The pre-production of a film is the ‘planning’ stage, before the production of the film. It is a crucial stage to ensure a smooth production pipeline and to make sure that the entire team has the same vision as the director. It consists of multiple steps, all of which were carried out from January to May 2020.
• Story
The first stage is ‘Idea’ which, in our project, was the story. The analysis of the poem and the theme revealed the main characters, clues and the moral. Keeping these as the base, we built the story around it, modifying it till it was believable, yet exciting. Vogler's Hero’s Journey method was used to ensure a good flow of events in the story.
- Main characters - Spider, Fly, Detective
- Clues - winding stair, bed, pantry, looking glass, web
- Moral - do not let yourself be manipulated by others who prey on your vanity
After five drafts, the final story was ready. It was exciting, intriguing, and believable and the events felt connected. The story had a flow that kept the reader interested and aware of the happening and the clues.
• Script
In preparing the script from the story, each page of the film represents a minute of screen time of the film i.e. the number of pages is equal to the number of minutes of screen time of the film. It carries relevant information for the voice actors, music and sound effect artists, animation artists, director and editors. Hence, it is crucial to prepare the script correctly in the early stage of pre-production. Our script went through five drafts until we were content with it and ready to move forward to the next stages of pre-production.
In preparing the script from the story, the first step was to add the dialogues. Well-written dialogues, balanced between being natural and being exaggerated, are essential to make the film enjoyable and keep the audience interested. Dialogues also play a key role in incorporating the element of comedy in the film. Apart from the dialogues, the character descriptions, actions and locations and time of day were established for each scene. The script gave a better understanding of how the story progresses in real-time. The story itself went through several modifications while preparing the script. Some events and action sequences were altered, the most major change being the beginning and the end of the story. Instead of being narrated by the detective, it was decided that the story would be narrated by the spider. The story became a story within a story - a layer was added. The story now ends with suspense, keeping the audience hooked till the very end.
Click Here to Read the Script
• Storyboard
A storyboard is a series of images that visually depict the actions and the flow of events in the film. Unlike the script which is a written document, a storyboard is a sequence of quick drawings that holds a lot of visual information for the team - timing, description of the character actions, camera movements and shots, lighting, significant props etc. For our project, a ‘thumbnail storyboard’ was prepared. Making the storyboard was an iterative process and three drafts were made before settling on the final version. Alongside the storyboard, plans for the locations were prepared in accordance with the camera shots. Once the storyboard was ready, we had a vision of how the film would look. It gave us relevant information about the animation and designs - how the characters would act, which angles of the locations need to be designed and detailed, when and how the camera would move and the lighting and mood in the scenes. With this information in hand, we were ready to move ahead with designing the assets.
Click Here to View the Storyboard
• Visual Style
Deciding the visual style of the film, essentially, dictates the artistic treatment to the film. This ranges from line quality to colour palette. It is important to have a visual style in mind before approaching the detailing stage in order to ensure consistency in final designs. Choosing a visual style also enables us to understand and predict the time and effort required. This will help plan the overall deadline and flow of work.
After watching a multitude of Animation shorts and films for inspiration, our final style template came down to a hand-drawn, inked outline with bright and poppy colours and a strong depiction of shadow and light. Following are a few examples of the style.
• Character Design
This is the stage when character personalities and their visual appeal are developed in order to truly bring out the storytelling in the script. It is important that characters be consciously portrayed as their mannerisms, language and behaviour is often picked up by young children, who are our target audience. It is essential that it develops rather than negatively affects the child’s growth. For this purpose, empathy maps were used to consciously establish our character’s traits and background. The following is an example of how the empathy map was applied to the antagonist.
SPIDER
- Meet the Spider, the antagonist of the narrative. Likely in his mid-40s to 50s. His outfit is as vibrant as his personality.
- What matters? Capturing as many victims as possible without getting caught. He must be inconspicuous while he carries out his plans.
- His thoughts? His plan occupies his thoughts. He always develops an elaborate plan to capture his victims and does not miss a detail. Eg. The antique store as a facade.
- He is very sure of himself and over-confident as well. If a worry does pop up, he instantly acts on it and does not let it dwindle.
- Aspirations? To be well fed and live a more than comfortable life.
- Conversation is his strong point. He is able to manipulate the minds of his victims through his sweet talk.
- The next victim is often the new eye candy of the town.
- He does seem to have two personalities - One where his true intentions lie, and one where people perceive him as an insect with personality and charm. However, sometimes one can tell that something is just not right.
- He does not step out much. His shop is his safe space.
- His shop and den are built with purpose. They all serve a larger scheme/plan.
- He does not have competitors. Rather, he must evade the police.
- All his victims are females.
- Pains? Frustrated when his plans do not go according to plan. Does not like it when a victim/female does not fall for his charming words. Does not like women with brains.
- Gains? Enjoys the chase and thrill of his plans. Baking is a hobby. Enjoys feasting on his victims.
