story of 3 brothers traveling together on a train. The saturated colors i plan on using will convey the upbeat tone with something to look forward to for the viewer and the brothers. Alone, i don't think my color can convey that, but with my score which is a 'folk' song i know that they will work well together.

Competitive Landscape
Wes is really in a class of his own, so competition would be his other films like Rushmore, Life Aquatic, Royal Tenenbaums, and Bottle Rockets, but going outside of his own work you want to look at films that are a technically a 'smart comedy.' The humor is not slap stick, but intelligent and the story behind the humor is entertaining and a good script. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang would fit exactly into that category, along with other films such as Juno and Brick. All these employ a countering tone with humor, but at times with a serious edge. I know there are many other films that i could relate his too, but i feel these are the closest matches for giving a metaphorical summary of the film as well.

Single-Minded Message
A Journey!

Font Choices

I went on a search for at least 5 different fonts that i could incorporate into my opening credit sequence. In general i stuck with a Sans Serif font, yet did dabble with one serif and a more expressive font face. This movie does not scream out with big and raw typography, but instead it needs to be 'smart' in order to appeal to my audience of college age students and middle age. These fonts to the right are the ones that i would like to explore more in my creative process.

Title Sequence

Wes Anderson is one of my favorite directors of all time. Since i first saw Rushmore i was intrigued and addicted to Wes. Even his 1st movie, Bottle Rockets, which is REALLY bad somehow is REALLY good. A couple things i love about Wes are:
-Slow motion
-Reoccurring cast
-Dry humor
-Cinematography

It was an easy choice when i saw a Wes flick on the list, however, the Darjeeling Ltd was more tempting than the Royal Tenenbaums for me. Everything about Darjeeling i loved and i felt i could work more with 3 brothers on a journey in India to find their mother and to find their place as brothers. The movie is filled with comedy and has an overall good message that really intrigues the viewer.

In the movie, the Title Sequence starts with somewhat realistic luggage with the some credits imposed on them. As the camera zooms in they start to move off the screen, looking into a painting and revealing the back of the train and the title. Some of the credits are hidden so well it took me a couple times to be able to find them. I feel (without knowing parameters) that using the basic concept of the story with the current title sequence i will be able to create a very effective typographic title sequence.

Referential Animation (Dial-Up Modem)

ANIMATION # 3 Referential Animation (based in video or referential images)
...Content limitation 1 = Must use image that is recognizable
...Sound still determines structure
...Using only still photographs

Wow. Okay. At 4pm Sunday afternoon i gave up. I'm not joking. I had only one idea for this video and i know i couldn't do it. I even started to look for new sounds....i don't even think that is legal, but i was so fucking (sorry) frustrated with this animation that i just wanted to quit. I stared at my computer screen for hours...well maybe only one, but an hour thinking of what i could do for this project. My good ideas were not plausible and my plausible ideas were not good.

I was thinking about what a Dial-Up Modem does, and i thought about how it calls to try and connect to a server. I re-listened to my sound and realized it sounds like a conversation. There are different tones, that go back and forth and as it goes on, the sounds become harsher and more violent you could even say. From then on it was history, i realized i was going to use side profiles still frames of a guy and girl in a conversation that starts out friendly and becomes increasingly angry.

I went home and took 40 pictures of two friends engaging in a conversation that turns sour. To my right is a screenshot of aperture and some of the pictures that i was playing around with. As the tone of the modem changes so does the person's face. I tried to find pleasant faces with the softer, quieter noises, whereas with the loud, harsh noises i represented the two arguing. Honestly this is by far my favorite of the 3 which i find extremely ironic because no more than 6 hours ago i gave up on this video and just wanted to quit. One unfortunate thing though is i was counting on flash to crop the photos in the bounding rectangle since they are different sizes, which it does when i play the .swf file, however, when i linked it to my public ONID it is the full screen and you can see the changes in sizes...this is extremely disappointing to me...so Krista you should grade me based off of the CD .swf file, not the one of my blog, it looks nicer when it is cropped. Okay, well enjoy. I was inspired by two videos we watched in ART 122, the phone conversation with text and a students work of a couple arguing with a voice over. Enjoy.

