After many blank pages of sketchbook and still not much of an idea for the look of Wolf, I've been considering this kind of thing. What if Wolf was from one of these lurid 70's cartoons? The retired superhero is a bit of a cliche so I'm not 100% on that (although it IS worth considering. Short films have a different pace for character development on screen, so the quicker you can get who they are out of the way, the quicker you can get on with taking them somewhere. Basically using cliches can be helpful in shortfilm, think of some PIXAR shorts; Presto, Lifted, blah blah there's probably more)
There's a lot more to this style than simply limited animation.
Things that move on the character are slightly off colour compared to the things that are dead still. This guys head and arms are off colour here because they are the only bits that are animated.
Moving parts can often jump around a bit as well, like someone is moving the camera by accident.
There is a lot of cycling animation, with even the frames being cycled being poorly executed.
Horrendous poses. This screen grab here is not a frame that was skipped over in motion. This is a key frame that was held on screen for some time.
I'm not sure about the age thing though. Obviously these guys are quite a bit older than our old character, but we could just use these kind of designs just on a teenager instead.What do you all think? I can see this guy sitting alone with only a bouncy dog for company...
I think it could work, but I also think you could miss what we're aiming at quite easily too. If we give him a design like these guys, he'd still look fairly decent. I know most of the point comes across in the animation, and you already said that the colours and things don't match up, but I think we'd have to colour Wolf in to make it look like and old cartoon, that kinda grainy look you get when you watch Captain Caveman. Think then maybe it'll be more obvious that he is at least outdated.
ReplyDeletemaybe his apartment can be grainy too...
ReplyDeleteI don't think its that important that people get that he's outdated, as long as they understand that he feels isolated. These may look semi decent in stills but move horribly.
The grain idea is something I've thought about too...would it be contained to his shape or leak out into a small aura?
"I don't think its that important that people get that he's outdated"
ReplyDeleteWhen I say this, I mean it's third step of causality...it's there if audiences want it but it's not necessary that they get it.
WOLF
1)Isolated
CAUSED BY
2)Bad animation
CAUSED BY
3)Being outdated.
I think audiences only need to get the first 2, and the third is there for those who know what to look for.
It's a bit like the Force in Star Wars
1)Jedi's can lift heavy things
BECAUSE OF
2)the force
CAUSED BY
3)Midi-chlorians
Don't really need the third step of causality but it's there if audiences want it.
OR
1)Martians die in War of the Worlds
BECAUSE OF
2)no immunity to bacteria
BECAUSE
3)they eliminated all diseases generations ago.
Number 3 is nice, but not strictly necessary for audiences to get it.
I may be rambling here, so give me a slap if I am