Animatics

Ok so feeling like I should update you now. I've been putting it off till I had something pretty concrete to put up here and now I do. I have now decided upon my story. I have spent a long time perfecting it and I'm now going to talk about the decisions, problems, concerns and ideas that got me to this point in my development.

I decided to stick with the idea of the pigeons from the city art centre because I feel I can create the best response to them as I have a connection with them, as I grew up with them around me. I also feel it would benefit me to know the area and the events that take place locally. Initially my idea was to incorporate lots of ambient things around the pigeons, things that reflected Edinburgh, including a delightful story I found when researching the pigeons about one winter when they were given little coats.

During the production of this story I threw away a few story strains before finally picking this one.
So the first idea revolved around the idea of the pigeons being alive, which is the story in the storyboard beneath. However the story posed too many questions and created too many plot holes to insure a coherent story.

 So Next I developed a less demanding narrative, in which we see one man's relationship with these pigeons. I liked the idea and felt the story made sense. Then I had it pointed out to me that when the scene changes to the man's room and we view him it was confusing and caused the viewer to get a little lost. Once I saw it, I really saw it. Just so you know what I'm talking about, here's the animatic.

However this did give me a good idea. I realised that I would like to see the whole animation from a static camera, almost like another statue. This did however mean I had to reconsider my story and I thought to myself, do I actually need a narrative here? To which I decided I didn't. I still liked my first ambient idea, the idea of an Edinburgh snapshot, a small period in time when these statues occupied this space. at this stage right now I feel like lots of things are falling into place. The idea of a snapshot in time fits in nicely with a static camera. There was however one part I am still arguing with myself about. I have had since the start a small section where the last leave falls of a tree and it becomes autumn. But it is the only cut away in my animation and I can't decide if I feel it provides a much needed break or compromises the integrity of the whole idea of a static camera... I believe the likelihood is I will remove it and instead replace it with just some leaves falling but it's unfortunate as I had like it.

All in all I feel this story has a good plot, even though it doesn't really develop, I like the idea of it being a simple animation with lots of little pieces of movement. It allows me to use all aspects of life in Edinburgh to my advantage and allows me to play with the other aspects of creating a successful film, aside from the narrative itself. I'm looking forward to animating it to be honest.