Referential Animation (Dial-Up Modem)

Type-Based Animation

ANIMATION # 2 Type-based Animation (Electric Mixer
...Content limitation 1 = must use only one typeface (Perpetua Titling MT)
...Sound is added to reflect typeface qualities
...Sound still determines structure
...only 2 colors, derived from magazines, photos, books, any printed matter. (Daily Barometer/Black and White)

This animation brought on a lot more struggles than the abstract. I had a fairly good concept rough draft from last period, but as i started to make changes, i also started to run into problems. Like i mentioned in my rough drafts post, this sound is very fast so i wanted to focus around a fast letter. The letter is picked is V. From there i just thought of a word with V in it and LOVE came to mind. The LO speed section of the video fits very nicely...falling off the screen and then HI speed comes on and the V's start flying across the screen. As time progresses more and more V's start to fill the screen until at the very end it becomes black. I had some struggles figuring out how to get so many flying V's on the screen and i rewatched tutorials, yet things just did not seem to work out. I instead resorted to copying and pasting a ton of my symbols on top of each other to get this effect. Unfortunately this made my file HUGE. It still is and it led to a slight pause in the video right before it turns black, which sort of ruins the effect i wanted. I tried and tried to limit it and i know it is something fairly easy that i must be doing, but i ran out of time and i have to settle. The video still works, i think it is still effective in reflecting the sound quality it is just a minor glitch.

One thing i am worried about is that the file is too large to play...or at least will take a long time to load. I tried to open up the .swf file from the desktop and it didn't respond. So i am hoping that it works through my ONID account just fine or we may have some issues viewing it.

Type-Based Animation (Electirc Mixer)

Abstract Animation

ANIMATION # 1 Abstract Animation (Car Alarm)
...Content limitation 1 = form is abstract (shape, line, texture, mark, etc.)
...Content limitation 2 = sound is referential
...Sound determines structure
...Only 2 colors, derived from magazines, photos, books, any printed matter. (Daily Barometer/Black and White)

I completed this animation 1st, it was by far the easiest. This was nice being the 1st animation so i could work out kinks in Flash that i was unsure about. It gave me confidence to be able to create my other two animations.

It went through three phases until before completion. I started out just flashing between and large rectangle on the left and a small rectangle on the right...back and forth, back and forth. I felt like even though the noise is truly only two different pitches, they are not crisp and concrete, so something needed to be added that would space out the flashing. I added a black square to cover the entire screen in between the two rectangles. This actually made the rectangles more in sync with the car alarm since the spacing between the two is more than one frame. Finally i decided to move the location of the rectangles each time because the alarm sounds like it echos off of the walls creating a new location each time. This slight movement relates to the formal qualities of the sound the best. Its hard to put a finger on exactly why, but it looks much more like it sounds when it moves.

I really enjoy this animation, its simple, but effective...hopefully you don't have epilepsy.
Abstract Animation (Car Alarm)

Rough Drafts

Well, 3 animations are due on Monday.  Today we were supposed to have three rough drafts of the animations or at worst, elements we would want to use in our videos.  Even going through all of the tutorials and playing with Flash (which by some miracle i understand all basic functions) I don't feel that my animations are going to be good enough.  They seem to have a almost lackluster quality about them and I don't know why that is.  I guess according to the requirements there are doing what they are supposed to do, so that's good.  Here is a quick synopsis of where i am at now.

Abstract Animation: Car Alarm

The sound is very regular and rhythmic.  There are only two prevalent sounds in the clip.  For this video i have a series 4 frames the flash back and forth.  A large rectangle flashes on the left hand side, then a black frame, then a small square on the right and another black frame.  This loop repeats itself for the entire 20 some odd seconds, however with each loop the object's location moves slightly on the screen.  I added this feature because the noise reverberates and even though it is only two different pitches it feels like they are coming from different locations.  With the strobe effect i actually think it turned out effective.

