The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers
by Christopher Vogler
As a class we were given the book “The Writer’s Journey Mythic Structure for Writers” which was written by Christopher Vogler. We were spilt into groups and each given 2 character to read and summarise to the class in a presentation. I was put in team 8 along with Samantha Quigley, Philip McDowell and Eoin Monaghan. We were given Chapter 10 entitled “The Road Back” and Chapter 11, “The Resurrection”, giving us a total of 25 pages to cover (187-212).
Very quickly as a team we decided it would be better for all of us to first read the two chaptes before breaking them up for each person to summarise. The reason we decided to do this was so we could produce a presentation that was fluid and non-repetitive, and also so if anyone struggled during the presentation the full team would be able to jump in and offer support.
Once we had read the two chapters, we discussed as a group which section each person would like to summarise for the presentation. This resulted in Philip and Eoin working on chapter 10, “The Road Back”, and Samantha and myself working on chapter 11, “The Resurrection”, which each person taking half the chapter each, with me working on pages 207 to 212.
I feel like we all did well when it came to putting together the presentations. I quickly made a google slides once we had all agreed on the sections we were working on and added everyone to the presentation, so we could all edit, correct, give advice and research examples in films to explains the summarisations more clearly.
When it came to presenting to the class I feel my group did really well, we were able to help each other out when we got stuck and give examples for most of the sections verbally. I also feel we summarised our two chapters well and present it in a way the rest of the class could easily understand what happened in these chapters without having to read them themselves.
Very quickly as a team we decided it would be better for all of us to first read the two chaptes before breaking them up for each person to summarise. The reason we decided to do this was so we could produce a presentation that was fluid and non-repetitive, and also so if anyone struggled during the presentation the full team would be able to jump in and offer support.
Once we had read the two chapters, we discussed as a group which section each person would like to summarise for the presentation. This resulted in Philip and Eoin working on chapter 10, “The Road Back”, and Samantha and myself working on chapter 11, “The Resurrection”, which each person taking half the chapter each, with me working on pages 207 to 212.
I feel like we all did well when it came to putting together the presentations. I quickly made a google slides once we had all agreed on the sections we were working on and added everyone to the presentation, so we could all edit, correct, give advice and research examples in films to explains the summarisations more clearly.
When it came to presenting to the class I feel my group did really well, we were able to help each other out when we got stuck and give examples for most of the sections verbally. I also feel we summarised our two chapters well and present it in a way the rest of the class could easily understand what happened in these chapters without having to read them themselves.
Team Blogs
Samantha Quigley - https://squigleyanimationsemestertwo.wordpress.com/
Philip McDowell - https://pjsanimationblog.wordpress.com/
Eoin Monaghan - https://eoinssite.wordpress.com/
Film Schematic & Artefact
Film Schematic
For the film schematic we decided as a team the first plan of action should be to all watch the film ‘The Matrix’ and make notes while doing so on the characters. Focusing mainly on taking notes of events and when characters weren’t present on screen. Once we had done this, we organized a group meeting in order to break down the schematic, with each member of the team taking a character and writing their off/on screen moments.
I was given the character Trinity and decide to re-watch “The Matrix” and look up the script on google in order to get a better understanding for her characteristics. This helped me predict what she would be doing off screen and how important her character was to the narrative. After doing this we started the schematic by writing a timeline of all the on screen moments for each character in order. This allowed us to work out moments when characters would interact off screen, and have a guess at what possible atmosphere may have been like, for example Cyber and Trinity constantly had a tense atmosphere between them. This section of the schematic was mainly carried out by Samantha and myself, while Eion and Philip worked on their characters off screen events.
Once it came to finalising the schematic we first produced a hand written versions of it, this was so if there was any disagreement on a perception of certain event as a team we could change it to something we were all happy and agreed with. Once this stage was finished Samantha volunteered to make the full digital copy on the schematic while the rest of the team work on other sections of the project.
For the film schematic we decided as a team the first plan of action should be to all watch the film ‘The Matrix’ and make notes while doing so on the characters. Focusing mainly on taking notes of events and when characters weren’t present on screen. Once we had done this, we organized a group meeting in order to break down the schematic, with each member of the team taking a character and writing their off/on screen moments.
