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Case Study

Idea of a Pier Short Film Challenge - De La Warr Pavilion

Introduction

Brief:
Make a short film that conjures up your idea of a pier. If your view of a pier a place of adventure, coming of age, romance, dazzling engineering, ghosts of the past, a misspent youth, melancholy, or something else altogether? The selected films will be screened at the De La Warr Pavilion, and a cash prize of £300 will be awarded to the winning entrant.

Context:
At the turn of the last century, almost a hundred piers existed: now only half remain and several faces an uncertain future. Original plans for the De La Warr Pavilion included a pier: a two-level structure that led out to see. Too expensive to pursue, this pier was never made, and only exists in models in the Bexhill Museum, and in the imagination.

Initial Idea

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Story Structure & Storyboard


The First idea I have come up with is a romantic story in which happen in the pier. 
Act 1:
The pier was the place where they first meet. The girl leaves him eventually for some reason.
Act 2 :
The man is trying to get her back so he said to the girl that he will wait for her to get back and promise he will wait for her every Christmas until the pier was built.
Act 3:
Therefore, he goes to the pier every year and hoping the girl will come back to her one day. After a year, he heard the news that the dock wouldn't be built and he realised that he should let it go

 

The Second idea is a comedy
Act 1 :
Seagull try to capture the pier.
Act 2: 
All seagulls went to the pier, pooping everywhere.
Act 3:
People in Brighton attempt to scared them to leave which make them more aggressive. People can't take back control of the pier and accidentally burn down the dock.

The third idea is inspired by a Jazz song "What you won't do for love" performed by Bobby Caldwell. It is about a man can't let go of the past which I think it is very emotional that related to the pier. The most significant moment on the pier is watching the sunset. It is beautiful that I think I could share this moment with someone special.  The pier is a great place to give me a peace of mind and make me reflect what I have done in the past. I listened to the song on the pier and tried to stand on the point of view of the character. I want to produce a blue story that was talking about infatuation deep down in the man's heart, and I think it is very romantic.

Act 1:
A man was standing on the pier and daydreaming.
He opens his jacket and grabs the bottle with a letter in it. Then throw it into the sea.
Act 2:
He looks down to the ocean and see his reflection and bring into the ma throating into the deep sea in his imagination. He thinks of the scene of their first kiss. The woman begins to fade away refer that she is going away.
Act 3:
When he is drowning in the thickest part of the ocean, he sat down on the chair and wrote the letter about what things want to say to the lady he loves. It is the part that reveals where the bottle came. The camera follows the bottle rise up back to the top of the sea. It follows the waves and floats back to the pier. Eventually, it lands on the rock.
The next scene is someone in the present moment pick the bottle up and find the letter.

As the final outcome, there is a slight change in the original idea. When I am building the scene of the animation, I started to think about what kind of thing that held the character, there should be something big and serious has happened to him which make him to write the letter. I think it also the important part that makes sense to the whole story. Therefore, I bring the classical plot of film noir that someone got shot and he gets a mental breakdown.

The Letter to Horizontal is basically an animated story about a man who was going to marry his fiancé but she was killed due to the fact that she was a famous performance in the theater. After she got shot, the man couldn't forget her so he wrote all his thoughts on the letter and store it in the bottle. He throws it into the sea to hope the message will delivery to her in heaven. The Horizontal refers to the idea of heaven. When we are looking at the horizon from the pier, we can see a clear line where we cannot reach. What I mean is the horizon refer to the heaven where people cannot reach unless you died. At the end of the animation, we can see the footage is more realistic and we can hear someone walk on the sand that I want to reveal that his fiancé has successfully received the letter in heaven.

Evaluation

This is my first time on using After Effect to create an animation. Through the project, I have learned how to use the two-node camera and one-node camera to shot the scene, it let me experiment the focus point of the camera and explore the visual effect of the shadow and contrast. What I also learn is to arrange 2D layers in 3d that I found it is similar to using the 3D software once I knew the short keys.

I also learned how to use the puppet tools in after effect that help me bring the character to live. It is quite a struggle when I first start using as I didn't separate the body part and the arm part. As a result, when I try to move the hand, the body part move as well. Apart from that, I gain knowledge on how to use the mesh warp which can create a lifelike movement for the animation.I am pleased with animation to have come out and I think it is fitting to the brief. But I really enjoy the process of learning of after effect and play around with the camera movement.
 
One thing I am slightly worried about is I should change the name to " The letter to Horizon". When I first think of the name of the animation, I think " The letter to Horizontal" is quite engaging but after I have submitted to the De La Warr Pavilion, I realised there is difference between "Horizontal" and " horizon" and my original idea is to deliver the message through the bottle to horizon. I guess people who watch the title will find that confusing. I really hope that I will not make that mistake again.

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