Emotional Ties: Character Ideas

I have decided on having four children in my animation with one adult, who tells the scary story. 

Character One will be an over excited boy called Ryan Russell, the adult telling the story will be his Dad, Rob Russell.

Character Two will be Connor Burt who keeps falling asleep and waking up

Character Three will be Ellie Hodgkins, she's a real girly girl 

And Character Four will be Jess Cooley who is a tom boy who likes to try and act tough. 

I will be writing full descriptions etc of these characters later but I felt that before I do that I need to create them visually so I can really get a feel for these characters. I decided to create some opposite personalities with the characters to compliment each other and make the animation that bit more interesting through how they interact with each other. 

The main story to this is that the four children are quite close friends and Ryan's Dad has taken them out on a little camping trip together. On the first day they are all tired from travelling and setting up camp and so when the sun has gone down they settle down round the camp fire for a story...

I decided to start on the first character, Ryan. I started with one of the drawings of children I did the other day and made quite a realistic drawing of Ryan. I felt that I needed to make it simpler. so I condensed the character down making him shorter and tried to work from simple shapes. This did not work at all, the character went from looking confident and tall to short awkward. These are the drawings...

And so I have decided that before going any further I am going to look at  children's animated characters to get a general feel of the styles used and how I can possibly make my characters simple.

Creative Media Direction:Emotional Ties, Drawings of Children

As part of my research I have drawn some children with a number of expressions on their faces. 

I'm not the most confident person when it comes to drawing faces, especially as in life drawing sessions etc we mainly focus on the body. In truth I've never studied faces very much, but this is something I now feel is important and I need to do a lot of if I want to improve my characters in animation....something I'm also not very confident doing. Some of the faces that I drew above I'm very happy with but others not so happy. It's clear to me that I have much improvement needed when drawing faces. However I think that I did pretty well showing expression on their faces.I feel that a I could easily use some of these children as inspiration for some of that characters I will create.

Creative Media Directions: Emotional Ties, More scary Stories

I've been researching scary stories for children again and I found three more potential ones...

Family Portraits


A long time ago, there was a man who went out hunting in the woods. As night fell, he found himself in an unfamiliar part of the forest. He walked and walked, but he couldn't find his way home. Wandering aimlessly in the dark, he eventually came to a small clearing where an old, ramshackle cabin stood. Tired and weary, he decided to see if he could stay there for the night.
When he came close to the cabin, he saw that the door was standing ajar. Poking his head inside, he could see that the little cabin was completely empty, but there was a bed and a fire burning in the fireplace. The hunter threw himself on the bed and decided to sleep there for the night. If the owner came back, he would ask for permission in the morning.
Lying on the bed, half asleep, he looked around and was surprised to see the walls were covered with paintings. They appeared to be family portraits, all framed and painted in incredible detail. They seemed very life-like and, without exception each family portrait was uglier than the next. The hideous faces in the paintings made him incredibly uneasy. The way they were painted made it seem as if the eyes were staring directly at him. It was incredibly unnerving.
He decided that the only way he was going to get any sleep was to ignore the hideous faces staring at him. So he turned on his side, facing the wall, pulled the blanket over his head and drifted off to sleep. 
In the morning, the hunter woke up to find the cabin bathed in sunlight. When he looked up, he discovered there were no family portraits on the walls of the cabin, only windows.

Tell Me The Way

One dark night, a 15 year old girl named Lydia was walking home from her friend's house. She turned down a narrow street to take a short cut and was startled by the sight of an old man standing in her path. When she stopped, the old man turned to her and in hoarse voice said "Tell me the way!"

His face was disgusting, his skin covered in scars and boils, his hair stringy and unkempt, his eyes bulging horribly, almost popping out of his sockets. Lydia was terrified. She was alone in the dark and narrow alleyway with a strange and disturbing person. Her heart began pounding and it took her a few seconds to catch her breath. 

"Tell me the way!", the old man demanded. 

"Ok...Ok...uh...Where are you going?", asked Lydia, nervously.

When the old man told her the address he was searching for, a chill ran down her spine. It was her house.

"I don't know where that is", she replied curtly as she pushed past the old man and ran down the alleyway. Glancing back, she could see him standing in the alley, watching her flee. 

Lydia was so freaked put by the incident that she didn't stop running until she got back to her house. Breathing a sigh of relief, she took her keys out. She looked up and down the street to make sure the old man hadn't followed her. It was empty. 

