Experimenty stuff, Rob Sprackling

After talking with one of my tutors, who also does a lot of flash stuff, I decided to try out some experimental animation tests.
First off, I tried a little rotoscope animation, mixed with some keyframe animation. Basically, tracing over my head as I make swift movements as a start, then keyframing various bits near the end for an original effect.



Next, I tried using live reference to try reference of my hand and mouth (which isn't easy when the only reflective thing in the room is a clock), and keyframing inbetween it, in a vain attempt to get better at hand and mouth drawing.



Next, I practised some morphing skills. Using a photo of MrSimon as reference, I traced over it, and then modified the drawing at each step, similar to how one could stretch Mario's face in Super Mario 64.



By the fourth experiment, I had more or less completely lost it. I took a picture of myself, drew over it and made me look like Dr Robotnik of all people, and then lipsynced it to a 'nutshell' audio clip.





So yeah, I hope to experiment with various different things. Question is, what?

Today, I went to a talk by Rob Sprackling, who wrote the screenplay for Mike Bassett: England Manager (he showed clips, it was funny shit) who was hosting a talk on how to write funny stuff. To my surprise, it was a lecture I was not only able to stay awake for, but took an active interest in.

He talked about how you go about generating original ideas, a skill this anime obsessed dork really needs. One of the key starting points he mentioned was to start off with a world for your idea, then throw in an element that clashes with that world. For example, for one of the movies he is writing, Gnomeo and Juliet, he's taken the world of cheeky garden gnomes and thrown in the total contrast of epic romance. This is proving to be an interesting starting point for coming up with ideas, as when the world of grandfather clocks were brought up, I silently thought something along the lines of digital watches representing an evolved alien species, an idea I may expand upon.

When talking about characters in funny films, he mentioned there will be one or two 3D characters that the story revolves around. This character would develop over the course of the film, learn something that changes his personality or something (a good example being Kuzco from The Emperor's New Groove, who goes from egotistic emperor, to caring friend.) Then, there are the one-joke characters, such as yes men, flawed geniuses and plain goofballs, who don't particularly need any long journeys or backstories, but have an impact on the central character which brings out his facets. (Like how an annoying character brings up the agitated side of someone).

Storywise, he said there should some self-contained stories in the movie, but mentions they should join with the other stories to keep the overall narrative flowing. One example that springs to mind is 'Phineas & Ferb', where the adventures of Perry the Platypus somehow end up effecting what Phineas and Ferb are doing.

He then talked about theme, where he said a film needs to be going somewhere and have something to say, a rule I generally break with my animations, since I just tend to focus on making it for the sake of making it. Lastly, he talked about how the structure should have a beginning, middle and an end, and that within the first 10 minutes of a film, you should have a good idea of what will happen in the last 10 minutes, give or take the twist in the middle.

All in all, it was an interesting talk, and I hope to gain something from it.