Story board draft

Here are some images of storyboard examples i found from helpful websites in learning how to make a storyboard.

Here is a photo of the story board i drew out

Here is a rough story board detailing the events of the 1916 rising that could be used for our media project animation I made the story board in relation to the 6 slides of comic style animation that we are doing for the project.As discussed and planned before a back story was going to be a component of our animation but as I was wrinting the story board I found that doing just the whole day itself was more efficient and would be a better way to tell the story in relation to the type of animation we are doing.

0.       Title card. A graphic and aesthetic title card for the intro of our animation

1.       Slide one.slide one would contain the march of the irish volunteers from liberty hall to the gpo

2.       Slide two.slide two would have after capturing the gpo Padraig pearce reading out the proclamation above a crowd.

3.       Slide three.Slide three would have the irish march on Dublin castle the british hq in where the first shots were fired and where the irish retreated back to city hall

4.       Slide four.slide four will be the most dramatic of the slides detailing the arrival of 16000 british troops the next day into Dublin and chaos desending on to the streets.

5.       Slide five.slide five would detail the city in ruins and the surrender of the irish and peace being declared by the waving of the white flag

6.       Slide six.slide six would show the emotional execution of the irish heroes of the rising

7.       Outro.The outro would be a credits card of the participants of our group

With this story board all at the same time would encorparate narration and music that would suit the tone of this animation

I researched multiple comic-book at styles to come up with a viable and efficient option for use within our animation. Above are some examples. I particularly like the art style portrayed below by American artist Brett Parson. Further research may be required but I think this style will do nicely for our project.

 

February 24th

After we all went away and did our own separate research, we had to decide on the demographic that we would hope to hit and also the particular tone that we wanted to have for the animation. 

Demographic

We decided that we didn't want to exclude anyone from watching this animation so our demographic is for people from all walks of life, culture, religion. In order for it to hit these audiences, we need to make sure that the animation won't contain any controversial material or material that people of certain ethnicities would deem hurtful. But in particular, we are aiming for an age group between 17-35. This demographic because, alot of people in this age group would be students, young and used to the particular narrative style we are going for which is more kind of action and dramatised orientated.


Tone

We decided that we wanted to go for a dramatic tone, not necessarily historically accurate but something that will engage audiences and keep them entertained. A more serious piece would not have this kind of effect and we also wanted to have fun with this animation. We felt that we would be constrained if we were confined by historical accuracy. We want to tell a little backstory of the events without giving the audience an over-saturation of information.


Dissemination

We are hoping to expose this piece to as many audiences as possible. Taking a look at the key demographics, we would want to upload the video to youtube as research shows that many people among the age group that we are targeting have youtube accounts and regularly subscribe, of course with this medium, we would have to be very careful of third party material such as music or other images. We also hope to showcase the piece on viemeo because Vimeo is used alot these days for showcasing short films and has quite a large market for these kinds of of pieces. We will also individually share the piece on facebook amongst our friends and families. 

Voiceover Narration

In order to get a better understanding of the qualities of a good voice narrator, I read an article about the Top 5 of Cinema's  Greatest Voiceover Narrators.

Among the voice narrators listed were Morgan Freeman, Orson Welles, Cate Blanchett, Werner Herzog and Sam Eliot.

http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/cinemas-greatest-voiceover-narrators/

Each of these voice narrators have distinct voices, that evidently naturally appeal to the listener.

For example, Morgan Freeman's voice is relaxed, soothing and calming making him a pleasure to listen to.

However, with the variety of accents in this list, such as Blanchett's soft British accent, Herzog's strong German accent and Elliot's Southern American accent, none of these voices would be suitable for an animation about the 1916 Rising.

I then researched the characteristics of a good voice over actor/artist and here's a diagram at shows the traits really well.

 

I also found a diagram with good voiceover tips that will really help with this project.

Images of 1916

Here are a series of images which detail the environment of dublin city of the rising and its surroundings and also a series of images detailing the clothing and looks of the troops on both sides and citizens of the time

Research

Here is some research I have done on the events of the 1916 rising leading up to,during and after the rising

1.       April 24-30^th

2.       The rising was iplanned by the IRB in secret

3.       They arranged with Germany for arms to be delivered by the 21^st but the ship was seized

4.       So the rising was postponed

5.       The irish volunteers marched from liberty hall to the gpo on the Monday

6.       When they captured the gpo Pierce read out the proclamation declaring an irish republic

7.       The batalians were sent to locations across the city to try n hold the city centre

8.       The irish tried to march on Dublin castle i.e. britains hq but fell back to city hall….first shots fired

9.       The nxt day the brits arrived in force then chaos would erupt all over the city

10.   By fri day there were over 16000 brit troops led by Maxwell

11.   When the brits invade gpo pierce and the rebellion call a retreat

12.   By Saturday the city was in ruins with hundreds dead pierce calls a surrender

13.   Enter nurse declaring serender and peace

14.   By may Padraig pearce and the irb were all executed

February 18th 2016

We had our first tutorial with our class coordinator and we were each given a certain amount of tasks and research to complete for the next tutorial. We were told to not really start making anything until we had the whole thing researched, exactly what kind of style we are going for, the different techniques we could use to pull off that style, etc. The main focus was to figure out our target demographic and what kind of tone we want to set for the piece. 

As I am the co. animator, I decided to research different techniques that we could avail of in programs such as after effects and photoshop. Luckily for me, there are so many tutorial videos for these kinds of techniques, I was looking at one in particular which borrows some elements from adobe flash which we might need to take into consideration: 

Elemental Animation 016 How to Animate Rain

I also wanted to look at some animations that use the certain style that we are trying to go for. I really like these animation sequences, even though it doesn't seem like that much is going on, the animations still feel fluid and dynamic.

February 9th 2016

This is a blog platform used to document the process of creating the project for our media project 2 module. We will updating this on a weekly basis and will outline the steps and milestones that we need to achieve for the upcoming week, as well as the ideas and designs that we have decided on in class. 

Today, we got the brief for the project we must complete by week 6, so we decided a few things today.

• The media of the project
• The roles of the members of the team
• What we are doing for next week
• The software we will be using
• The general outline of the project
• Our deliverables and what we need

We have decided that we will be doing an action/dramatic animation piece for this project. The theme of the project is the 1916 rising and is open to interpretation. Our plan is to have the piece quite serious and tense using animation elements from both still imagery and using software such as after effects to give the piece a dynamic feel. The animation is going to be four minutes long and will use a combination of audio and visual to tell the story building up to the rising. We plan on using narration and sound effects to tell the story.

The team roles are as followed:

Alex - Lead Animator

Darragh - Co. Animator, Script Writer

Sean - Co.  Animator, Research
Dianne - Co. Animator, narration concept

We have also decided on a list of deliverables and we actually need to achieve to make the animation

• Need to research the history of the rising
• Need to write a script
• Need to draw storyboards
• Need to mind map
• Need to draw concept art
• Need to write shot list
• Need to document the process in Blog
• Need to research art styles for animation
• Need to hold meetings every week to see where each team member is

For Next Week's Class

In order to start getting a sense of the story, we need to start planning the research. So Sean is going to head up that aspect by researching the events of the rising, then I (Darragh) will be able to write a script for the piece. Alex will be experimenting with concept art  and trying to decide on the style. I will also do a bit of concept art as will be amalgamating the two styles into one consistent piece. I will also be in charge of this week's breakdown of the blog.