Some more experiments

Some more images for the Flatpack idea. Just some experiments of the scenery and a character. As a test we should get some hand drawn animation over cutout film done next.

Flatpack festival animation treatment

Overview
A deceased couple awaken from the ‘big sleep’ to reminisce, possibly through dance, the ups and downs of their relationship.

As they re-enact their life together certain mishaps will occur; a head falling off here, an arm stretching there, to parody the slapstick ‘stop trick’ and substitution’ effects of Victorian cinema, such as by Georges Méliès.

As the couple perform creatures of the night will start to appear and watch them. Also, slightly surreal characters will emerge inspired by bizarre objects in Victorian Cabinets of Curiosities and Sideshow subjects. To further add to the comic effect the creatures might be used as props (sometimes disobedient ones!) in certain scenes.

Setting
The couple will perform in a moonlit, Victorian graveyard. We have mainly been influenced by Warstone Lane Cemetery in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham.

Style
We will create a collaged aesthetic for the animation by compositing live action footage (cut out frame by frame) on to drawn animation (with certain aspects of rotoscoping).
The backgrounds will be built up with bits of photographs and drawings to make a vivid scene. We will experiment with combining 3D and hand drawn textures. We will use a mixture of found footage and first-hand resources.
We will draw inspiration from Osbert Parker’s style, and Méliès humour, and illustrators such as Dan Hillier and Lynn Olofsdotter (see moodboard).

Links
-Group blog
-Live action collage of found footage test movie

Flip book Fanatical

My Proposal is to produce a set of short, flip book animated loops presented side by side (similarly to the Black dogs progress).

My first idea is based on an old cinema projector. The projector will be broken down into segments to make more manageable, flip-book sized parts. Elements within each segment will loop and join up to the segments surrounding it. I have also added in little Victorian 'helpers' (top hats included!) into the machine to create a small narrative in the work and to add an element of comedy. Below is a quick sketch of how the projector will look;




Below is an example of how the projector would be split into segments.




Alternatively I also have come up with another similar idea where none of the segments are joined through narrative, only through the theme of cinema. For example one segment may be 35mm film looping, another may be a zoetrope spinning and one would be a carrousel of film rotating.
In an attempt to encourage the audience to interact with the work more a guard and peepholes have been introduced. This would force the viewers to have to get close up to the window to peer through the holes in order to see the looped animations. See below for ideas sheet and diagrams.

Photo Montage

In an attempt to experiment with the aesthetics I've produced a rough photo montage using the photo's gathered from our trip to the cinema. I feel this has produced an interesting result and could also be useful in splitting up the projector into sections for the flipbook idea.

Thaumatrope Idea

I had this idea as a way to get the public and festival goers to interact and have a influence on the festival.

The idea is to have sets of blank thaumatrope cards made up and encourage people to draw their own 2 frames of animation and submit them.

Prizes could be offered to encourage entries and once submitted, and after the Flatpack pixies assemble and filmed them, a short film could be made for the festival.

See the below 'notes' image for more detail.