She turned the key, unlocked the door and pushed it open. From the darkness inside her house, a hoarse voice said "Tell me the way!"

The Twin Girls

There was a married couple who lived in a rural area of Spain. Their house was a modest little cottage, located on the edge of a busy main road. They had two daughters who were both twin girls. 

As they grew up, the twin girls were very well behaved. They never fought or argued. They lived happily together and hated to be separated.

One day, the mother had to go to the shop and buy some milk and bread. She didn't want to leave the girls on their own so she brought them with her. Grasping both girls by the hand, the mother led them across the busy road.

Unfortunately, the mother had forgotten to look both ways before she crossed the street. Just as they neared the other side, she heard a loud screech and then a horrible crunching sound as her daughters' tiny hands were torn out of her grasp. 

When the mother twirled around to look, she screamed in horror at what she saw and collapsed on the sidewalk. The twin girls had been run over by a huge truck. The bloody remains of the twin girls were splattered across the road. 

The mother began crying and sobbing hysterically. Try as she might, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the two big streaks of red that stained the road. 

At the funeral the father tried to comfort his wife, but she was inconsolable. Over and over, she screamed "This is all my fault! This is all my fault!"

Four years later, the mother and father still lived in the same house beside the road where their daughters perished. The woman became pregnant again. The couple were surprised when the doctors told them that they would be having twins again.

The parents rejoiced when their two little girls were born. This happy event caused the mother to forget the tragedy of the past. As the twin girls grew up, their mother and father were careful never to mention the previous children. They acted as if the deceased girls had never existed.

Oneday, the two little twin girls were playing in the garden. Their mother came out and told them to come with her to the shop. As they stood at the edge of the road, the mother took hold of the hands of the two girls and held them tightly.

Suddenly, as the mother began walking across the road, the girls began to struggle and tried to slip out of their mothers grasp.

"No, Mommy! Don't hold us!", cried the twin girls in unison. "We don't want to die again!"

This thing I'm finding hard is knowing just how scary I can make the stories and how much gore is acceptable, whether it is acceptable at all. For example I know that in children's programmes if a cartoon character gets hurt there is never any blood shown.

I posted a link to this post on facebook and a forum that my course uses to communicate and help each other to see which story people most liked and found the scariest. It was a very clear result with the first story, 'Family Portraits' being the most popular and scariest and so from that I have decided that I am going to use that story. 

Creative Media Directions: Emotional Ties. Childeren Telling Scary Stories

I've been looking at video's of children on you tube telling their own made up scary stories. What I found was brilliant, there  was always lot of enthusiasm by all the children, and what made it better was that a lot of them were absolutely crazy! A few you couldn't even understand because the kids were so excited and put on 'scary voices'! Here are some examples

I found that a lot of the children started with 'Once upon a time' and as they were going through the story making it up they say 'and then' a lot. These are really handy things to know if I decide to do it so that the children are telling  the stories. Think this would be better, just by the different expressions and emotions they show when they are telling their stories, it would make it very visually exciting and really interesting to watch. They also move and roll around a lot when telling their stories with lots of arm movement. 

I think I'm going to limit myself to the maximum of four characters so that there's not too much animating for me to handle.

Creative Media Direction: Emotional Ties, Stories

I've been researching some of the stories that I had found before, mainly the myths and legends. The ones I chose to research were Cormoran the Cornish Giant, The Witch of Wookey Hole, Legend of the Wrekin, The Black Annis and The Mermaid of Zennor. All of which are from English folklore. 

I liked this story but I don't feel that it's appropriate for children and there's no way that I can make it appropriate for children. Plus it's not scary and gripping enough.

I thought that The Witch of Wookey Hole would n't really appeal to children and is more for adults, I loved the Legend of the Wrekin and would make a good story for children but it's not scary, the Black Annis was a good story to scare the children but maybe a little much and would have to dull it down a bit, maybe cut some bits out for example the tanning of childrens skins, this would be too graphic. And then finally The Mermaid of Zennor, this I feel definitely wouldn't appeal to children and if it did I don't think that boys would be interested. 

I feel that with these sorts of things the whole point of them is knowing the locations that they are set, which the majority of children wouldn't and so if I was to use one I would have to adapt it in that way too. 

