SCENE 1 of the film

Here's the opening scene where God is saluting the Paparazzi on the Red Carpet at the height of his fame. I went from wanting this scene in colour, to wanting it in sepia, to finally settling on Black and White, which I'm really pleased with. The flashes didnt come through as vibrantly as I wished when I applied the tritone effect in after fx, and it just didnt look as good. I may choose to add some white lines going across the scene at a later point, I was just worried it may be too much with the camera flashes and might detract the viewer from whats on screen, so at the moment I've added a grain effect on after fx.

TESTING THE MAIN CHARACTER

This is a line test of the main character (God) exported from good old Monkey Jam. The action is for the opening sequence of my film where we see God working the Paparrazi on the red carpet. It is just the Keyframes with a few inbetweens, so it needs a lot of tweaking with many more frames added, but its just for my benifit, and yours of course, to see the character come to life and show of a bit of personality.

VOICETOONS FINAL VOICEOVER - SOUNDS GREAT!

HOT STARS LOGO

Ive just recieved the 14 seperate parts of narration for my film from voicetoons and am as pleased as punch with the final outcome. The female voiceover is exacly what I envisaged when I came up with the concept for the film, -cheesy, over the top, kinda sexy and obviously American, its like listening to the shows on the E channel, you can almost hear the word God being replaced by Britney or Maddona. I believe this will ensure people about the type of programme that this film is a skit on, such as 'the life of Paris Hilton'. Very chuffed with a well spent $150.

The music score for my peice needs to be a very simple techno looped track with a fixed beat that narration can go over the top of. It cant be too overpowering or complex, but must be simple and aid the tempo of the film. My school friend James White is studying music production at Cardiff University, and has produced scores for other animated films as part of his course. As the track I need is pretty simple in terms of a score for an animated film, I have e-mailed James the details of what I require, and asked if he can provide a track for my peice for no money but a credit and advertising if he needed, to which he replied 'I love you, great, I need something to do'. Sounds good.

AESTHETIC INFLUENCES - MONKEY DUST (and a few others)

Initial design of the dark dingy strip club 'Climax', that lures in the Vicar
(Influenced by Monkey Dust)

BBC's Monkey Dust is the main influence for my chosen aesthetic. It is a British 2d animated series which focuses on the dark side of Britain. I studied the series for my dissertation and really liked the style and drawing technique, as well as the way it set the mood with its use of purples and blues in the city scapes, and the way it represented dark surburbia, which I could use in my peice, inparticularly the part where a vicar takes his collar off and strolls into a strip bar - a joke heavily influenced by the series. (see above image). Unlike The Simpsons and Family Guy, which have had an influence on areas of the aesthetic, Monkey Dusts backgrounds are not bright colours, but are lifelike, straightforward representations of surburbia; Ocassionaly it is as if the images have been loosely traced from photographs. The backgrounds are coloured with detail, and not just coloured with 2 tones which makes sure the images dont appear flat and boring, but gives it texture, therefore resulting in a much richer aesthetic, making it pleasing on the eye, I aim to achieve this. The creator of Monkey Dust states that he wanted the series to be dark and morose, but for the city scapes to be beautiful at the same time. The reason Monkey Dust made sure there backgrounds were so detailed was so they could convey an emotion about the setting to the audience, I wanted my backgrounds to have depth and texture like those in Monkey Dust, as I want them to be interesting, believable as well as be pleasing on the eye.

I hope to add some more screen shots to display how Monkey Dust has influenced my film, but my housemate has the series locked away in his room at the moment- DOH!

Monkey Dust

Other Influences - The Simpsons
Sam and Max cartoons
A sprinkle of Family Guy

BACKGROUNDS - CHANGE OF PLANS

From black and white, to colour, to black and white, to colour - it looks bad, and confuses the viewer!

When reviewing my animatic, the main thing I felt needed reviewing was how the colour of the backgrounds would effect the viewer. In the sequence where the film looks at Gods rise to stardom, which is meant to have happened a long time ago, the scenes cut from black and white, then back to colour, and then back to black and white. Not only would the switches from black and white to colour confuse the audience as to when what they are viewing is meant to have happened, but it also does'nt not look good on screen and does not translate what I want it to.

My plan was to have the sequence after we see God at university and see him at the height of his fame in colour, however after viewing the animatic, I feel it is neccesary to have the entire sequence in black and white to potray that this all happened a long time ago. The influence for the sequence came from footage of The Beatles when they were at the height of their fame, and I want the sequence to be a skit on those old tired grainy images. I have played around with the noise and gain effects in photoshop and after fx to give it an old look. I will look into other effects to apply to give the look of old film. Any suggestions anyone, that would be great! Im going to do some tests, adding some white and black speckles to the images in after fx and animating white lines across the screen.

BACKGROUNDS - CHANGING A FEW THINGS

FINALIZING THE CHARACTERS