Our Colour Scheme

Our colour scheme will consist of mainly of vibrant reds inside the motel along with greys. The room will be attempting to sell itself as a whole and therefore be colourful and messy as its been lived in by the 'target'.

For the apartment where the hitman is situated I can imagine the colour scheme for this room will be mainly greys, washed out yellows and browns. Stains on the walls and boxes lying around.

Colour Pallette

Looking at the Colour palettes of different images and styles. Quite interesting to see the colours that are used to make up images. Might do some more research into this again later. Our colour pallette I can imagine being very red in the motel to go with the theme of the outside.

Grinding To a Halt

Got Work now... sucks as I was getting into that piece below but yeh... nevermind. Might carry on a bit later. :)

Tablet Trauma

Using images I already had I made this scene up after sketching it out a few times... finally getting somewhere lol

More Concepts of Characters

Just a few more rough concepts

Pitching the old with the New

Mike Smith brought up a good point of looking at a variety of objects that we have drawn in an old style and putting them right up against the objects which will be looking more modern (eg the buildings/characters themselves) and seeing if this will all look good together. Seeing it if will all tie together and flow. I'll probably have a go at this in a moment with some characters and concept designs.

Because Research is on going

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
by Naughty Dog who are currently hiring actually :p













Just look at the differences in colour palate in comparison to the feel and the location. Although our piece is set across one street we can still give the audience a change in atmosphere and make them seem as its somewhere totally different - as it is!

Fallout 3 Colour Pallett

This last image is actually a piece of concept art for the Game... Sam hate to say it but you gotta get cracking on that practise... but your nearly there mate (closer than me!) :)

Again looking mainly at colours its very different to that of uncharted. But they stick to their scheme all the same and therefore create an overall sense of baron wasteland which looks as though its just never ending. This really is a MASSIVE game and would take many an hour to complete. The colours in it are very washed out - much like that of Splay however I feel it is necessary to look at even if we are not going to use this colour pallet to rule it out.

Formative Assessment

The formative was slightly rushed due to approaching 4pm and we were the last group. It was still worth while. Mike Smith gave us the thumbs up and said that we seemed to have everything under control so that was good. I'm happy the way the film has turned out so far and I feel that the concept work is really coming along. We as a team are all pulling our weight at the moment all with different styles of concepts and all doing our part to spring board ideas about. What we have so far really has been a team produced piece of work and I feel its all had our personal touch on, everyone has had their influence on the story. I'm glad the ending I pitched to the guys (not that I came up with the finale) was taken up. I thought it wouldn't end very well on the reveal of the assassins and felt it needed a little more... glad the other guys agreed. Mike seemed to like the ending as well so all in all keep on chugging along I guess :D

Chair Concepts

Just a few chair Concepts I will discuss with the group and probably continue to develop at a later stage.

Floor Plan Concept

This is the floor plan for the motel room with the target in. Blue is the Targets movements and Red is the hitman coming into the door and approaching him. May well be unclear but this is more for layout for now than anything else.




Just been giving a bit of thought on the layout of the Hitmans room where he will be setting up his rifle and preparing for the upcoming sequence. Was considering putting in a mattress rather than a bed to show how run down this place is other wise it starts looking furbished. Just a thought.

More Concepts

Whack'd this one together

Going to a gig later ... bit of Newton Faulkner so thought I should get cracking with some work so I feel like I CAN go - do some work to justify it. This is hopefully the first of many concepts for me. I hope you don't mind Sam I kind of used your version a bit and then altered different parts as I saw fit. In the style of the 'Incredibles'.

Frasers Notes

Use other groups as an Audience to pitch to and get there individual versions of the film. Its important to have impartial advice. When pitching pause for laugh and pause for laugher when editing. Allow enough time for it.
Pixar images are 'shit' so don't worry about yours being so when your getting across ideas. As long as you can tell what it is it is VALID.
Think how the audience will see the artwork and see the world.
Introduce 'scratch' audio - not the finalised audio.

