Wednesday 20 October 2010

Todays Pitch - but where next I wonder?

A Flock of Pixels here!

If your interested on my take of how the pitch went then read on. Otherwise, you can skip to where the line ends.

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I was a bit irritated by how the pitch went today. As a team we are experiencing some time keeping issues, which in turn accounts for some lack of communication or in today's case, preparation for the pitch.

What I found irritating was that there were things we missed saying about our intentions for the project, things that I would liked to have said at the pitch.

Although I'm sure Phil and Alan knew most of our intentions, such as using techniques like the use of footage being repeated or purposely using miniature models for space ships, and as I said near the beginning of the project, to think about how you would make something assuming we don't have cg or a professional modelling department. e.g. The RAD (Refraction Anomaly Detector) is just a hair dryer with bits stuck on. (It doesn't get a mention in the trailer if your wondering where this came from).

What I'm saying is that It would have been nice if we all could have been more prepared for this, that way we wouldn't have missed anything out or say something in the wrong order, I mean I made a very stupid mistake of not telling anyone the title of our film!

But the pitch is done now, and although it wasn't a good pitch, at least the animatic is working well. We did get some very useful feedback, but now is the time to move on.
So where we are going next?

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I never would have thought to use famous landmarks in our future world. As said today, our film is very British and it was suggested that we use landmarks in the trailer such as Big Ben. The moment that was said the first thing that sprang to mind are these well known images (amongst Doctor Who fans. One day… Just one day there will be a project where I don't need to mention Doctor Who!!!)

Here we have Daleks on Westminster Bridge, with Big Ben in the background.


And the Cybermen with St Paul's Cathedral in the background.



So it would be good if we could see a famous landmark or two in the trailer, such as Big Ben. Perhaps not to use close up, but in the background, Or have one of the pods fly past it.
Since it would be an unnecessary challenge to model Big Ben, we could use old photos and composite them into the background. (I obviously know not to use landmarks such as the London Eye! Although built in 1999, no one knew that in the 50s! Could make a joke out of it though...)

The other thing mentioned was that some of the character designs don't fit together with the rest of the project. Some characters seemed to American. So this may mean more research and just a bit of tweaking to merge everything together.

I myself am taking a break from the animatic and sound, but there are plenty of other things to be getting on with.

We are having a meeting tomorrow at 10.00am, so we will be discussing our ideas further.

Oh there's an accidental continuity error in the animatic. Look at the scientists glasses! Oops!!!
Completely Unintentional, but all adds to the low budget. I mean, even big budget films have these sorts of errors. I'm sure we could purposely add a few more in though...

3 comments:

  1. Hello, Ethan, I do share the same irritation with you.
    To resolve this problems, i'm doing a checklist of the pre-production as well as list of the things to talk about tomorrow.
    They range from Management Roles ( you will be happy to listen) to getting this first stage done and dusted and moving towards Production in no time.
    Also, I do agree, at this moment the Animatic, is working perfectly, and I dont think we dont need to add the sound effects at this stage, However later in the final animation we will.
    I will be adding the Animatic to the pre-production page on this blog.

    Finally, I'm getting a new timtable and project plan for the next 5 weeks until the next Crit. Starting week 6 and hopefully with all pre-production done, we can move towards production roles, but it is something to discuss tomorrow.

    Dont strees out and justrelax fo today, has been a long 5 weeks.!!

    P.s- Apparently, i'm able to comment on blogger, in my bootcamp XP version in Internet explorer!.- Stupid Dongle.

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  2. Thats just unbileavable! A Windows only Dongle!!!

    Why am I not suprised!!!

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  3. Hey guys - I very clearly detected your own frustrations at today's pitch; it just seemed to unravel, didn't it? Fortunately, your animatic won the day; in terms of refining and 'anglicising' those character designs, both Simon Holland and I spent some time talking with Chris afterwards regarding sources of inspiration - we suggested he look at Dan Dare for his archetypes... I look forward to seeing some research posted soon. Also, to his credit, Chris also expressed frustration at his own design 'default' - that he often draws in the same style regardless of the bigger design picture of a given brief. Simon and I gave him lots of encouragement to respond more adaptively to different asethetics. As a group, you must appoint an art director responsible for controlling 'the look' - and as individual artists, you need to respond positively to the challenge of subordinating your own personal style and idiosyncrasies to the visual concept. I think you should establish now a design bible, so everyone is looking at the same influences for the same reasons.

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