I was given the character Trinity and decide to re-watch “The Matrix” and look up the script on google in order to get a better understanding for her characteristics. This helped me predict what she would be doing off screen and how important her character was to the narrative. After doing this we started the schematic by writing a timeline of all the on screen moments for each character in order. This allowed us to work out moments when characters would interact off screen, and have a guess at what possible atmosphere may have been like, for example Cyber and Trinity constantly had a tense atmosphere between them. This section of the schematic was mainly carried out by Samantha and myself, while Eion and Philip worked on their characters off screen events.
Once it came to finalising the schematic we first produced a hand written versions of it, this was so if there was any disagreement on a perception of certain event as a team we could change it to something we were all happy and agreed with. Once this stage was finished Samantha volunteered to make the full digital copy on the schematic while the rest of the team work on other sections of the project.
Artefact
Once we had completed the schematic, we started to do some research into what our artefact would be. I suggested doing something along the lines of Alice in Wonderland such as a white rabbit, as there are constant references to this book/film throughout the film, for example at the beginning Trinity tells Neo to “follow the white rabbit”. We experimented with this idea but the full group wasn’t happy with the possible outcomes so we continued to research.
This resulted in us looking at the sunglasses worn by the characters, the pills which are offered to Neo and the difference between the fake matrix world and the real world. We noticed that throughout the film there is a lot of binary opposition and thought we should use this in our artefact. We came to agreement on producing a photoshop image of the two worlds side by side.
Once we had completed the schematic, we started to do some research into what our artefact would be. I suggested doing something along the lines of Alice in Wonderland such as a white rabbit, as there are constant references to this book/film throughout the film, for example at the beginning Trinity tells Neo to “follow the white rabbit”. We experimented with this idea but the full group wasn’t happy with the possible outcomes so we continued to research.
This resulted in us looking at the sunglasses worn by the characters, the pills which are offered to Neo and the difference between the fake matrix world and the real world. We noticed that throughout the film there is a lot of binary opposition and thought we should use this in our artefact. We came to agreement on producing a photoshop image of the two worlds side by side.
My Artefact Concepts
This Artefact idea was based on children pop up books. This book would have a totally of four pages: 1st - The White Rabbit holding up a time piece of which you can change the time. 2nd - White Rabbit travelling through New York city in the 90's (shows throw clothing, technology, fabric...etc) 3rd - Rabbit arrived out the building room 1313 is located in the Movie 4th - Rabbit is sitting outside the door number 1313, you are able to out up this door to see the gears, wire ...etc of the matrix. Each page would represent that stages in Neo life all the way up to the decision of whether to or to not leave the matrix, which is shown by the opening or closing of the door on the last page. The white rabbit would be used to make a connection to the constant Alice in Wonderland references made through out the film. The children pop up book is used to make reference to the childlike state Neo is in when he exits the Matrix. |
This Artefact idea was based on a child's cuddly toy. This rabbit teddy would be a white rabbit with half its body dyed blue and the other half red. These colours would be used to represent the pills Neo is offered by Morpheus to decided which world to live in. The red side of the rabbit would also be dirty and tattered as the red people would release Neo from the Matrix and into a harsher world. While the blue side will be clean and fluffy to represented the simple easy life with in the Matrix. The white rabbit would be used to make a connection to the constant Alice in Wonderland references made through out the film. The cuddly toy is used to make reference to the childlike state Neo is in when he exits the Matrix. |
Final Artefact
Presentation
I decided to research some narrative theories, such a Propps characters theory, while we were doing the schematic and I thought it would help us write some of the off screen moments for each of the characters. We included research at the beginning of our presentation as we had used it in both our schematic and the artefact and thought this would be a good way to example how we had produced our final products. Samantha added in all of the schematic and artefact work in to the presentation and presented it confidently to the class.