Poster Designs for Gareth

Here are a few ideas I had for the Posters we were told to whip some up with strap lines as well. I quite like the idea of having three different images to tell the story but not to give away the whole film...
Any way...here they are

Productive Concepts

Today I came in for half the day - brought in Ferhans Film but he wasn't around but nevermind. haha. Yeah so today I managed to pull a few concepts out the bag which was good as I hadn't really been doing much of that recently and I felt I was slightly letting the side down. I have drawn a number of different motel styles as well as a variety of different props. I figured I'd get on with these rather than wasting my time attempting to do character designs when I knew they'd be done by someone better than me anyhow. I'm not going to post them today but I just thought I'd mention that they came out reasonably well and therefore they will make it to the blog in due course.

Branding

Been messing around with the style of font we could use. We may just keep it the same however I feel its neccessary to experiment all the same just to rule things out.

I quite like the original type face that Sam and I found called 'Samdan' from dafonts.com --- really good website that I'm sure I'll use again :) however all of these above were made free hand by myself in Adobe Illustrator as I didn't want to limit ourselves to FONTS 24/7. Just wanted to think outside the box a little.

Last few days

Yeh, sorry I've been a bit useless at blogging and doing much these last few days. Been trying to sketch and draw but have been failing miserably. Waiting to get my Mac pimped and then I'll be on my way with Illustrator and Photoshop and all the swings and roundabouts!!! Wooo. Hopefully getting that done tomorrow night. Again, sorry for my lack of work atm.

Thoughts on New version

I think the protector version of our story is a lot stronger than the gag filled one. From my understanding it will build up the audience to that one climatic moment rather than lots of ups and downs. This will be more effective at creating an atmosphere hopefully play on peoples feelings slightly more as it'll be involving clever camera angles.

I still think that the ending needs to be added to just a tad. Perhaps it should be open ended in some way... perhaps not. I'm thinking about this project a lot at the moment and I'm looking forward to working with the guys on the concept work. We've all been chipping in with thoughts and ideas to get the ball moving on this project and its all coming together after a few weeks of brain storming.

I am definately glad we didn't settle on the first idea even though we thought it was a winner. Looking back we all agree that it was a lot weaker than the protector version and are happy we didn't stick with it. I suppose we just need to keep going with the work. We've changed so much of the story but the essence is still there and hopefully our characters and OUR OWN personalities will be in there soon too.

Notes from Gareths Lecture Day

Idea generation time... our thinking caps were on and boy was it a good laugh with Ferhan coming up with some crackers and Sam just being Sam... was a cool day. We all put in good ideas today so nice 1 guys!

We have to create: a Poster with a witty strap line to sell our film and a DVD cover for the film to give to industry contacts.


Our ideas we had are as follows for the strapline:
Overkill just got a whole new meaning
The ultimate take down
Silent Mowdown
2 men, one rifle, one mission
One Target
One Objective One Outcome.
Your Hired, Your FIRED
Long range just got closer
Hired Gun
Locked and loaded
Motel Mowdown
Are you ready for room service?
Shot back and sides.
Digits
Turnover team!?
Sweet Dreams
Motel Nightmares
Breakfast in bed
Forceful entry
The best room service around
Motel Clean up
One nighter
Someone better tip the maid
It should only take one bullet
One shot is all that counts
Spacky aim
Keeping distance
A hired killer…
The ‘Professional’ hitman strikes again.
He is the perfect hitman for the job
Perfect aim? Yeh Right! (depends on how you read it)
Booty call

For next week we will have to have working rough drafts of posters and dvd covers to work promote our film. This I think will be really useful considering we will want to promote out films along with the degree show to get people interested in ourselves and hopefully get a job at the end of the year!

Could be useful Reference

Had a good lecture with Mike and Dave a while back and just thought I'd post up the notes I made during it as I think they are quite useful!

Narrative (complete film, the colour, the editing, the WHOLE film)
Story (or plot, Individual character stories within the Narrative)
Plot (How the individual story is told)
Act (Establish – Complicate – Resolve)
Sequence (Group of 2 to 5 related scenes)
Scene (A complete event – that ‘turns’ a value …Miniature Story)
Beat (An action / reaction within a scene)

Storyboarding – Drawing every beat that is worth while.

