Images from books

Further ideas development

Still working on my story line and plot, i decided to get some books out that were about vintage and clockwork toys from the past. There was an incredible amount of books available actually but from the few i did take out, i have found bundles and bundles of information. The colour and tone of all of the old toys have lent themselves to developing my ideas for this project and allowed me to stop myself from creating not quite true to life toys.

I have had the idea that the shop may be a collectors store and have considered that you may become aware of this due to makers stamps on the toys hands or clothes - not just the fact that the toys are all obviously from a certain time period.

As i had been thinking about using this clockwork wind up theme i was very pleased to see masses of clockwork toys of almost everything. I had been thinking that instead of using a jewellery box dancer to use and dancer on a box of some kind and found that this had been done to some toys. This is an advantage for me as i didn't want to make up toys that didn't exist plus i would have previous styles to look at to create a ore accurate representation.

I do not want to copy a design in anyway but i want to keep within the time period.

A name for some of these wind up toys is: Autoperipatetikos

Going through the books that i got out, i highlighted some of the pages that i felt would help me. What i was mainly looking out for was a style of doll that was not quite the same as Svankmajer - by this i mean they were not as 'creepy' and of a softer appearance than his, so that when i compare her to the clown she does look entirely different. I am not near a scanner at the moment but as soon as i am im going to scan in the images that have helped and start to use these to create character boards, to really help define my characters.

Development

After speaking with Alan today i realised that i had maybe focused to much on the idea that the toys just fell in love, rather then there being any particular reason for this love - there is no purpose. I think this may be why i have been struggling to kill off one of the characters (so to speak) as with one gone, life would still continue. I need to find an ending to this love rather than just a separation.

I have already decided in my earlier posts that the toys are all going to be the vintage era, wind up toys etc and so Alan suggested, going back to my earlier theme of the jewellery box dancer, and considering similar options. For instance to love could depend on there being a pair. One of the characters may need to be wound up to be able to move, and so taking one of the characters away would not only be a separation but an entire ending to something that will never be again.

I need to think of this dependency and purpose thoroughly to ensure my storyline is as strong as possible.

Musical toys and 'toy spectators'

I’ve had the idea that the musical sound for the pieces should come from something similar to a carousel, still quite stylised and old fashioned. Below are some examples of what i have imagined. When it comes to the scene design and colours i have quite a vivid image in my head but before i start some concept ideas i want to ok my idea with either Alan of Phil so that i do not waste any time.

A video clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uO5O7kSguc

Other characters that may be on shelves watching the scene unfold. I imagine them slightly moving their heads and eyes, almost in the shadows of the scene but lit enough for you to notice them looking, its almost as if the love part of the scene magically wakes up all the other toys. For instance you may just notice the eyes turn, or a jack-in-the-box peep for underneath its lid. Obviously puppets would be secured to the wall via a hook or some other device but they would still have the ability to turn their upper half.

Frustrating

I’ve been thinking further about the toy idea and reasons for this 'separation' of the two in love. I also decided to think about, if I were a toy what would scare me, on answering this question I couldn’t help but feel constantly piped to the post by Pixar and so am taking into account that in order to be original I will have to spend some time realising the storyline.






if I were a toy I might be scared of....

• mean kids
• babies
• being broken or thrown away
• lost of forgotten
• returned

If I were a separated toy this may be because of...

• being broken
• lost
• sold
• in a display cabinet

I’ve also been thinking about a theme, and in my head and developing my ideas my characters have always been opposites. For instance I imagine the female character being very 'perfect' clean and pristine and the male character that she has fallen in love with, is dark and awkward and not what you'd expect. Once again this is very similar to Tim Burton’s style - how annoying. I’m going to research further into Tim Burton, although I already know quite a lot about his style I feel it may help me to develop my ideas further.






I want it to be the kind of romance that you know they are connected by love and that their appearances don’t matter. A bit strange and dark but illuminated by the flawless beauty of the female character - in toy terms of course!

Maybe the use to completely different toys, such as a clown and a china doll would be effective? I did venture out into D&A toys in Chatham and took some photos of their toy shelves for some more inspiration, and besides the funny looks from the employees I did get a few photos of china dolls. I also liked the shelves of countless toys as in the animation these could become like a stadium of eyes watching the pair in love.





i really like this doll ^

Television advert idea...

I realised that the main idea for my animation was the reveal part and so I’ve also been considering what it is that I would want to 'reveal'. I was considering different places that the box could be placed, such as the disaster theme Alan suggested developing but then thought about smaller scale accidents as well.


