leica 18

notes to self:
-treadmill scene, make clearer, get rid of wall-crash (change to slope off)
-electrocution scene, make clearer, more obvious
-staircase, dog thumps down

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

10-hour-film-making! woo
side story of the girl and her dog, sometime between after she's accepted death and before she became an animator. yar.
better version with sound that actually SYNCS here:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/516456

leica 7

two people didn't get the ending, so perhaps having two versions of the girl at the same time doesn't compute well enough. in this case, I've just gone back to my very very first original ending, where the dog comes to life and you find out it's the girl animating. no reunion on screen, oh well. for the sake of clarity!!

and here is a more 'water-color' type bg. thinking of animating bg, if possible heh



stuff I still gotta fix:
-when waiting for ball to be thrown, dog is so excited his tail wags his butt
-girl should head left when dragging dog to food; keep consistency of left = defy death, right = fail/acceptance
-better ways to do 'discover plug' scene!
-electrocuting scene, redraw for clarity/better shots
-when flying back after getting shocked at last, they should knock into treadmill along the way, breaking through it; HUGE explosion!! exaggerate
-make girl 'pet' (rub) the drawn paper dog.
-lightbox should be the only thing giving off light, everything else is dark (at last scene)
-make ending/beginning unmistakably animated, perhaps tilted at an angle to show paper, or something.

leica 6

ending A+B!
watching and re-watching stuff kills all emotional stirrings. I can't even tell if I should like it anymore!


and here's a test of the dog, getting more and more excited.


stuff I still gotta fix:
-when waiting for ball to be thrown, dog is so excited his tail wags his butt
-girl should head left when dragging dog to food; keep consistency of left = defy death, right = fail/acceptance
-zoom out from treadmill; reveal shot
-better ways to do 'discover plug' scene!
-electrocuting scene, redraw for clarity/better shots
-when flying back after getting shocked at last, they should knock into treadmill along the way, breaking through it; HUGE explosion!! exaggerate
-someone didn't like the girl twirling the dog at the end, too much like lovers they say. explore other doggy-love options (ideas?).
-make face shot of girl animating longer? to give audience time to realize. maybe even make her 'pet' the paper dog.
-lightbox should be the only thing giving off light, everything else is dark (at last scene)


BG test... my weakness. ):

leica 4&5

so, endings A and B.
A = dog is reunited with girl in memory
B = girl is animating the dog

points for A = they are together on screen again
points for B = the girl is actively reviving dog

EXHIBIT A


EXHIBIT B


people seemed to be confused about the 'memory' part for A. is she watching an old home video? etc. unclear.
maaaybe I can draw her animating her and the dog, a combination of A + B... maybe. though it seems a bit cluttered. I prefer A for now... the imagery seems more moving. however, if people don't get it then it is definitely a failure. how to make it ... clearer and simpler. arrrgg

'fun' pack

woah

my ...first animation? god this was ages ago! this was after the real sketchi died. I wanted to draw him in a loop so he could ~live forever~ feh. think this was like 8 years ago, at least. ms paint all the way.

haha why not upload this embarrassing thing, it's the true beginning of the story after all.

leica 3rd pass

now with sound!
gotta rehaul the beginning (to be more about girl & dog being happy together; happy THEN dead = loss, not ball THEN dead dog = ???) but I'm actually starting to like it. now all I need to do is make each shot clear.



throughline = reviving the dog

1. LOSS --dog dies
2. DENIAL --trying to WAKE dog
3. DESPERATION --trying to REVIVE dog
4. ACCEPTANCE --successful revival of dog in MEMORY

or

1. TOGETHER --playing ball!
2. ALONE? --can she revive the dog?
3. ALONE. --she can't.
4. TOGETHER! --but she can remember him!

leica 2nd pass (rough)

will be adding sound and clarifying some unclear parts tomorrow. sotired
just throwing it up here for archives. wait for the next one to actually watch.


suggestions for self:
-separate ball bounce scene from dog dying
-dog's POV being dragged into house?
-treadmill shot no need to cut; zoom out for reveal
-treadmill scene no need for CU of speeding up (possibly show dog 'becoming fast' rather than 'fast')
-when shocking, make them together, show more care from girl
-gloves burning off not evident... at all
-after shock, make it about despair (girl bent over, looking down not up)
-use down-shot when hugging dog crying: lonely
-make cut between girl-without-dog-world and dog-is-alive-dream more obvious
-think of more 'doggy' ideas than twirling ("too much like lover?")

