D&AD // Shutterstock - Tuesday meeting

Rebirth

Building on our discussion last week about the idea of a 'funky jacket' lifting someones mood and confidence, we both said again how this idea excited us. Tamar said that it could give us the opportunity to be really creative visually with patterns throughout.

We started with initial sketches of how it could look, and how the character could be drawn. The sketches below were drawn by Tamar.

We talked about how the background should look and if there should be a street or just nothing at all. We agreed on the idea of the person walking down a dark street before stumbling upon a jacket either in a shop or on the road.

Tamar said the character should be quite rough and cartoon like, with the jacket being really big on them. As they walk with it on, they could grow bigger and bigger and step over things.

I had the idea of the hair growing and getting colourful, and the jacket changing colour throughout to show it's power and make it seem kind of magic. Tamar agreed and said rather than just colour the jacket could change patterns.

Rebirth storyboard

We have both created the final storyboard together, discussing it as we went along. We are aware that it can only be under 20 seconds, so we need to keep in mind how many details we put in.

What we discussed as we drew it out:

• How should the background be - just shapes or realistic buildings? We both said it could be quite abstract, so as not to detract form the character's journey.
• The suit - should it just be a box? It doesn't have to be realistic, and not having arms may make the animating easier. This is something we are going to try out.
• Should the background be neat and the character scruffy? all neat or scruffy?
• Is the person a man or a woman - does this matter - does there need to be a clear gender?
• The person grows and gets powerful and steps over buildings then returns to normal size and with original colour - but is still rebirthed.

Overcoming the Monster

We moved on to Overcoming the Monster, so we can stay on track. We want to create all the storyboards before moving onto the actual animations.

Some independent brainstorming I've done for Overcoming the monster. My ideas are based around metaphorical imagery, much like I've looked at in my research. It seems like an effective way of putting a story into simple imagery.

We discussed how mental illness could be symbolised in a creative way (and in a way that doesn't offend). What could the monster be?

Ideas we both agreed we especially liked - 

• the heart and the brain against each other - this could be like they are fighting and the brain is controlling how the heart feels, even though the heart wants to be happy.
• a watering can trying to bring dying weeds back to life, which works in the end after a battle between them. (but what is the monster here??)
• using weather as a metaphor for personal struggles - the sun is trying to break through the rain and storms.

Together we sketched and talked through some of these ideas in a more visual format. We talked through how plants could be growing out of a head, which need to be watered to grow. But through this we wondered if this really stuck to the plot of there being a monster.

We then discussed how we could morph some of the ideas together: the brain and heart could be against eachother, an idea we both thought was quite conceptual. But the weather could also be involved - the brain could rain down on the heart.

Or perhaps a dark kind of fluid could drip from the brain into the heart from a tap, to symbolise the bad thoughts and feelings.  We agreed to come back to this in our next session with fresh eyes.