Formative Assessment and Storyboards

Had my formative this afternoon and got a bit of feedback on my work and suggested ideas;

-adding an unfurling scroll to one of my idents (archery? princess tower?)
-research "Robin Hood" both Disney and BBC series for ideas
-think about where the idents would be shown - internet? television?
-start thinking about music and sound effects and doing research into that.

Apart from that I seemed to be on track.
I've also completed 50% of three of my idents after working solidly this week. I'll put a few of the first tests up in a few days.

I have also completed my storyboards. They are extremely basic but will do the job. I'm getting very conscious of how much time is remaining!


Jesters, Jousting, Princess Tower, Falconry and Dragons, Archery (from left to right).

Click for larger images! :)

The one thing all my idents must have in common, is the Warwick Castle logo;

So i have worked hard to get that into the idents in a way that they will notice.

backgrounds and schedule

Backgrounds for my idents I've been working on for the last few days;













I have also put a quick schedule together of the work I need to do over the next 4-5 weeks!

26th October - 1st November : must have completed all storyboards and a couple of animation tests or rough drafts
2nd November - 8th November : have completed two idents
9th November - 15th November : have completed four idents
16th November - 22nd November : have finished all idents
23rd November - 27th November : go back over idents and improve if possible. Also think about the addition of music and sound effects.

it's a bit basic but it's what i'm aiming for!

Video Clips and more Picture Reference

On Emu's recommendation, here are a couple of videos from the jester show. They're not great quality but it was the best I could get at the time.

Setting up the characters..


The next one is from the end of the show, and I think I would like to base one of my idents off it.


and this is from an official warwick castle video of the show;


I will be mostly working on the jester and princess tower idents this coming week as I have a clearer idea of what I want in them than the others.
Expect storyboards, backgrounds and maybe a couple of short animation tests!

Here are a few more images I found that I will use to help me with the animations and their backgrounds;




Some of the pictures I will adapt into new backgrounds and others I'm going to turn into Photoshop images and change the colours to make the brighter so they can better grab my target audience's attention.

Brain Storms

Still coming up with ideas for the idents...
If you are unable to see the full images, just click on them for a bigger size.


(Jesters)


(Falconry)


(Princess Tower)

Thanks!

Character Development

Primary research of the activities at Warwick Castle. I took these photos plus a few videos of the events for animation reference.



Art-wise... I have started developing the jesters first, since I feel they are ideal mascots for the castle.



I also completed a digital picture of them for personal reference (although the style is a little too complex for animation) but I will simplify it down significantly to look more like the pictures above.

Also, when it comes to animating these guys, I plan to use the character 'Harley Quinn' from Batman as a good reference for how jesters hats should move!;



Thank you for looking!

Industry Exercises project

Welcome to my Ravensbourne blog for the Industry Exercise project (unit 205)!

My brief will follow that of Brief B (produce a series of 5 second idents for the National Gallery) except I am choosing to focus on Warwick Castle instead as I visited it over the summer and was deeply inspired by the sights;

Brief B: Animation
http://www.warwick-castle.co.uk/

“We need some idents done to attract tourists, particularly children, to Warwick Castle during the summer, maybe your students could come up with some ideas for us? We need a range of five second clips that we can play before during and after television shows aimed at them, and to put on our website to reinforce the castle’s identity. They can use the logo, they can use images from the website, they can use current or future exhibitions as a theme; it would be really nice if they could reflect some of the colours that are commonly used; sky blue and yellow.

It would be great if they came up with a range of ideas… I would like to see six ideas from each of them. A storyboard for each as well as some explanation of why they have taken that approach would be excellent support for their actual animations. I suppose they’re going to have to do a little bit of research into the gallery and what we’re about to really come up with something useful…”

• Do some research into Warwick Castle
• Storyboard, explain, and produce six five second segments of animation to reinforce the identity of the Warwick Castle.

I want my idents to be aimed at the children that visit the castle (up to age 12 or so) and I plan to produce them all in flash, one for each attraction of their summer programme - jousting, the jester show, princess tower, fire-breathing, falconry and either the Trebuchet or castle dungeon.

http://www.warwick-castle.co.uk/

During the past week of research (which i will scan in over the next couple of days) I watched the animated Disney/Pixar movie 'Bolt' and want to produce my idents in the style of the end credits;



I have also made a playlist on my youtube account of all the different idents that I could find;
http://www.youtube.com/user/Pluschan#grid/user/28902601F0B9B497

but my favourite examples are the wallace & gromit ones as they are short and to the point. very effective! I want my idents to be similar to this;


I will continue to update this blog through the coming weeks with my progress. Stay tuned!