For this project i am going to create my own own brief to work with.This project provides an opportunity for me to explore areas of interest with.
Self Directed Project
i will look at horror themes or topics to base this idea on so that i had a main baseline and topic idea to base the horror around for example ghosts, however i will look into a few different themes and decide on one after doing some research.
Opening title sequences for programmes are becoming more interesting with recent series and can be used as a good point to look at for some inspiration for my piece as they are often teasers and symbolisms for the content of the programme and create intrigue and mystery and in cases of horror films fear and uneasiness. These could useful for me to look at as the title scenes in films are having more and more time and effort put into them and are often in a montage like sequence with is the kind of thing i had in mind for my work.
Some opening sequence title scenes for horror films i found:
Some opening sequence title scenes for horror films i found:
Themes Ideas:
(what to potentially choose to use as a theme for my montage so that i have a more capable area of topic matter to work with).
Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Hungarian: Báthory Erzsébet, Romanian: Elisabeta Bathory, Slovak: Alžbeta Bátoriová ; 7 August 1560 – 21 August 1614) was a serial killer from the Báthory family of nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary. She has been labelled by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female murderer, though the precise number of her victims is debated. Báthory and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1609.The highest number of victims cited during Báthory's trial was 650. However, this number comes from the claim by a serving girl named Susannah that Jakab Szilvássy, Countess Báthory's court official, had seen the figure in one of Báthory's private books. The book was never revealed, and Szilvássy never mentioned it in his testimony.Despite the evidence against Elizabeth, her family's influence kept her from facing trial. She was imprisoned in December 1609 within Csetje Castle, Upper Hungary (now in Slovakia), and held in solitary confinement in a room whose windows were walled up where she remained imprisoned until her death five years later.
The stories of her serial murders and brutality are verified by the testimony of more than 300 witnesses and survivors as well as physical evidence and the presence of horribly mutilated dead, dying and imprisoned girls found at the time of her arrest. Stories which ascribe to her vampire-like tendencies (most famously the tale that she bathed in the blood of virgins to retain her youth) were generally recorded years after her death and are considered unreliable. Her story quickly became part of national folklore, and her infamy persists to this day. She is often compared with Vlad III the Impaler of Wallachia, on whom the fictional Count Dracula is partly based, and has been nicknamed The Blood Countess and Countess Dracula.
Salem witches: focus idea on witch theme and the burning of salem witches.
voodoo:
an ancient religion from Africa that involves the cult of Ancestors, of various animistic spirits, and the use of trances to communicate with such spirits.
The Voodoos believe in the existence of one supreme God, a very abstract, omnipotent yet unknowable force. Below this almighty God, Spirits or Loa rule over the world's affairs in matter of family, love, happiness, justice, health, wealth, work, the harvest or the hunt etc. Offerings are made to the appropriate Loa to ensure success in those areas. Each Loa has its preferred fruits or vegetables, color, number, day of the week, etc. The Loa also manifest through elements of nature such as the wind and rain, lightning and thunder, the river, the ocean, springs and lakes, the sky, the sun, certain animals, trees and stones. Furthermore every element of nature, animal, tree, plant, fruit or vegetable is sacred to a certain Loa or Orisha.
To ensure that the slaves converted to Christianity, the Christians demonized voodoo by associating the religion with black magic and barbaric sacrifices.
In reality, voodoo is a mostly peaceful religion, although it can involve animal sacrifices. However, just like any other religion, there are people who do bad things in the name of voodoo.
In reality, voodoo is a mostly peaceful religion, although it can involve animal sacrifices. However, just like any other religion, there are people who do bad things in the name of voodoo.
In December 1863, Congo Pele of Bizoton, Haiti, asked his sister Jeanne Pele, a voodoo priestess, for help in using voodoo to gain wealth and power. Jeanne agreed to help him. The siblings consulted two other voodoo priests on the best way to achieve their goal, and the priests suggested that they would need to sacrifice a “goat without horns,” otherwise known as a human.
On December 27, Jeanne invited her sister to go to nearby Port-au-Prince for the afternoon. Congo and two other voodoo priests kidnapped Jeanne and Congo’s 12-year-old niece, Claircine, hiding her under an altar until New Year’s Eve. Then they performed an elaborate voodoo ceremony that culminated in Claircine being strangled, flayed, dismembered, and decapitated. With her blood stored in jars, she was also cooked and cannibalized.
A short time later, four women and four men, including Congo and Jeanne, were arrested and charged with the murder. After confessing in open court, they were publicly executed in front of a large crowd on February 13, 1864.
Other potential ideas to explore:
slender man
wherewolves
i found some online examples of animated horror as well to see what aesthetics and techniques are used and how animation can have the horror aesthetic as well as this is also a route i could consider to go down in this project.
Mighty Antlers:
A sinister dear creature is conjured up in the mind of a man during a dramatic car crash. This animation was made by Sune Reinhardt, Mikael Ilnæs, Michael L. Fonsholt and Jouko Keskitalo while at the Animation Workshop.
Untamed:
Sally, an introverted 15 year old girl, lives and bears with her wolf-father in the city of New York where Wolf is slipping more and more into his world of wilderness.
Sally still remembers the man he used to be; a brilliant and talented jazz trumpeter. Where did her father go? And can he still be found somewhere within the Wolf?The use of colours and lighting and sound in this animation have a horror aesthetic and the tension is but towards the end with the wolfs behaviour increasing.
