Random Thoughts On Art and Commerce #2A

This is an interesting video of Crispin Freeman's Q & A at the Toronto AnimeCON. He talks about sophisticated storytelling in animation.

Random Thoughts On Art and Commerce #2

I'd like to get a conversation started. This is about Art, not Commerce.

What is it about our culture that relegates 2D hand drawn animation to being a storytelling medium for telling candy-coated frivolous subject matter suitable only for children?

Whatever the reason, I suggest that a way to begin changing that attitude is by creating short personal animation pieces containing more serious topics aimed at children in an entertaining manner. These pieces can be shown on the internet. This would be planting seeds that can bear fruit as children mature and come to accept 2D hand drawn animation as a means of expressing themselves as much as using live action video, film, writing, etc.

Anyone with another suggestion?

Thoughts On Script Writing For Animation #2

As I promised in a previous post, today I will start focusing on sections of these two script pages, explaining why I chose to write what I did.

Again, for visual design, think of the Dick Tracy world of 1943, with all the caricatured images that suggestion creates in your mind.

 

Scene 1

FADE IN:

EXTERIOR. LONELY 2-LANE COUNTRY ROAD WINDING ITS WAY THROUGH THE DENSELY FORESTED HILLS JUST OUTSIDE OF NEWPORT, KENTUCKY. -- SEPTEMBER 10, 1943 -- NIGHT

(This establishes location and time our story takes place.)

CRICKETS CHIRP and BULL FROGS CROAK. We travel past thick brush and trees. No sign of human life.

(Sound establishes the feeling of solitude and isolation in a non-urban area.)

The CHIRPS and CROAKS blend into a pulsating, RHYTHMIC, JUNGLE BEAT...

(Starts a transition that signals we are heading into unusual territory.)

...and after a few bars become a fully orchestrated BIG BAND SOUND.

(Finishes the transition into the foreshadowing of a surprise: Urban Energy in a Country Setting.)

 The road takes a turn and we find ourselves in a clearing outside a 3-story stucco building lit up in neon. The building has a white dome, bright against the star-filled midnight sky. THE OASIS SUPPER CLUB in pink neon script and a neon palm tree complete the signage.

(Completes the surprise. Audience should be wondering "What's this doing here?")

The parking lot is filled with Cadillacs, Packards, and Lincolns.

(Compounds the surprise with the promise of High-Rollers frequenting this place.)

Before I go any further, let me say at this point that the story is based on historical events and characters. So, even though I combined fictional and historical characters, I have not exaggerated the primary historical setting and story elements. (http://www.cathiejohn.com/jp2.html)

More in my next posting.

Practice, Practice, Practice

To keep my fingers limber, every now and then I animate a short pencil test scene of action. For me, it's like a pianist doing finger exercises. Here's one of our studio's characters Hank the Spider Monkey sliding into the scene, spinning around into a "magic fingers" pose. I liked it enough to take it color.

I enjoy the more cartoony style of animation.

                                                              copyright Grace Animation Studios, LLC

Thoughts On Script Writing For Animation #1

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but when it comes to animation it may take a thousand individual pictures to show what a few words in a script describe. For example: "The two armies of angels clash outside the Gates of Heaven."

For me, an animation script is the beginning of the storytelling process. Using words is the quickest way to download the story ideas from one's mind. It's also the quickest way to organize and develop all the elements necessary to show the story on the screen. Note, I say SHOW not TELL.


The writer should be locking down the characters' motivations, their goals, the plot twists and resolution to the story. Dialogue should be kept to a minimum, being used only to reveal what can't be shown on the screen.


In the script, the writer should be thinking visually, and not be in love with his/her words. Yes, there is a place for "snappy dialogue" between  characters, but not when it stops the story dead in its tracks.


As much as possible, each word of an animation script should be an aid to the story artist who is interpreting those words. The script should be the solid foundation upon which all the film's artists, musicians, and technicians can build their performances and add sparkle to the finished piece.


To illustrate my point, the following two script pages describe an opening sequence. These pages are taken from my screen adaptation of "Little Mexico", one of a series of noir crime fiction novels I co-authored and published with my wife Cathie under the name Cathie John.


For visual design, think of the Dick Tracy world of 1943, with all the caricatured images that suggestion creates in your mind.


"Little Mexico" was nominated for Best Paperback Original Novel in 2001.


In future posts, I will focus on sections of these two script pages, explaining why I chose to write what I did.

 

 

(This content is copyrighted, John Celestri)

Random Thoughts on Animating

I'm a self-taught artist. I've always drawn, but never had a formal art education. I spent my college years as someone searching: majoring in Math, Science, Communication Arts.

I finally found my passion in animation by accident when I was in my early-to-mid 20s. This was circa 1973. At that time, there weren't many schools that taught animation, but as I grew up in New York City, I found that the School of Visual Arts had a 6 week-long night time Summer Program. I took to animation like a duck to water. (It was also at that time that I met a very young Tom Sito...but that's a whole story in itself ;-))

Anyway, the point I'd like to make is that I learned to draw by feeling my way around a piece of paper with my pencil. To this day, I can't draw something if I can't feel it from within myself. That's why I enjoy animating emotions and action.

I draw my pictures by understanding the forces within the form I'm trying to capture, versus placing elements of the body on the page for a pleasing pose. I find that no matter what I draw, I need a running start to hit that pose---feeling where that pose is in the sequence of action. For me, a pose with the feeling of life in it is always coming from somewhere and going somewhere else. Even if a pose is at rest, it got there after it had gone through a movement of some kind.

If not, then it's a dead body that has been moved to that spot by "persons unknown".

                                               Quadhole (Rock & Rule, 1981)

Random Thoughts On Art And Commerce #1

As long as animation is treated purely as a manufactured product, the art of animation will never develop past what it has been in the past.

However, I recognize the need to make money with the sale of an animated project. Budgets are always a problem, but for the most part, the money is usually spent in the wrong areas. To me, the most important areas are story, design, and the planning of key animation scenes.

There is never a reason to pay outlandish salaries for "famous" voices. The voices of famous actors don't carry an animated film, which should be unfolding its story pictorially. Actors with solid deliveries will do perfectly well.

I'm not against voices with unique qualities...I'm against paying 30% of the film's budget to hire that voice.