I decided to research some narrative theories, such a Propps characters theory, while we were doing the schematic and I thought it would help us write some of the off screen moments for each of the characters. We included research at the beginning of our presentation as we had used it in both our schematic and the artefact and thought this would be a good way to example how we had produced our final products. Samantha added in all of the schematic and artefact work in to the presentation and presented it confidently to the class.
Team Blogs
Samantha Quigley - https://squigleyanimationsemestertwo.wordpress.com/
Philip McDowell - https://pjsanimationblog.wordpress.com/
Eoin Monaghan - https://eoinssite.wordpress.com/
30 Second Animation
Narrative Development Team 1
My first team on this project consisted of Samantha Quigley, Jordan Baxter and myself. We were given the task of making up three basic narratives we could possibly use and develop for our 30 second animation. I suggested to the team that we should first decide on was what genres we would like to work with and carry out some research on their codes and conventions before writing basic narratives. Jordan carried out research on the genre of romance, Samantha researched horror and I researched the genre of comedy.
During this research I decide to look into sub-genres of comedy such as slap-stick. This sub-genre is used by famous comedies in both TV and film, such as "Mr Bean" and Charlie Chaplin. It is also very common in cartoons such as "Tom and Jerry". As it relies on mostly character body movement, sound/music and facial expression, I felt this would have been a good genre to work with and it wouldn't leave use reliant on dialogue and would give us more experience using Maya to make believable, relatable and funny characters.
My first team on this project consisted of Samantha Quigley, Jordan Baxter and myself. We were given the task of making up three basic narratives we could possibly use and develop for our 30 second animation. I suggested to the team that we should first decide on was what genres we would like to work with and carry out some research on their codes and conventions before writing basic narratives. Jordan carried out research on the genre of romance, Samantha researched horror and I researched the genre of comedy.
During this research I decide to look into sub-genres of comedy such as slap-stick. This sub-genre is used by famous comedies in both TV and film, such as "Mr Bean" and Charlie Chaplin. It is also very common in cartoons such as "Tom and Jerry". As it relies on mostly character body movement, sound/music and facial expression, I felt this would have been a good genre to work with and it wouldn't leave use reliant on dialogue and would give us more experience using Maya to make believable, relatable and funny characters.
Charlie Chaplin
The Great Dictator 1940 |
Tom and Jerry
Cue Ball Cat 1950 |
After we had finished with this initial research, we organised a group meeting in order to discuss possible story-lines. We decided to create three storylines, one for each genre we had researched. We created basic narratives to stick to while we each developed them by ourselves. This way we felt we could combine the best bits of each narrative and produce something we were all happy with. Our favourite piece after this stage of development was the narratives belonging to the genre of comedy and this proved to be most popular with our peers and lectures during our presentation to the class. Unfortunately we never got to create this animation because our group was split up after the presentation as the team was to small to handle the work load the animation would require.
Research Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedic_genres
http://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/comedy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapstick
http://www.britannica.com/art/slapstick-comedy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comedic_genres
http://thescriptlab.com/screenplay/genre/comedy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapstick
http://www.britannica.com/art/slapstick-comedy
Narrative Development Team 2
I was moved to a team to work with Jenny Finegan, Jakub Bojanowski and Bethnay Maguire. They were very welcoming to me, however it did take a number of attempts to try and get the full narrative options from them. Once I had heard the basic narrative, we narrowed it down as a group to one about dancing robots and the other about a father cactus teaching his son how to grow spikes, finally deciding on the dancing robot one. Although we settled on these two, I also really liked their storyboards for one about a dog called Monty and another about hungry birds.
Dancing Robots
Father Cactus
Hungry Birds
Monty
The development of the narrative actually proved to be the hardest section of the work for our team in this entire project. We would over complicate the process and produce something either all the team wasn't happy with, could be read incorrectly by the audience or required much longer that 30 seconds to get the narrative across. One narrative that caused this was where a robot would sacrifice itself for another robot to hold off it impending doom to be replaced by a new model.
This caused a lot of stress in the team, making us go back to the other original idea about the cactus. This unfortunately was not approved by the lectures and they wanted us to keep developing on the robot narrative. In hind-sight we are all able to see why the lectures made this decision, as the animation would have been extremely basic and overly challenging to make at this stage.