Beats build Scenes
Scenes build Sequences
Sequences build acts
Acts build plots
Plots build Story
Story build Narrative



Once upon a time…
Exposition – Introduction to the world and characters. The roles of the world – how the world works. Back story of the world and characters.

There was a…
Exposition - Introduction to the main characters. Central character’s storyline introduced: What they want? (or think they want).

One day…
The Inciting Incident – An event (and with it, a possible later solution upsets the balance in the central character’s life.

But then…
…X happens – Conflict to the central storyline is introduced. (Without conflict there is not story)

So the hero…
Attempts to overcome the conflict – Problems for the central character escalate.

And finally…
The story Resolution / Climax – The central character gets (or sometimes doesn’t get) what they wanted.

The 10 Story Types

1. The Romance (Romeo and Juliet)
2. The Unrecognized Virtue (Cinderella)
3. The Fatal Flaw (Hamlet/Dracula)
4. The Debt that must be Repaid (Buzz – Toy Story 2)
5. The Spider and the Fly (Dangerous Liaisons)
6. The Gift Taken Away (the father in ‘Paris Texas’)
7. The Quest (Luke Skywalker in ‘Star Wars’
8. The Rites of Passage (The boys in ‘Stand by Me’)
9. The Wanderer (Shane in the Western ‘Shane’ – Classic Western)
10. The Character who cannot be put down (Bond, James Bond)


Story Development

Identify the Protagonist –
Who is the central character?
What do they want?
What or who is stopping them? Thus also identifying the Antagonists

Identify the Story Type(s)
Found in the answer to: What the central character wants?
Or from identifying recognizable Story, Beat(s) within your writing.
Research / understand the Beats of that Story Type: the Key moments in the ‘way’ that particular story type is told.

The Problem of Exposition
The balancing act of setting up/ explaining the World, Characters and Stories early in the narrative.

Genre(s) and their Conventions
Identify the genre you are using. Research, use and perhaps break its conventions?
Use of genre helps to set up worlds.

The Inciting Incident
The even that triggers the story – and those points to a particular ending…
…and its ‘Obligatory Scene’

Theme or Controlling Idea
What is your film ‘really’ about?

Idea vs Counter Idea
Explore the opposite or negative side to a chosen controlling idea or thematic statement.
(e.g. ‘Fitting in’ vs ‘Not Fitting in’)

Characterization vs. Character
Or: Who a character appears to be. Vs who they really are.
Revealing who a character really is, or who they have finally become at the end of the story, is the writers, ultimate goal.

True Character (Who they really are)
Is found and revealed through choices made under pressure.
What would they (‘I’) do in X or Y situation?
Developing Character and Developing Story (plot) is the same thing – they are interlinking.

Character is Plot – Plot is Character.

McKee’s Ten Commandments of Writing
From his book ‘Story’
1. Don’t take the climax away. No surprises.
2. 2. Only progress through conflict
3. Dramatize rather than exposition. Convert exposition to ammunition. Use it to turn the ending of a scene, to further conflict.
4. Be instep with the character. You know what he knows and nothing more. Don’t assume that the reader knows something else that the writers do.
5. Respect your audience
6. Research your own world and understand it so that you can put a character in and have authority.
7. Don’t multiply the complications on one level. Use all three, inner conflict, personal conflict, and extra personal conflict.
8. Seek the end of the line. The negotiation of the negotiation taking the farthest reaches and depth of conflict imaginable within the story’s own realm of probability. Find the ending.
9. Don’t write on the nose. Put a subtext under every text.
10. Rewrite.

Protector Version

Ok so we were discussing the idea that the hitman is actually trying to save our target rather than take him out. So... I shall attempt to script this roughly for you guys now... bare with me.