Once the character’s look was finalised (keeping in mind the character descriptions and mood boards) a model sheet was developed for each character. In this report, we shall show you the process of the development of the Spider.
Fig 5.a Spider Moodboard
Fig 5.d. Spider - Final Exploration
Fig 5.e. Spider - Model Sheet
Fig 5.f. Spider - Colour Sheet
Fig 6. Character Line up
Click Here to View Character Designs
• Environment Design
The environment consists of the location and lighting of the scene. It should signify the mood, time and ambience of the scene. If the location belongs to a character, it should reflect the character’s personality and lifestyle. The film has nine locations. The environment design began by analysing the scope of each location and creating base plans. This was succeeded by three stages - Rough Layout, Detailing and Colour. As a sample, we shall take you through the process of creating the Attic.
ATTIC
The centre of the action, the attic is where the spider’s evil personality comes out in all its glory. It’s dark, dingy, reeks of murder and is the victims’ deathbed. Following is a list of elements -
- Cages
- Ropes, wool, Webs
- Chair
- Hanging light(s)
Click Here to View Environment Designs
• Concept Art
Concept art is an illustration used to convey an idea for use in the film before it is incorporated into the final product. It is used to depict the visual style of the film, before beginning the production phase. From the concept of art, one can gather insights into the visual style, colour palette(s), lighting and mood of a scene and the film as a whole. For the project, three pieces of concept art were made.
Click Here to View Concept Art
• Sound Design
In animated storytelling, sound can often play a role as important (sometimes more) as the visuals themselves. Sound design is crucial at two stages -
In pre-production, the sound is required to pace the animatic and set the tone of the film. This sound may not be the final sound that is added to the film. However, it does give a sense of what the film will be like and how long each shot would be. This sound is called the ‘scratch track’. Our animatic uses this scratch sound.
Post-production is where the real magic happens. Recorded dialogues are dubbed over the final edit, folly sounds are added in, and the music score for the film is timed precisely. This is the stage where the audio and visual truly come together.
For our project, there are three main audio components -
• Voice Overs
• Sound effects
• Music Score
• Voiceovers
Finding the right person to voice the characters is crucial as it is their delivery of dialogues. that will truly bring out the character’s personality. Voice overs may serve the purpose of Narrator, character dialogue or character sound effects (such as gasps or groans). Our film does not have a narrator. As the film is in English, we looked to recruit voice actors with prior experience (preferably foreign actors). Through the medium of personal contacts and job postings, we put together a cast of enthusiastic voice actors who truly bring life to the project.
CAST
The Baker - Adam Giannone (New York)
The Detective - Lindsey Higgs (Bangkok)
Mother McFly - Bonnie Zellerbach (Bangkok)
Sal - Adam Giannone
The Spider - Adam Giannone
The Walking Stick - Bonnie Zellerbach
The voice in the shadows - Lindsey Higgs
Group Script reading sessions have been conducted for the actors to get accustomed to the script. Individual feedback and direction are given to each actor to ensure actors are clear with the character’s persona.
• Sound Effects (SFX)
In animation, our brains expect to hear what our eyes see. Animation sound effects are essential to ensure this match in cognition and to help establish flow and excitement in the film. For instance, when someone knocks on a door, there must be a clear knocking sound or when someone drops the spoon, there must be a sound that mimics the spoon coming in contact with the ground. Sound effects could also be ambient sounds such as wind and rain.
To ensure this project is collaborative, we decided to put up a project post on online animation communities. Through this avenue, we found our sound (SFX) designer - Joseph De La O, from Texas. Currently, Joseph is working with us to create demo scratch tracks for the animatic.
• Music Score
Music is an integral and one of the most influential components of sound design. It can heighten the experience of watching the film and can bring out emotions quite effortlessly. Music is widely used in animation to emphasize moments in the film. The composer for our film saw a similar onboarding to the rest of our team. Alexandre Diaconu (Belgium) is an enthusiastic and experienced composer in the field of ‘Music Composition for Theatre’. Our discussion with him was focused more on emotions and ambience, rather than music technicality. The composer came up with arrangements, recorded and mixed the various themes that appear through the first animatic, before finally delivering the masters. The composer for our film saw a similar onboarding to the rest of our team. The sound team of Joseph and Alexandre work together to ensure that the sound and music are well balanced throughout the film. Currently, Alexandre is working with us to create music themes for the animatic.
• Animatic
An animatic is a storyboard placed on a sequential timeline with sound to establish a place and mood for the film. This is the first time that the director is truly able to visualise what the film might look like. This is an important step to finalise major aspects of the film such as timing, story arc, script and rhythm of the film. This stage was carried out simultaneously with designs.
- Character blink - Character blink was tested with ‘Mother McFly’
- Head Turn - Head Turn was tested with ‘The Walking Stick’
- Thinking - Thinking was tested out with ‘The Detective’
Actions chosen were such that with each, there was a slight increase in complexity of action. On one end of the spectrum is character blink (least complex) and on the other end is thinking (most complex).
Click Here to View Line Tests
