Directorial Style
"The director is responsible for every aspect of a motion picture production, from set design to music to cast decisions. Directors work with actors; makeup artists; cinematographers; writers; and film, sound, and lighting technicians. They determine all the particulars of how scenes are to be shot, from visual requirements to the placement of the actors and the scheduling and budgeting requirements." - taken from FilmSchools ( http://filmschools.com/resources/career-profile-film-director )
I had no cast to direct during this film, all I wanted from my 'cast' (Peggy New) was to tell her story genuinely and truthfully as she remembered it, I couldn't tell her how to tell her own story and memories. I almost used her tone and voice to direct the rest of the film. As the animator of the project I obviously have to think about the style and the cinematography. There aren't any films I can really link this to other than The Snowman and Father Christmas because of their wonderful sketched style and homely feeling. Mine isn't nearly as detailed or as fuil as these, and I don't have the detailed backgrounds that these films have either. There's also a short film by one of my favourite animators, Glen Keane, who's most known for his animation of Ariel in The Little Mermaid, and both title characters in Pocahontas and Tarzan. His animation is incredibly smooth and characterful, nothing that I could achieve with my simple, so far self-taught animation, but watching his pencil-tests (animation before the ink & paint) and his short film Duet show how wonderful animation can be when the sketchy nature is left there and the pencil is obvious to the viewer. In Duet the colourings inverted to make it look like it's glowing, which is different to what I'm producing, but the pencil texture and outline sketches are still slightly visible.
I have attached both the coloured and uncoloured version of this film to see the true sketched nature of the piece.
I can also make reference to Wes Anderson as an inspiration for my directorial style. All of my cinematography/layout art shows the characters on a 2D plane, they're all very arranged to be seen, their faces face the 'camera', or are perfectly side on. Wes Anderson and his cinematographer Robert Yeoman adore these sort of shots, especially those with symmetry or centred focuses.
Here is an example of how Wes Anderson and Robert Yeoman have used shots from the side of a character, with a 3-dimensional character or real person it's a lot harder to get them exactly from the side, but as my characters are 2-dimensional, I can get them perfectly to the side. The stills on the left are from the film Bottle Rocket. Below is a still from my film showing a character from the side, also applying to the rule of thirds like the stills from Bottle Rocket do.
This is a still from Moonrise Kingdom, it shows how Anderson tries to get the face of every single character into the shot even when it's a squeeze. I really like this staged feeling and think it's a good way to show that each character is important in their own way, but are linked together in the same act. Another shot from The Royal Tenenbaums shows all the characters faces in a different way, their bodies are also made to be shown, and the organisation of them in the shot is wonderfully staged, with one main figure in focus, due to Royale being closer to the camera, and everyone else is looking at him.
Unlike Wes Anderson, however, I won't be using songs from the 70s throughout my short, they're not really appropriate to my subject matter. I may look into what I can find that's similar to Alexandre Desplat and Mark Mothersbaugh's music in Anderson's films, I think the orchestral scores can be really effective, Desplat even uses the simple plucking of a ukulele to make an effective piece of music that conveys movement and emotional struggle.
I can also make reference to Wes Anderson as an inspiration for my directorial style. All of my cinematography/layout art shows the characters on a 2D plane, they're all very arranged to be seen, their faces face the 'camera', or are perfectly side on. Wes Anderson and his cinematographer Robert Yeoman adore these sort of shots, especially those with symmetry or centred focuses.
Here is an example of how Wes Anderson and Robert Yeoman have used shots from the side of a character, with a 3-dimensional character or real person it's a lot harder to get them exactly from the side, but as my characters are 2-dimensional, I can get them perfectly to the side. The stills on the left are from the film Bottle Rocket. Below is a still from my film showing a character from the side, also applying to the rule of thirds like the stills from Bottle Rocket do.
This is a still from Moonrise Kingdom, it shows how Anderson tries to get the face of every single character into the shot even when it's a squeeze. I really like this staged feeling and think it's a good way to show that each character is important in their own way, but are linked together in the same act. Another shot from The Royal Tenenbaums shows all the characters faces in a different way, their bodies are also made to be shown, and the organisation of them in the shot is wonderfully staged, with one main figure in focus, due to Royale being closer to the camera, and everyone else is looking at him.
Unlike Wes Anderson, however, I won't be using songs from the 70s throughout my short, they're not really appropriate to my subject matter. I may look into what I can find that's similar to Alexandre Desplat and Mark Mothersbaugh's music in Anderson's films, I think the orchestral scores can be really effective, Desplat even uses the simple plucking of a ukulele to make an effective piece of music that conveys movement and emotional struggle.
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