Opening Scene (still needs work) discussed possibly a bike riding by and then we focus on the window where you find the hitman peering through. Opening his suitcase and making himself at home in his abandoned apartment building he begins to assemble his rifle. Once the rifle he positions it poking out the window and begins to look through the scope to focus on the different windows across the road.
Finding the correct room he begins to zoom slightly more in on the target and begins to take aim.
Cutting away from the Hitman we now see our fat slob drinking a can of beer and we hear a wizz and a crack go by. Due to the volume of the tv (maybe some action sequence or football game) he doesn't realise anything at this point.
Cut back to the Sniper where we see him getting slightly agitaged and reloading as quick as he can taking aim and firing a couple more rounds off.
The sniper again looks through the eye piece and begins to look more frantic.
Cutting back to the fat slob (the target) still drinking his booze but this time he goes to take a swig and a bullet hits his can causing it to leak out EVERYWHERE all over him (could be difficult to animate).
Realising he's being targeted he ducks down in his seat then jumps to the window.
Poking his head round the corner more bullets come shooting from the hitmans gun.
From the hitmans perspective we see him really worried now and even more frantic in his reloading and shooting more and more often.

---Optional---Cutting back to the target we see him slide down the wall in dispair and fear. He peers out the window again to see our hitman running across the road with a pistol in his hand still shooting through the window 'at him'.

He smashes through the door/window only to point a gun at the target and let a few rounds off --- or throwing knife---
During this time our target scurrys back and lands on his butt (close up shot of face).
At this point we see his face looking down his body and his hands check his body if he has been hit when on his shoulder falls a hand.
Quick transition where he realises that theres a MASSIVE pile of bodies dressed in black with knives and silenced pistols etc. in the motel room just behind where he was sitting and hes now lying on these corpses.
He jumps up and grabs the hitmans arm in fear...LIKE A BABY.
*beep beep* PDA goes off and the hitman looks down and answers his PDA saying mission success. You've whack'd the final assassin sent to kill him.

Finale - body falls down from ceiling --- I don't think this should be in this position as we'll have to cut from a similar shot showing the bodies and then cut back to it after the PDA section... may need to loose the scene but I like it :( ---


*outtakes during full credits*
Body moves in the pile or someone gets cramp
Beer goes all over the guys face when qued to explode due to bullet coz someone shook it up (hitman) or one of the ninjas walks on going 'I SHOOK IT UP... I SHOOK IT'.
Hitman misses the assassin and hit the target with a rubber plastic knife or trips in the door way as he smashes it down.

Discussions

So Sam and Josh spoke to Double D today around lunch time and he was telling them that he thought the protector idea was the best one and it sounded like we were overcomplicating things and almost trying to make a feature length film with far too much action sequences. It was for this reason we had a re-think YET again. Dave always said we'd need to redraft redraft and redraft. I think we are on our fourth or fifth so thats good. After pursuing the idea of the Hitman protecting the 'slob' I think we've finally got somewhere with this one. Will be added soon. Good contribution by all to come up with this idea.

Everybodies opinion matters. Just because we might NOT use it it might spark off another idea in someone elses brain so keep them coming guys!!!

Character Synopsis 1st Draft

Hitman

Been in the game for a while now but is starting to think its not for him but dammit he'll try his best to get his mark every time. Doesn't give up easily. Keeps in shape for thats what he's go thats going for him rather than intelligence. Brawn over brains - by no means is our hitman a book smart character but spends his time lifting weights down the gym. Doesn't always understand gadgets but knows how to use the tools he DOES have and carries around for the job. Always smartly dressed and does what he think is right in situations. The kind of guy that ends up getting in fights for no reason just because he's too slow to figure out what he's done but due to his sheer size no one really messes with him.
He doesn't really have any friends or family just attends his yearly assassins convention which has a newspaper front. His only friends are those also in the same job as his making him very loanley however he's too stupid to really realize this and therefore just thinks his job as any other job. Not thinking he's doing anything wrong or right and just trying to get by he lives his life and continues taking people out.

by no means the finals but its a thought.

The Mark

This guys bad. Real bad. So bad that you don't even like him. He's been in jail a number of times for various bad doings such as drug dealing (starting off his career in the drug business) then moving up onto imports of the illegal drugs and firearms. From here he secured a gang which he left to take all the cash and one of the young girls for his wife but then she managed to pull the wool over his eyes and double cross him stealing all the cash and everything he had ever worked for leaving him with nothing. Originating from (closest city to where our location is eg Las Vegas etc) he's attempting to return to his old ways and getting back in with the gangsters he originally double crossed the first time around... however he's awaiting their approval before he returns to the city as if he moved in without their knowledge it would cause certain death.

by no means the final but its a thought... again. :p

Idea Generation

Serious Ending -
Bad ideas (eg things that would be seen as WRONG - Child shoots hitman? Hitman kills child by mistake making it have a serious edge. Peado Hitman/bad guy?
Someone we don't know about takes out our hitman unexpectedly-eg pizza boy or random sexxxxy lady. Squirrel in hitman outfit. lol

The guy the Hitman takes out is a cop and you only realize by seeing his badge as he falls to the ground after he's been taken out.