I've decided to take a new approach and search for 'scary campfire stories for children'. This is what I came up with...

Creak

"Creak", a sound, faint, distant, but still heard.

"Crack", something snapping, or being trampled on.

The man sits in his room, reading. The room is silent except for the quiet fire burning.

"Creak"..Just the the house settling, nothing more.

"Crack", Perhaps some small animals outdoors.

"Whoosh", Was that the wind?

The man stands up and peeks out the window. A clear night is all he sees, the full moon brillent in the sky. Laughing at his nervousness, he returns to his book.

"Creak", the man now silently chuckles at the sound.

"Crack", how could he have been scared of some sounds.

"Whoosh", must be breezy out tonight.

"Thump"...did that come from within the house?

The man stares into the fire, trying to calm his jangled nerves.

"Creak"...

"Crack"...

"Whoosh"...will the sounds never cease?

"Thump"..."Thump"..."Thump"...

Closer, he thinks, the sounds are getting closer. He shuts the book and closes his eyes, and thinks of something besides his wild imagination.

"Creak"

"Thump"

"Crack"

"Thump"

"Whoosh"

"Thump"..."Thump"..."Thump"...a pause? The man moves quietly, slowly, towards the door with a nervous gait. "Thump"...a step back..."Thump"...yes, it's getting closer. "Thump"...he stares at the door, trying to somehow see through it..."Thump"...he reaches slowly for the doorknob, hand shaking, no longer able to take not knowing..."Creak", a loose floorboard, near the door outside..."Thump", he slowly opens the door...

"A scream"

...silence... 

I quite like the way this is set out and the build up of it but I'm not too keen on the ending, I feel that it end too suddenly and is quite a weak ending. It's like telling a crazy story and then ending it with 'and then I woke up and it was all a dream'. Maybe the character could open the door and it could be someone he knows so that the audience is kept in suspense throughout and made to feel scared but in the end finds out that actually there was nothing to be scared of. Or maybe something more could happen when he opens the door rather than a scream followed by silence. Or a conclusion like 'if you ever hear the  creaks, cracks, whooshes or thumps, beware of the (make a name up) monster, him may just be waiting outside your door.'

The Barn
Much to the displeasure of our parents, we liked hanging out in the old barn. The barn was situated toward the back of the house and was a dilapidated, crumbling building that we were forbidden to enter.

My brother and I usually went there at night and with our flashlights we would enter the barn through a side door that hung precariously on its last corroded hinge. It appeared ready to collapse at the tiniest provocation, so holding our breath and very careful to avoid touching anything, we would squeeze through the tiny opening to the inside.

Scattered randomly throughout the interior were rusting farming implements, rakes, a scythe and numerous long-forgotten other tools that no longer resembled anything useful. All of the items appeared dangerous and capable of serious damage if they were mishandled or if careless passage caused contact with fragile skin. We kept our distance and tried to remain clear of these things, finding our usual seats in the center of the room on the old hay bales left there.

The barn itself was pretty spooky and in the darkness, the outlines of the objects and decaying contents resembled the skeletons of the dead, but my brother and I liked it. We would go there and share spooky stories and get ourselves so frightened, we'd barely find our balance to get back out the decrepit barn door as we would literally be shaking in our boots.

But the loft was the most sinister part of the barn. It was dark as pitch and the ladder leading up to it had years ago crumbled into an unusable heap of kindling that lie uselessly on the barn floor. The few remaining steps appeared in tact at the top, but at ground level the decaying rungs appeared through the murkiness to be the gaping holes of a skeleton's dislodged teeth.

We never went up to the loft and could only imagine its contents: huge spiders covered with coarse hair and menacing fangs. Their enormous eyes watched and waited for anyone who dared to ascend the rotting ladder to the elevated platform. Other than our mental images of the spiders, we had no idea what was in the loft.

One night, we were in the barn sitting on the floor talking. During pauses in our conversation, we listened to the mournful groans of the old structure slowly yet very audibly decaying. Why this caused us such fascination is unknown to me, but we were thoroughly enjoying the spooky, musty ambience that was the old barn.

My brother was telling his favorite ghost story for the hundredth time in low, hushed tones. I was enthralled by the tale as my brother was very good at making any story sound terrifying beyond belief.