I was wondering would I be able to create my project based around the idea for a television advert rather than something 'entertaining' as such. For instance a fire safety advert. My idea was that possibly the jewellery box could be within an attic, obviously there would still be the 'dancing scene' and incorporation of photos to suggest a family environment, this could also be supported by what I would place within the attic. The reveal for this scene would be the ending where in everything would be charred and burnt, including the dancer however she would still be turning, damaged but playing the tune. I’ve been looking into these types of adverts and they seem to use this technique of generating a comfortable situation for longer than the reason behind what they are advertising is shown.

I’ve also checked the track and there are suitable places at both 1 minute and 2.30minutes to cut it.

I quite like this advertisement idea as television advertising is what interests me the most at the moment.

Some examples are:






This one is slightly different:

ive just remembered!

Jan Švankmajer

I do not want mine to be as creepy as his work at all, i want the music to lend to the 'eerieness' (if thats a word) rather than make everything all a bit strange, and i want the story to be easily followed but his work is similar to my current ideas. Maybe some further research into him would refresh my memory and help create some fresh ideas.....?

more ideas

.....after speaking to Alan i realised that i really needed to think of some further ideas. Ive managed to get myself fixated on this particular song, as i feel its so perfect for an animation. i mean this as it creates alot of atmosphere and invokes emotion. I still really like the idea of this female and male seperated scenario, partly due to the music, and so ive been trying to think of further ideas using this theme.

I thought about how it would work if there were no people involved and the story was infact about two seperated toys, for instance in a shop. Possible ideas for their seperation could be:

• damaged, so the toy would be awaiting repair
• being sold, so the reveal would be that it had been packaged/giftwrpped
• disguarded or lost
• moved out of reach for the other toy to get to

Ive been trying to think of toys that would lend to this eerie theme and yet not be scary as you would need to be able to feel sorry for them, and ive come up with a few more thoughts:

• jewellery box dancer
• china dolls
• china clowns
• jack in the box
• hand puppets/puppets (although this probably wouldnt work for the main two characters as they will need to move towards each other and dance and with the handle to make them move they would be anchored to the floor)
• wind up toys

There are a few toy shops that are local to me so i will go to them tomorrow and have a look for possible ideas and maybe further inspiration.. and then i will be popping in to see either Alan or Phil to discuss this idea further. Im still brainstorming and developing my ideas further and so by the morning hopefully i should have more to add to my ideas list.

By using toys, especially china toys it still allows me the safety of keeping them quite slow. I feel that this type of animation, where in the joints and style of movement are physically limiting, would play to my strengths as i would b able to keep the whole animation under control and safe. I do not want to screw this project up - I'm not scared of a challenge, I'm scared of taking on something and to far down the line struggling.




Some other thoughts i had were maybe the story is of the jewellery box dancer and you see her memory through the mirror she dances in front of, almost as if its being projected. As the viewer you go inside the mirror and see her story and at the end return to reality and see things as they are now. Maybe a pssing of time has changed her or the box or its environment?

......hitting the toy shops tomorrow, i hope noone thinks im too strange a person taking photos of childrens toys!

First thoughts...

This is my penultimate project for this degree so I have to make sure I play to my strengths and get a finished off perfect animation. A decision that I have made is that animating, walking talking people at this stage would be a bad idea as this is not one of my strengths however, modelling is. The idea that I came up with, I feel will play to my strengths and still allows animation but at a lesser risky level for me.

I first had this idea when I heard a track by Lenka. It is off of her new album entitled Lenka and is track 10, entitled 'like a song'. It is a seemingly calm song although slightly strange. It is a love song about a couple that have been separated although, like a song he remains in her head that she cannot stop singing - the lyrics, 'rewind back the time' are quite important to this story. The lyrics are pasted below:

youtube link to audio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKYQwbRsFPk

The story is about a Victorian cruise ship (absolutely not the titanic) and the tune as you will see from the animation is from a jewellery box. The jewellery box is filled with black and white photos and Victorian jewellery, due to the time period of course. The only alteration is that the jewellery box has a mechanical dancer inside it that once opened dances. Instead of just the normal spinning in a circle i want to make the dancer move more, although still mechanical have the possibility to move from the waist and shoulders and elbows knees and hips and ankles – if you could see clips from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the toy box scene, the dancer would move in a similar way.



I want to keep all the movements quite slow to match the piece of music as well as the eye contact with the dancer and camera occasionally to make it seem as if she may be real.

The whole animation would start looking at a ticket stub for the cruise ship that you follow through a somewhat quiet and eerie cabin. Eventually it slips under the door it belonged to, 625. When inside it then that you come across the jewellery box that the camera pans around, then the photos piecing together the story that it belonged to one of a couple and was given as a gift. Then at the very end almost as if a smoke covers the scene, it all is revealed to be at the bottom of the ocean, everything old and covered in limpets and underwater creatures. Then the camera pans out.

This is just my initial idea, and very very initial quick story board to get my idea out of my head and onto paper.




Below is a selection of images currently running through my mnd, collectively shaping the style of this animation.