Affection for the target:
Montage like 'Sniper' Sam and I have watched can show time passing. And he literally stalks the lady/man. He goes slightly insane and follows this target and begins to love the chase. Not actually wanting to kill them anymore. Someone else is hired after time to take out both of them. He ends up protecting them in a gun battle?

Just another idea... possibly have a hitman who remembers things about his past eg loved ones dying - have it in a graphic novel style such as in my original film I pitched this would save doing a detailed animation of it and still get the sound across. Possibly putting a serious twist on the film however do we WANT to go for a serious edge... possibly if we want a serious start and then push for the climax of comedy. Would half serious with a build of light hearted comedy into a full comedy work? Still need an ending though.

Good solid ending. A climax. How to end a film? Escape for the Hitman? What if the Hitman is the target and he's the one trying to escape? Need a different opening obviously. Hitman confined to the room. What if we have it all from the targets POV and from his house. You see him setting up the gun and everything for protection but he's the bad guy - just don't realize it.

Ending Idea

different guy... wrong mark. Don't actually see who he is early on. Description of a person called 'Sam' or someone else which works with both sexes (eg alex, jo,George, Robin...etc). Description given along with this name is brown hair, 5,4 slightly overweight with big chest and is checked in the Motel opposite room 'blah'.
Our hitman trying to take out mark throughout film. Messes up a number of times. Final scene. he walks over there kicks ass and a quick show down at the end as OUR assassin takes out this fat guy but he puts up quite a fight with a gun as well... then end of the film... sexy lady walks in ...and stands in the doorway... you see somekind of mark or tattoo on him or his gun to see he's hired as well and they both lie their in agonising PAIN.... ok so I need help with the finale still...but thats the twist.

Other ideas - guy has a twin?
Guys a cop.
Guy is waiting for the assassin and planning to take him out.

Chat with Mike and Dave

We had a good chat with Mike and Dave and they basically tore our idea to shreads. Everything we had been working towards in the last week and a bit they basically commented on being a weak story with a weak ending. This was sort of dismissive in that they didn't seem to want to listen to what we DID have. I understand that they want to push us to do our best and make us think of different ideas that we could use for our work to make people go Ooo but it was quite annoying how they just talked about one group 24/7 as they have a good idea. Understandably, mention them but it really made everyone else feel like their ideas should be binned in that we weren't working on either of the two films mentioned. Nevermind ay. I suppose we as a group should walk away from this and attempt to take away the positives in that there is always time to redraft redraft and redraft and redraft. Bah. Now the group has been told to settle on a solid ending and work backwards. Surely thats not how people do it - not all films have an ending which make people go OOooo its a twist... so I'm just thinking why does ours?

Sorry for the rant but its quite annoying and I really feel down because of it.
Oh well... time to get thinking I suppose....bah

More Concept

Some more quick sketches that I've been doing. Concept work is really important however it takes a long time to get through it all. Deciding as a group what we like about each sketch will take a while however it'll be worth while to have a character all finalized at the end :)

Quick Sketches

As the title reads yeah... I've done a lot of quick sketches in photoshop just to tone up my skills and attempt to draw the character of the Hitman in a few different styles. I have plenty more on paper as well which I'll be adding on here soon.

Remember these...

Was just musing through a few old bookmarks of animation pages that I love... eg PP and Studio Aka... remembering Lost and Found. Would be cool if we could get the style of the street in this piece with the bright scenery with occlusions involved.

Mood Board

Just a few images compiled together to gather a sense of lighting, character and just overall style for our hitman piece.

Research Ideas

Not like this.... we'll be better than that 3D wana-be I hope.
The real deal!