Narrative film- The Hero's journey- The Chronicles of Narnia

On Friday of the film lecture, we have look at the hero's journey structure of different films and we watched "The Last Star fighter". It shown the patterns of  how hero narrative been developed. The follow film review is using the same hero's journey which applied to another film- "The Chronicles of Narnia".

Ordinary World:
The world with wars and the children were sent to a professor's house.

The Call of the adventure:
Playing hide and seek in the house and found the way to Narnia at the back door of the wardrobe. And met the people and said they are the one to reveal the prophecies.

Refusal the call:
Because they know they don't belongs to Narnia and the elder brother and sister(Peter and Susan) trying to protect the other two.

Meeting the Mentor:
Peter and Susan have a talk with the professor who lives in the house and lead them to believe their younger sister.

Crossing the Threshold:
They broke one of the window and the women is going to get them and they hide in the wardrobe and enter to Narnia.

Test,Allies& Enemies:
Peter,Susan and Lucy are heading to see the Lion and prepare to fight back Edmond was distracted by the queen.

Approach:
Aslans  encourage and equip for the war and where are they going to. Aslan also anointed them to be the warrior king and queen.

The Ordeal, Death and Rebirth:
Aslans was shamed and died for his people but when the sunrise he be alive later.

The Reward:
Peter takes the position of leading Aslan and ready to fight back,

The road back:
Edmond nearly died and Lucy give him the healing portion to save him back.

The Resurrection:
Aslans is back , he gives the lives back to those been frozen by the queen and end the war.

Return with Elixir:
They win the war and return ,The ceremony anointed them to be the kings and queens.Back to their world.

Animals documentary reseaches

We were thinking to have a competition which can interrupt the phrase more so I have looked at documentaries from National Geographic and discovery channel. Animals will fight with each other to find their wife and their territory.  

Video Clips Researches

We had a tutorial with Alan yesterday and shared our ideas we got. He suggested us to explore more in researches before we get our ideas down. Alan also mentioned to be careful of interrupting the phrase, that present the message in a positive way to make the audiences feel benefit when it does good.He also suggested us to look at slapstick comedy. It is a kind of comedy that reinterpret our common senses and tropes, bring out surprises to the audiences and it is performative.  After this conversation we all felt we could make it in a comparison of doing good and bad, big and small or visual and sound. We also found that the phrase was from the old song by Marie Lloyd. Ruby suggested that may be we can add the chorus like " dumb ways to die".

The video clips below are the reseaches I have look at. I have look at Charlie Chaplin's movies who is a famous slapstick silence comedy , using his body language to present the jokes. 

 

After that I look at Mr.bean that one of my favorite comedy I have ever watched. In the same way as Charlie Chaplin, he used his body to present the jokes. Audiences can also read his mind easily that what he is going to do next but it always out of expectations. 

Kung Fu Hustle is a comedy movie, although it released in recently years, they reinterpreted the jokes and expand the impressions in our common sense and it is another performance of using body to make jokes.

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After look at the movies, I have also look at the old animations like Droppy Dog and Tom and Jerry. Even they are all animals, it makes them more like a human of designing their looks and personality to make the animation more interesting.

The CG Artists Toolkit - Head modelling_ Blocking

Head modelling _Part 2_blocking

Narrative Ideas

We put the ideas together and we are going to use one still camera to present the animation. We are thinking to pick a kind of animals where live in safari to be the character. It could be a main character in the front and few more at the back doing silly things. After the inspiration we found yesterday, we think of using speak bubbles to present what they are thinking about or an interview with the animal with voice over. Creature Comforts is another references for us as doing a interview.

We brainstorm how to make the animation funny, we think of making the biggest animals to be the smallest and the way around, but then we think it will be good to focus on one kind than many, so this is the ideas come up to us.

Hippo:

- a hippo on a diet because he think he is fat and he see another hippo eating a lot just like where he was 

-he is really hungry and he thought the flamingo or something in front of him is a piece of fruit and he crew it down .

- the phrase comes after this.

Porcupine:

-Porcupine eating a pine cone.

-He found there is a bottle of pepper and he try that.

-He likes it and putting more and more to the pine cone.

-The lid of pepper fall off and all the pepper come out.

-He breath in and sneezes it out and his spikes all pop out and it kill something at the back 

 -He is naked and embarrassed

 -The phrase comes after this

Giraffe :

-A normal giraffe eating leaves as usual

-Zoom to another giraffe which next to it but he doesn't have a long neck 

-The little one climb up to the normal one and eating the top of the tree leaves with different way

-The little one only eat some a day but the normal one constantly eating
-Zoom out to the whole picture , the normal one is really fat.
-The phrase comes after this

Elephant:
Idea 1
- The elephant find some balloons.
- He catch them and play around with it .
- He found it funny when they breath in the helium and make a high pitched voice.
- He breath in too much and lost his voice and he become bigger and bigger.
- He fly away and no one can help it stop.
-The phrase comes after this.
Idea 2
- Two elephants playing in the water and start fighting gun game with water.
-One of them gets annoyed and suck it too much water.
-He start sinking/ there is no more water leave in the pool.
-The phrase comes after this.

Flamingo:
- Standing in the pool fishing.
-He fishes one and he wants more.
- He keep fishing and there is no more room to suck anymore in his mouth.
- His head become really heavy and fell down to the pool.
-He struggle to get his head up again 
-The phrase comes after this.

I came up another idea that the perspective of the camera is setting in the car looking out the window to record the animals and start with really cute and sweet little thing and they still staying or keep doing it and something horrible/ funny happen. Then the phrase comes after this. The video below is the inspiration of this idea.

We also look at" Jungle Junction" as a references for our style, simple modelling but cute and audiences feel invited . 

CG artists toolkit - lip sync_ jaw bounce

This is the jaw bounce tutorial and we should listen to the volume of the voice .

CG Workshop - Tilt shifting

We use photoshop today simply do the tilt shifting on a image with quick mask and gradient tool then lens blur. This could give a quick effect without changing the lens .

Before

 

After

Part A: Narrative

In this part of the project, we are asked to create a 30s-1min short animation which advertising a phrase creatively.We are working as a team with Ruby and Ant. These are the environment and the phrase we have been given to.

On Safari

&

"A little of what your fancy does you good"

After we got the cards, our first thoughts are to make an animation about animals in a funny way. Because of the limitation of the animation time , we are going to explore and research different ideas individually and come back together with a good idea but keep it simple so audiences can catch it quickly. When we look at the phrase, Ant mentioned that what our fancy about doesn't always make you good and that is a really interesting point that we can explore. As the narrative project runs for 12 weeks, we are thinking to use two weeks time to define what we want and how to make it in style and concept.

The links below are the animations i am looking at the moment:

After the briefing we all feel like this is  the kind of style we are looking for.

And the following are the short, funny animation which is basic on Safari.



Also the " Rollin' Safari" makes me think about the sounds, the ability to tell the audiences when it start , short cut to the scene so it doesn't need to give any background before the narrative. And it inspired me to think what is actually important and what we want to bring out.


The famous animation film from Dreamwork- Madagascar, it's a good character references that I found. They are more like a human than actual animals with different personalities.