a short film (updated!)

(I like documenting stuff I do, so if you want to skip my yammering :P, head on down to the videos below!)

One of my classes this year is called Video 1, basically an introduction to Video. And for that we made a short film as a group.

Once we had a base screenplay done, we took it home individually and altered it to our own versions, so that we ended up with 4 slightly different films. 4 weeks later, and our films are finally finished. Shooting was completed in a day and a half. Unfortunately for some shots, we only had time for one take. 

It might sound strange having a video component as part of an animation course, and initially I thought so too. I wasn't sure what I would get out of this class. But live-action film and animation are just two different mediums for the same purpose - storytelling. So I saw this project as an exercise to learn more about storytelling using the moving image.

Apart from learning how to actually use a DSLR and other filming equipment, I really enjoyed going through the whole pre-production phase - writing the screenplay, creating storyboards and shot list ....as well as understanding the limitations and advantages of live action production compared with animation. Plus I had the best group mates to work with for this project (thanks guys!). They really do make a huge difference.

So this is my version. I wanted the story to be subtle, with all the ingredients present. I'm open to comments and constructive critisicm, especially in terms of story - that's where I'm trying to improve. If you want to, a PM would be great.

Remember to turn up your speakers a little (headphones are best) and watch in 720p. cheers guys

Vanessa - "Darren's World"

And here are my group mates' versions  (I'll update this section till all of theirs are up). 

Terri - "Safe"
Check out her blog post for some behind-the-scenes photos

SAFE : Short Film from territory.mp on Vimeo.


Sharin - "Lost"

LOST (A short film) from Absharina Yofitasari on Vimeo.


and finally, Dileepa - "My Name is Darren"

MY NAME IS DARREN from Vincilabs on Vimeo.

Chase (animatic)

Storyboarded a chase scene from a script. Since I had the materials already, why not make it into a semi-animatic? All SFX obtained from freesound.org

On review: Some scenes went on for too long, dictated by the sound file which was created first before the video - I overestimated the length of the shots. Tightening up the speed of the shots could make the animatic more interesting and engaging with the chase.

Here are 2 pages out of 9 of the storyboard panels drawn.

..and the turnarounds for the characters. Yes, they do have names :)

The Spectacles

One of my  uni assignments - choose any of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, adapt a part of it including designing the characters. A Tableaux and two pages. We could choose any era we wanted to place the story in so....that's what I wanted to go with. I've drawn comics quite a lot in the past, but never coloured them, so this was kinda fun to do. Character turnarounds were produced too. I never used to do that but hey, it's what they do for animation! :)  

One of the goals was to tell the story well enough without the use of speech bubbles. After going through a few revisions, here it is! (It's only a part of the story, so I chose to do only the early half of it)