During my one on one talk with my lecturer, he recommended that I research Bob Godfreys' work in depth.
The main reason for doing some research about Godfreys' work is because of his well renowned animation 'Roobarb and Custard' originating from the early 70's. My lecturer pointed out to me that he is a good source of inspiration because he only colours in the characters and only some of the background which has significance and giving more attention to some detail. This for me is exactly what I did in my animation for a few reasons, one being it saves a lot of time which benefits me as the task was 3 weeks long. I also adopted this technique because i have a lot of frames planned s I want to extend my animation duration to around a minute long.
In comparison to this screenshot of Rhubarb and custard, I kept the background a clear white and I only coloured in the characters and other objects to keep the audiences attention on what I want them to see. One of my friends preferred this idea as he said it would keep things simple but effective and it would not allow me to waste valuable time of unnecessary colouring in.
In conclusion, I think after researching some of Godfreys' animations that I made the right decision in adopting his style of colour scheme as it has actually made the animation better than if I had coloured in the background.
RESEARCH PART 2 TEXT MESSAGE PROJECT: THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW
Over the past two days I have been watching some clips from 'The Ricky Gervais Show' for innovation for my next project. The show consists of Stephen Merchant, Ricky Gervais and Karl Pilkington, who on a animated live radio podcast talk about the feelings and opinions of Karl and sometimes the day in the life of Karl. The things that Karl says causes eruptions of laughter and sometimes disagreements of Karl's' opinions and they pick out the things he says and makes a mockery out of him, which then causes him to justify himself which then leads to eruptions of laughter.
I also wanted to take note on the clever structure of the animation. It is formatted as audiobooks with animation and the inspiration from their animation was drawn from the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, the likes of 'Scooby-Doo' 'Tom And Jerry' etc.
At the beginning of the animation, we see Ricky, Stephen and Karl sitting in a studio starting a conversation about what karl is thinking. As Karl starts speaking, the animation changes and provides a visual context of what Karl is talking about, much like a flashback scene from a film with a narration over the top of the animation and the animations give a literal visual moving image of what Karl is talking about.
After Karl finishes and elicits a humorous reaction from Stephen and Ricky, the animation pans back to them in the studio and most of the time the same format will repeat whilst taking about something else.
This is the main inspiration for my first idea. except I will set the opening scene in a living room with either two characters sitting together talking about their fond memories or having three people having a laugh together talking to each other having funny conversations.
The idea is still early in the works, but I am getting towards finalising a solid idea.
Below I will leave a YouTube video of a Ricky Gervais show clip below to give you a better idea about what I am talking about:
RESEARCH PART 2 TEXT MESSAGE: MICHAEL GONDRY: BJORK/BACHELLORETTE
For more ideas and inspiration I researched Michael Gondry and his music video: 'BJORK'. Michael Gondry is a french film producer, screenwriter and music video producer. I learnt that Gondry is well known for his vast manipulation of mise-en-scene, which means "placing on stage". Most of Gondrys' work revolves around the design and the background of a production as a way of telling the story with a vast use of visual language.
Gondrys' 'BJORK' music video is about "an exploration of self relevance". The thesis of the story is about a story within a story within a story, which it then falls apart. 'Bachelorette' lurks in her garden and finds a book, which writes itself and as a result she finds new found fame when she falls in love with a publisher who distributes her book. Then the tides turn later on in the video as the publisher is in the audience viewing an actor playing him on stage and he eventually breaks off the relationship with Bachelorette and things start to devolve and collapse. Miss en scene then plays a role where the set begins to literally crumble and fall apart, which is symbolic for the collapse of the woman's life.
When researching from online sources about the video, Michael Gondry provides a clear message: "This character is leaving the forest and she decides to go to the city to have a normal life. She tries her best and it doesn't work out and she come back to the forest and she is happier there" The message that I get from Gondrys' words is that it is best to stick with what you know, which can be applied to everyday life as a important message to people.
With no surprise the video received positive reviews. As I was researching the background and the development stages of this project, it sparked a potential idea that my animation were to depict a message with visual language to the audience that could concur with providing a positive message or something that could be somewhat of a revelations or a reminder as I am thinking about going down the route of a war story type animation, the revelation being that life is too short and the fact that childhood is the best time of your life and it could be directed to an audience of my age to remind them that worrying about things during teenage years is a wasteful emotion because in adult life there are more important things to be worrying about?
At this stage it is too early to tell exactly what I am going to do in my animation but at the moment this is partly my mindset and plan for now.
Moreover, having learnt that Gondry uses mise-en-scene as a tool to convey a message to the audience, having experience from my A level media studies and my projects that I have crafted, Mise-en-scene is very useful and can be of great benefit because it saves time not needing to explain in words with clear understanding of what is going on.
In conclusion, this research has made me one step closer to guiding me to what pathway I am going to choose, however still requires more research.