Just when the story hit its scariest point, a scraping noise began to emanate from the loft. At first we thought it was our over active imaginations. But the soft sound grew in intensity as we listened, almost as if the originator had waited to ensure it's audience was paying attention.

Scraaaaape. Screeeeeech. Scraaaaape.

Then for a second, the only sound we could hear was our heartbeats pounding wildly in our ears. We stared at each other with wild eyes, lids locked wide open, almost bulging.

A chill ran down my spine. I grabbed my brother's hand and held it to me. I couldn't imagine what could be causing the sound and in terror, I whispered loudly, "Michael!"

At that, my brother shifted position and leaped over to sit beside me. He shook loose my grip and wrapped his arms around me, covering my mouth with one of his hands. "Shhh," he whispered, very quietly.

Screeeeech. Scraappppe.

It was a metallic sound, hollow and ominous.

Michael grabbed my hand and pulled me with him as he jumped up and ran for the door. We held our breaths as we squeezed through the passageway, careful to keep from touching the sides. We escape the barn and ran out into the night using all of our might to keep from screaming.

We made it to the backyard and stopped, bending over and holding our sides, chests heaving. We gained our composure before we stepped onto the porch and opened the screen door. Mom was there and said, "Time for dinner kids!"

"I'm glad you're here," she continued, "a man escaped from jail tonight and the police are on the lookout. You kids should stay inside. Guess the guy was a terrible, evil person. Murdered five people before he got caught."

We half listened as we pulled out our chairs to sit down.

"Shouldn't be hard to find, though. He had a metal hook for a hand. Gotta be pretty easy to find a fellow like that.

"Did you kids wash your hands?"

This story was very long but worth reading. There's a lot of description which I think lengthens it, but this is good for if I was going to use it as it very vividly puts an image in my head to know what the setting would look like. I like this story as although it's scary, no one gets hurts or anything which would be great for younger children. I can imagine a parent or grandparent telling their children/grandchildren this story. Of course again I would have to alter how the story is told but only so that it suits being animated and being told through animation. I may contact the writer and ask for permission to maybe use it. 

Creative Media Direction: Emotional Ties, Initial Ideas and Research

So we finally got our new briefs, this is one out of three. This brief is called 'Emotional Ties', it requires us to focus on character development through observation of life and on ways of communicating emotion and expression. 

'Relationships have provided fertile ground for artists and film makers for centuries. The relationships we have with our families and friends are fundamental to the development of our lives and our sense of worth. Neighbours, lovers, enemies, accomplices, opponents etc. all have an impact on our emotional responses. Each one is a different relationship. With this in mind, think about and explore the broad framework of emotional ties.'

There are five main elements to this brief that we must do, research, script, character development, storyboard and the final animation. And so I started with the research!...although I had no idea what to do or what to research. And so I finally came up with looking for stories that maybe I could animate, for some reason I searched for childrens tales, which then led to myths and legends and then ghost stories....

I loved the idea of having ghost stories and thought about  instead of just animating the story I could have some little children round a camp fire telling each other ghost stories or have someone telling some children ghost stories. Then I could animate them reacting to the story showing their emotions and expressions. Then I had the problem of finding a suitable story, most that I found were only suitable for adults, I couldn't really find one and so my tutor suggested that maybe I could look up creative writing and writing children's stories and make my own...

My research into this put me off, there was no way that I was going to be able to write my own story from scratch. So I have decided that I'm going to find a story that is maybe suitable for an adult and maybe change/edit it so it becomes suitable for children. I quite the idea of using a story of a myth or legend, as some of those sounded quite scary, especially for little children. 

From this research I'm already starting to picture/imagine what my animation may look like, it would have to be quite moody with the campfire, torches etc but also very simple and fun in design as it's going to be for children.

I am now off on a quest to find a story! ..

Text Animation

This  is a tiny project I set myself whilst I had no work in between finishing the last brief and getting a new one. My brothers partner's birthday was on Tuesday and so I made it an opportunity to try animating some text to send her a birthday message. I've wanted to try this for ages, especially after the Design for Society brief. So I recorded my voice in many different ways and started to animate, this is the final video..

Not only did I have fun doing the voice but really enjoyed this exercise. It's not too polished complicated but I feel there it a lot of room there for me to improve and become more imaginative. Maybe if I used some really interesting long words with more expression and meaning than 'happy, birthday, to, you, Catherine' I may have more inspiration to work with. I'm really happy that I did this.