research:
-what does film skipping look like? sound like? (for ending)

leica pass

first leica pass.... does not strike up emotions. and that makes me sad. ):
back to the drawing board

flash test, again

gotta do some paper tests soon. still haven't decided for sure whether it'll be digital or not. ):

edit: kaj thinks this animation style matches my character designs, so I guess digital it is! I was worried that it lacked form and texture, but he's right, animation is not about getting it to look like real life. why not?
but I wonder what those annoying square things are. they weren't there in the flash file! gif-exporting bugs, sigh~

olddog, nohouse

exhibit A


exhibit B



ex.A is pre-checking out Jeff, miyazaki's dog. ex.B is trying to make it more animate-able, following Jeff's lead. must draw more, must not look like Jeff but must be a good character.


some points I've realized after talking to scott caple today;

1) pigeons must either be incorporated more, or taken out. I've decided to take them out completely by moving the starting scene to the backyard, so the girl doesn't need a reason to run home: she's already home! it would be only natural for her to use the water hose in the backyard, and then drag the dog inside to try and feed it... also, it would mean the ball can be brought back into play, as she would've just left it outside in the backyard (as opposed to all the way back in the park).
2) the house won't blow up. it's unnecessary, especially after taking out the pigeons. serves no real purpose. however, her rubber gloves can burn away.
3) I must brainstorm more ways to 'revive' dog, if just for possibilities. she can speak into his ear, pry his eyelids open, show him the ball, tickle his nose... if you, the reader, have any other ideas, leave some in the comments!

the old doggy dilemma

gotta be old, but gotta be spry. gotta be excitable enough to get a heart attack!
some excited faces for reference:






and now for Jeff the old dog from Kiki's Delivery Service (I'd forgotten there even was a dog in it until Caple tipped me off)!

girl run test

edit: colored now

dog sketches

pokemon & death

the emotional highpoint of pokemon: the first movie. similar to the highpoint of my story, I think: pikachu realizes the finality of ash's 'death' (except it wasn't, blahblahetc) after trying its hardest to reverse it (with electricity, no less!).



















that last pic of mew is just for cuteness. SO cute. T__T
anyway,

The 5 Stages of Mourning

1. Denial: "This can't be..."
2. Anger: "This is so unfair..."
3. Bargaining: "I'll do anything to bring back - ..."
4. Depression: "I can't bear this sadness..."
5. Acceptance: Not necessarily an easy acceptance...

since this is about 'discovering death' and not 'mourning death', I think the stages would be more like this:

Made-Up Stages of Discovering Death

1. Confusion: "What's happening?"
2. Experimentation: "How can I bring him back."
3. Delusion: "Why won't he come back?"
4. Understanding: "So this is permanent..."
5. Depression: "I can't do anything about it!"

story as told in flash

noted problems: climax of house burning down not actually related to dog problem; not intense enough. also, pigeons may be useless.
climax MUST be girl's realization of what death is: permanent, irreversible. perhaps she looks at the dog, acting, whatever. but this bit must be obvious.

NOODLE

noodle... don't noodle...

I got a rat. his name is noodle. he's cuter than your dog! and that's a fact.

just doodling

untimed:


timed:

does the dog look heavy enough to be dead yet?





trying to draw... an old dog. and another sketch for the girl.

old dog pics & history

History
Sketchi was a real dog. he was my dog. the only dog I really owned, and the only dog that ever owned my heart. sure I've had other dogs too, but they just lived with me, and we did not belong to each other. Sketchi went with me everywhere in his short little life, and we even played piano together! although he died as a puppy, in agony, and on the way to the vet's office, in this film I'm killing him in a scenario I'd much rather him die in: old and playing (he actually died from infections he had gotten before I even adopted him).

for music, I'm going to try to compose my own (keyword try). still, I must keep this piece of music in mind, as this is what I always played on piano for him.


OLDNESS
I must learn to draw old dogs... so it's feasible when he dies from a heart attack.





they all look sad and tired...