I haven't given much thought to my essay as I haven't started on my film reviews, this is my plan for the weekend.
Here's what I have so far...
I want the character to have a big enough stature to appear imposing at the beginning of the scene, shrouded in his executioners garb carrying his axe (storyboard 1)
I then want their to be a sudden transition from executioner, to warm and fuzzy character, slippers and all who just wants his tea. He prepares his boiled egg and soldiers, carrying them up the many, many stairs to his Attic room.
I want to establish the effort required to get upstairs to amplify the frustration he feels when he realises he's left his spoon down in the kitchen.
From here I can go in a few directions, all permutations revolve around his anger and desperation to eat. He could slam his fist into his egg in sheer disgust (storyboard 2). Take his axe and destroy his room in an effort to 'behead' it or use his axe to skilfully open his meal.
I have an awful lot of work to do but this feels like a good start. This work is all based around my first idea that grew from reading my magic words but because of them the story as I have it pretty much wrote itself.
Hi Simon! Great start to Unit 4!! :D I really like the first designs with the slippers and tea. Maybe perhaps to show that he's an executioner he could wear an executioner's mask which he wears everyday even in bed?
ReplyDeleteAn idea I just thought of is that maybe instead of slamming his fist into the egg, he could maybe have trouble sitting down comfortably in the attic before eating due to his large size. The effort and trouble caused by his size ends up accidentally raising the table and the eggs falls to the ground. With the only food now on the floor he gets in full rage and "execute" things around the attic.
Great start to the unit! Really like your storyboards especially the one that goes "Yaawaa!" very dynamic!! Keep it up!! :D
Hey Simon - okay - lovely quality to some of these drawings - really like the double-take panel - very Raymond Briggs. Your story idea made me smile straight-away; the play-off against the opening set up of the executioner and all that it suggests, and then you have him trying to eat his egg and it gets all domestic - I like the ending too; he gets all the way up the stairs and then realises he doesn't have his spoon - and 'The End'. Your act 2 then is all about his increasingly desperate attempts to get into his egg; you probably need in the range of 3 sight-gags or similar - escalations of effort; it does feel to me at least, that him 'becoming the executioner' again and using his axe to behead the egg needs to be the final resort; and perhaps this could all be done as shadow play against the wall, complete with a drum roll...
ReplyDeleteIn terms of your spatial relations - you'll need to communicate the distance between the kitchen and the attic room in act 1 - setting up the geography of the space. He's obviously in some kind of lodging house or similar, and your audience will need to be shown this somehow, otherwise we perhaps won't know why he's going upstairs to eat - and not eating in the kitchen. We also need to understand that there are many stairs between the kitchen and his room - to make the last joke with the spoon work. If, for example, you set this in a medieval castle for example, it might make sense to have the executioner living in the attic space in the top-most tower, and the kitchen being at the bottom of the building. In somekind of establishing shot, you'd need to give this spatial info away to your viewer. It's not exactly clear from your drawings where/when your story is taking place (you've got a modern looking mug in there); while anachronisms are part and parcel of comedic animation, it might help you to clarify your era and location, as this might help you in the design of everything else that follows.