Type Based Animation: Electric Mixer

Being a fast paced sound, i wanted to select a letter that looked fast, the V came to my attention first.  I wanted to utilize a lot of V's flying across the screen for the HI speed mixing section and then built of the video from there.  I ended up with have the word LOVE written out and then disappearing.  After it disappears, the v falls of the screen and then the LO and E spread to each side and then the flying V's come out.  The 1st part is matched up nicely with the tempo and is aesthetically pleasing to me.  Unfortunately the majority of the noise clip is the Hi speed so it is a lot of v's for no reward.

Krista gave me some ideas to look into like:

-manipulating size

-converging together

-creating something

From her ideas i varied the sizes, added a couple more layers.  It looks sort of better, but still it is hard to keep the viewers attention so i want to try and create a movement where all those V's come together to create a think line of V's (or something).  We'll see

Referential Animation: Dial-Up Modem

...............

That's how i feel for this one.  I have no animation for this video at all....it will take the most to finish and hopefully i will get some feedback from classmates so i don't turn in a terrible animation.  I have thought and thought about this sound, with its irregularity, intensity, variation, etc. and I am having a tough time thinking about what out there has similar qualities.  It made me think of a forest because you hear all different things with different pitches and so on, but i don't really know what to do from there.  I also think it would be interesting to have someone speak and the dial-up modem noise coming from their mouth...but there is not much characteristic qualities between that and the voice.

So this weekend i need to touch up my type and MAKE my referential.  I can't even begin to explain how thankful i am that we got to work in class today, so i hope that just continues on and i can create something awesome....oh yeah and don't forget about limitations....

Ill post images of notes and my videos sometime in the next couples days.

3 Animations

After further review i have decided the matching order of the 3 animations.

Abstract Animation: Car Alarm
Type Based Animation: Hand Mixer
Referential Animation: Dial-Up Modem

I feel that these matchings allow me to create the must successful and most interesting videos possible. I am excited once i explore the formal elements to start designing concepts for the specific animation.

Concepts

Below is a link to pictures showing my mind maps, sketches of shapes and concepts into how the sound changes and what the shapes might do. I still have not decided which sound will be for animation, but my goal is to have that determined by the end of class this morning unless Krista tells us to hold off on that.

Flickr Set

5 Obstructions

We watched a video in class today about a director who had to recreate a film he made years ago 5 different ways with different limitations every time.  

Obstruction 1-

*No single edit can be longer than 12 frames

*Cuba

*No Set

*Answers to questions in original film

Obstruction 2-

*A miserable place

*Don't show [miserable place] it

*Jorgen is the Man

*Recreate the Meal

Obstruction 3-

*Complete freedom or re-shoot in Bombay

Obstruction 4-

*It has to be a cartoon

Obstruction 5-

*Jorgen will do nothing, but read the script and will be credited as the director

It was extremely interesting to see how Jorgen handled to obstructions and recreate his film in completely different ways.  He struggled with things, but in all except one case stuck to the limitations.  In the 2nd obstruction he failed because he used a transparent screen so the viewer could see where he was, not even Lars agreed it was more beautiful, but thats not the point.  The point is sticking to limitations.  Since we are working on our limitation project right now i think it is very prevalent to keep that in mind to not stray from the limitations. 

The Final Three

1) Dial-Up Modem

2) Electric Mixer

3) Car Alarm

These are my 3 sounds for project 1 that i will explore in a series of mind maps and sketches to further develop project ideas in my coming posts.

Six Sounds

Below are six sounds that I am considering to use for the project 1.

1) Car Alarm (http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/2106/mp3/275555_SOUNDDOGS__al.mp3)
2)Dial-Up Modem
(http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/machine_sound_effects/dial-up-modem-1.wav)
3) Water Draining
(http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/32/mp3/284280_SOUNDDOGS_Wa.mp3)
4)Hand Mixer
(http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/machine_sound_effects/mixer_2.wav)
5) Applause
(http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/people_sound_effects/applause-4.mp3)
6) TV Static
(http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/mechanical_sound_effects/static.mp3)