We decided as a team to take a step back from this project, which helped greatly. We decided to combine the narratives of the two storylines, make the robots father and son, or old and new, and have the son robot learn from the father. This resulted in our first animatic draft which was well received by the class and lectures, with a few suggestions to make the child seem brat like and to add camera angles.
First Animatic
Improved Animatic
Character Development
For our characters development we carried out a bit of research into already existing animated robots. This included 'Wall-E' for which we got most of our inspiration, which can be seen in the similarity between the characters. We felt that 'Wall-E' achieved the separation between the old and new models incredibly well, along with maintaining a relationship between the characters. We also took a lot of inspiration from the game "Portal" which is more apparent in the final design for the son.
For our characters development we carried out a bit of research into already existing animated robots. This included 'Wall-E' for which we got most of our inspiration, which can be seen in the similarity between the characters. We felt that 'Wall-E' achieved the separation between the old and new models incredibly well, along with maintaining a relationship between the characters. We also took a lot of inspiration from the game "Portal" which is more apparent in the final design for the son.
Wall-E
August 6, 2008 Directed by Andrew Stanton |
Portal 2
April 18, 201 Developed by Valve Corporation |
Through-out our design process you can see a very strong connection to these two source of inspiration and you can see a few of these earlier designs in the picture frames in our final animation.
My Character Designs
Teams Character Design
The final design for our characters were done by Jakub and Bethnay and they took on the task of modelling them in Maya (son by Jakub & father by Bethnay). We went through a lot of design changes when it came to the father. Originally the father was meant to be red, but this was changed to blueish green as we were worried about the relationship between the two robots not being clear. This was once again changed back to red after the first draft of our animation was presented to the class and lectures. They felt like the blueish green made the father blend into the background too much and that the relationship should be established through body language and through interaction with each other. While the son remained the same throughout the process.
Once the modelling of the characters were done, Bethnay struggled with the rigging of the father, so Jakub took over the rigging for both of the characters.
Once the modelling of the characters were done, Bethnay struggled with the rigging of the father, so Jakub took over the rigging for both of the characters.
|
|
Research Links
http://www.creativebloq.com/character-design/tips-5132643
http://pixar-animation.weebly.com/character-design.html
http://www.creativebloq.com/character-design/tips-5132643
http://pixar-animation.weebly.com/character-design.html
Location Development
For our original design we set the scene in a living room and while Bethnay and Jakub were working on modelling the characters. Jenny and myself started modelling objects for the room to make it more homely. I enjoyed doing this as it gave me the opportunity to experiment in Maya and learn a lot of new aspects to modelling.
For our original design we set the scene in a living room and while Bethnay and Jakub were working on modelling the characters. Jenny and myself started modelling objects for the room to make it more homely. I enjoyed doing this as it gave me the opportunity to experiment in Maya and learn a lot of new aspects to modelling.
Television Set
Table
Toy Robot
House Plant
Mirror/Photo Frames
Clock
Fridge
After we presented our first animatic, Conann pointed out that he was unsure of what the robot purpose was. This gave us the idea of changing the location from a living room to a garage as it would give the robot more purpose and make the non-existence of humans more clear. I feel like this was a good idea and we were able to use all of the objects we had modelled for the living room, keeping some the same and slightly changing others, such as the fridge from which we removed the door.
As we wanted to create a homely atmosphere but still be located in a garage, we looked at scenes from ‘Big Hero 6’ as it has a very similar atmosphere to the one we wanted to achieve. We also took a lot of inspiration from Fallout 4 for the layout of the garage, we wanted it to seem too busy and clutter with stuff, but still have suitable framing for the scenes.
As we wanted to create a homely atmosphere but still be located in a garage, we looked at scenes from ‘Big Hero 6’ as it has a very similar atmosphere to the one we wanted to achieve. We also took a lot of inspiration from Fallout 4 for the layout of the garage, we wanted it to seem too busy and clutter with stuff, but still have suitable framing for the scenes.
