Tuesday 19 March 2013

Update- Hart's Desire Comic etc

I have not posted in a while so I thought I better do some updating! (I've been writing my essay and being really productive in other ways... honest).
So what have I been doing?

I finished a colour version of my Hart's Desire comic and made a prototype. Which was exciting. There's still a pesky page showing a close up of the antler that I think I want to redraft.




I finally made an animatic which was the first step away from being consumed by this comic and actually getting on with the animation. I actually found that, having produced the comic, I was able to fairly directly translate its narrative and imagery into a coherent and readable animatic. I wasn't sure how much I would be able to do that but I'm pleased that I found I could because part of the comic's raison d'ĂȘtre was to inform the composition of the animation: to liberate the way in which I was going to tell this story out with the confines of a 16:9 aspect ratio. This is not to say that I have simply 'cut and pasted' the comic book panels into a timed movie file (well... with some panels I basically did). I found that I had to add bits and cut bits that had been present in the comic for the pacing and narrative of the animatic to satisfy and, more importantly, be understood. One of the problems with an animated film that does not exist in the reading of a comic is that you're locked on a "treadmill of the now" as Scott McCloud, author of 'Understanding Comics', describes it (in an interview you can watch by clicking here). As the audience has no control over the pacing, it's up to me to decide how much information I need to give them and, on a really basic level, simply how long they need to be looking at something to understand what I'm trying to tell them. It's something that I worry about because I find it difficult to detach myself from the role of creator in order to forget that I know what's going on and check that what is being played out in front of me does indeed make sense. It's far less of a worry when making a comic because, as McCloud says, when you read a comic you can “rise above that landscape of time and you're looking at past present and future all around you in these different moments spread out on the paper”. Anyway, Will thought that the animatic was good and he's a BAFTA winner so it must be OK! (haha). 

I've submitted Hart's Desire to the Edinburgh International Film Festival, my first ever film fest submission! So fingers crossed.

Oh!... I drew a pheasant.



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