Wednesday, 19. August 2009
Preproduction: Mood Board
Just because animation is such an labour intensive field of work, animators tend to plan as much as possible. As in normal film productions, at first I have an idea which turns into a script which again turns into a storyboard. In best case I'd create an Animatic to check the story's developement and credibility. When I did this to the Orpheus script and storyboard, I found the story sometimes too slow and according to this, I deleted some ...well, 30 frames. This was very helpful and now I found it much clearer. Thanks to Celtx again.
When I did the first character designs I wasn't very happy with them. In fact, I wanted something completely different. But what? I had made this lovely Orpheus puppet and now I don't want to use it anymore. Then I my dear eFriend Shelley, Queen of Halfland reminded me of another helpful tool, the mood board or reference wall. The world is full of helpful tools...
"A mood board is a type of poster design that may consist of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition of the choice of the mood board creator. Designers and others use mood boards to develop their design concepts and to communicate to other members of the design team. The mood board may be used as a frame of reference during the design process in a variety of abstract disciplines.
[…]
In short, mood boards are not limited to visual subjects, but serve as a visual tool to quickly inform others of the overall 'feel' (or 'flow') that a designer is trying to achieve. Creating mood boards in a digital form may be easier and quicker, but physical objects often tend to have a higher impact on people because of the more complete palette of sensations physical mood boards offer, in contrast with the black & white or color-prints of a digital mood board."
Read full article at Wikipedia, this text qoutes the page which was last modified on 2 June 2009 at 01:23.
Normally I collect my references in a small A5 scetchbook. After reading one of her posts and watching the related video I cleaned up my studio and emptied a wall to spread the visual references. I sticked the storyboard to it, too:
It's not as huge as Shelley's is (hers is stunning!) but releasing it from the book liberated my creative energy. Doing so I got a much clearer vision of what colours the different settings should be kept in, for example. And I found out how I would like to design the real world part which has bee an unanswered question so far. I decided that I'd like to combine a graphic look and puppet animation. I'm not sure if this'll work, but I'd like to give it a try.
A book could be hidden and ignored but it's hard to ignore a wall. So hopefully this would rise up the production speed a bit. Aunt Google's scrapbook is very helpful, as always. I also collect my ideas from books and magazines, from nature, from art catalogues and self-taken pictures as well.
There are a lot of different techniques to enlarge inspiration and your creative output, the mood boards are just one way. How do you do your research, from where do you get your inspiration from? I'd love to read your comments!
Comments
Jessica wrote on Thursday, 20. August 2009 at 08:26:
Thank you, Shelley! I hope you're right...
I'm still learning so much from other artists experiences that I'm glad if I could give something back. I love to share!
Our tutor in Bristol mentioned the term last year as an aside and showed some examples then.
I discovered how helpful these collections could be somewhat later.
darkstrider wrote on Friday, 21. August 2009 at 09:13:
Awesome!!!!
I've come to the conclusion recently that I want to do extensive production design before I start making anything. Heh... this is partly because the film I'm working on now has become such a mixed-up mishmash of different design styles that don't work very well together, and I feel like if I had done some drawings beforehand and also tried some experimental building techniques, I could have ended up with a better overall design that would look more cohesive.
A mood board could be very useful in creating a strong production design, to work out ideas for textures and color combinations as well as forms and patterns.
Also... completely unrelated to your post, but another favorite cartoonist to share with you.... have you seen the trailer for Bill Plympton's upcoming feature Idiots and Angels? I wasn't all that taken with a lot of his earlier stuff I've seen, but this looks like a new direction for him, at least to some extent. You can of course find it on YouTube, along with everything else.
I love the simplicity, the powerful design of characters, the very economical use of line and tone, and from what I can see, it looks like the story itself also has a similarly economical design.
Also, a thank you.... I haven't mentioned it, but a comment from you on my blog helped me immensely when I was starting my recent "physical theatre" exercises. You had said (after seeing my SkulkinHDsound clip) that I should hold on a shot for at least a half second before starting movement, especially if it was going to be a very brief shot. I kept that in mind when I did the next one, Skull Love, and in fact I think it was your comment that made me slow down and really start to animate without impatience, which was a big breaktrhough for me.
So thank you!!!
I believe you also made another comment at about the same time that helped me too, but I don't remember right now what that one was....
Jessica wrote on Friday, 21. August 2009 at 11:30:
Hi Mike,
good to have you here!
I'm glad that I was a help to you because I hitherto learned so much from you. And it's good to hear that I'm not only writing uninteresting stuff... ;)
Currently I became a bit obsessed with the Mood Board thing. I did another one for the redesign of this website and it speeded up the design process a lot... Hope to show you the results soon.
Bill Plympton, yes. I definetivly have to look at it more closely though I have seen some stills before. But thanks for the hint!
Seitedodani wrote on Saturday, 23. January 2010 at 20:17:
warm-hearted answers i like it
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Shelley Noble wrote on Wednesday, 19. August 2009 at 19:55:
This is so exciting Jessica!!! I can feel the power of your creativity working from way over here!
This is going to be incredible.
And thank you for the kind words. I didn't even know the collage of reference images was called a Mood Board!!! HA!