Our Final Rendered Room
Research Links
http://www.idigitaltimes.com/fallout-4-season-pass-should-you-buy-fallout-4-season-pass-492139
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSaguzNHQw0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5CtP1Y1oyU
http://www.idigitaltimes.com/fallout-4-season-pass-should-you-buy-fallout-4-season-pass-492139
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSaguzNHQw0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5CtP1Y1oyU
Animating
When we finally had the set and character completed, it was time to animate the scenes. For the first draft of the animation we had a total of six scenes and these were split up between the group member. This evened out the work load and allow us to complete the scenes and render them as quickly as possible. Jenny and myself volunteered to take on the extra scenes as the other two had been working on the modelling of the robots, so we felt like this would balance out the work load more.
When we finally had the set and character completed, it was time to animate the scenes. For the first draft of the animation we had a total of six scenes and these were split up between the group member. This evened out the work load and allow us to complete the scenes and render them as quickly as possible. Jenny and myself volunteered to take on the extra scenes as the other two had been working on the modelling of the robots, so we felt like this would balance out the work load more.
- Jenny - Scene 1 & 2
- Jakub - Scene 4
- Bethnay - Scene 3
- Rosaleen Scene 5 & 6
- Jenny - Scene 1
- Bethnay - Scene 2
- Jakub - Scene 3
- Rosie - Scene 4
Unfortunately during editing we also had issues with the blend-shape for the fathers eyes. We were going to use these to make him convey more emotion. Although they worked for Jakub when he was making them, when it came to applying them during editing they would not work correctly as you would have to manually position them for each scene. Without enough time before the final hand in date, to correct this we had to cut them out and once again rely mainly on the father eyes to convey his emotions.
Sound Editing
For the sound effects of the robots and other objects in the scene, Jakub recorded some audio by himself and found others online that were suitable for the scene. While I found and edited the background music for our animation using garage band in order to make it sound like it was coming from a radio off screen. Unfortunately with our first draft of the animation we didn't have enough time to edit the sound effects and music correctly into the scenes, resulting the the sound effects not occurring at the correct time and the music being to loud and over powering the other sound effects.
This was one of the points of feed back we got. As I have experience with editing and music editing, I volunteered to do this for our final project. This proved to be more complicated than I first anticipated due to Jakub recording and combining all the sound effects for the first draft of the animation. This resulted in me having to carefully separate the sounds in final cut pro and try and place them into suitable scenes. This also gave me the opportunity to slow down or speed up any scene that required it and allowed me to add some effects to our credits at the end to try and relate them a bit more to the animation itself. I showed the final draft to my team and they seems happy with the end product.
For the sound effects of the robots and other objects in the scene, Jakub recorded some audio by himself and found others online that were suitable for the scene. While I found and edited the background music for our animation using garage band in order to make it sound like it was coming from a radio off screen. Unfortunately with our first draft of the animation we didn't have enough time to edit the sound effects and music correctly into the scenes, resulting the the sound effects not occurring at the correct time and the music being to loud and over powering the other sound effects.
This was one of the points of feed back we got. As I have experience with editing and music editing, I volunteered to do this for our final project. This proved to be more complicated than I first anticipated due to Jakub recording and combining all the sound effects for the first draft of the animation. This resulted in me having to carefully separate the sounds in final cut pro and try and place them into suitable scenes. This also gave me the opportunity to slow down or speed up any scene that required it and allowed me to add some effects to our credits at the end to try and relate them a bit more to the animation itself. I showed the final draft to my team and they seems happy with the end product.
Presentation
First Animation Draft
Feed Back
Final Animation
Team Blogs
Jenny Finegan - https://jennyfinegan.wordpress.com/tag/colour/
Jakub Bojanowski - https://jakubbojanowski.wordpress.com/
Bethnay Maguire - https://myanimationblogcom.wordpress.com/
Jenny Finegan - https://jennyfinegan.wordpress.com/tag/colour/
Jakub Bojanowski - https://jakubbojanowski.wordpress.com/
Bethnay Maguire - https://myanimationblogcom.wordpress.com/