CREDITS
Juliette Viger
Director/Storyboard/Editing/Animation – www.julietteviger.strikingly.com , http://javajuliette.tumblr.com/
Maja-Lisa Kehlet
Art Director/Visual Development/CG Generalist –
https://www.artstation.com/artist/maj...
Tautvydas Kazlauskas
CG Generalist/Visual Development/Production Manager – www.paintedpoly.com
Anna Ewa Nowakowska
Animation Lead/Story Development – www.annanowakowska.com
Andreea Serban-Chira
CG Generalist/Visual Development - www.andreeaserbanchira.comNew York,
Simon Dilling Hansen
CG Generalist/Visual Development - www.simondillingportfolio.tumblr.com
William Mackenzie
Animator – www.brevityarts.wix.com/will-mackenzie
Karina Venneberg Sørensen
Animator – www.vimeo.com/venneberg
Music composed by Pablo Pico
Rot:
A really creepy atmosphere is created in this face painting stop motion animation by Erica Luke. The claustrophobic sound design by Matthew Perryman helps intensify the mood.
This spooky forest has a charming retro feel to it. This brilliant short was created by Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney for super animation studio Trunk.
I came across these two tutorials on youtube hat i thought could come in handy at some point as they are both relevant to the horror genre and i could utilise what they teach in my work in various ways.
Tutorial for old film effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzi2Uvzo6r0
style refference:
Tutorial for dark matter orb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_BWPoaHmiU
Limbo is a puzzle-platform video game developed by independent studio Playdead and released in 2010 july 21st. The game was released in July 2010 as a platform exclusive title on Xbox Live Arcade, and was later re-released as part of a retail game pack along with Trials HD and 'Splosion Man in April 2011. Limbo is a 2D sidescroller, incorporating the physics system Box2D to govern environmental objects and the player character. The player guides an unnamed boy through dangerous environments and traps as he searches for his sister. The developer built the game's puzzles expecting the player to fail before finding the correct solution. Playdead called the style of play "trial and death", and used gruesome imagery for the boy's deaths to steer the player from unworkable solutions. Game footage example:
It is presented in black-and-white tones, using lighting, film grain effects and minimal ambient sounds to create an eerie atmosphere often associated with the horror genre. Journalists praised the dark presentation, describing the work as comparable to film noir and German Expressionism. Based on its aesthetics, reviewers classified Limbo as an example of video games as an art form. Limboreceived positive reviews, but its minimal story polarised critics; some critics found the open-ended work to have deeper meaning that tied well with the game's mechanics, while others believed the lack of significant plot and abrupt ending detracted from the game.
Developers: playdead
Publisher: microsoft game studios (xbox360
Designer: Jeppe Carlsen
Artists: Morten christian, bramsen, stine sorensen
programmer: Thomas Krog
platforms: Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 Microsoft Windows OS X Linux Xbox One PlayStation 4 PlayStation Vita iOS Android Wii U
Horror transition and editing techniques:
KYLE COOPER:
Coming to widespread industry acclaim for his effective title sequence on 1995’s Se7en Kyle Cooper has crafted iconic openings for a whole range of movies, but his horror work is especially worthy of mention. Having produced effectively jarring opening and closing credits for 2004’s Dawn Of The Dead, 2005’s House Of Wax, 2010’s A Nightmare On Elm Street and 2011’s Fright Night among many others, he’s also taken his talent for definitive discomfort to TV, defining the tone of both The Walking Dead and American Horror Story…
Do you have a design philosophy when you approach horror credits?
My philosophy, I think, is the same as for any opening credits. Try to have the idea be born out of the content and try to communicate something, try to involve the audience emotionally. If it’s a horror sequence, you try to get an emotional response whether it’s disturbing, suspenseful, mysterious or dramatic, these things kind of set the tone. I don’t know that I set out to do horror credits, but I always liked horror movies – I’m just more interested in those kind of themes. It seems sometimes the more mainstream or larger budget features, they’re trying to appeal to a broader audience – like comedies and romantic comedies – people get away with things that are less sophisticated in the typography from a design standpoint.
For American Horror Story, Ryan Murphy wanted it to be dark – the subject matter is dark, we talked about dark things. In fact I had a cut that was even more dark, and we took out some of the sounds, some of the sound effects and some of the more darker imagery that the studio thought was a little dark. I think sometimes imagery that is supposed to be shocking doesn’t leave anything to the imagination, and so it’s a challenge to try and make it scary without necessarily making it silly – like a haunted house or something, like a kid’s haunted house with fake blood and all that stuff. It’s not disturbing unless you hold something back, I think.
Silhouette Animation:
I have decided that i would like to try the silhouette animation for this project as i feel that the aesthetics i have started to gather within my sketch book are more appealing to me and would be more of a challenge for me to try and approach with. And as this is the first project before the major project it would be good to try and test myself even if it doesn't turn out well or how i have planned.
The idea for my silhouette animation was inspired my dissertation research in which i was looking at how techniques used within the horror genre can influence the emotions and mind state of the audience. This then made me look into more subtle forms of manipulating the feelings of the viewer for example instead of showing full on gore, the use of suggestive elements and building of tension is also if not more effective at make the audience feel on edge and unsettled.
this is where my idea for a slow passed silhouette animation came from. I decided i want the aesthetic of this to be low on details, as in dark and showy so the audiences mind is left to make up for what can not be seen.
I have decided that the story to follow for this animation will be a boy walking alone through the woods potentially following a creature such as a dear, with unsettling foley sounds of birds and footsteps and wind etc, (trees creaking ). I will then end the animation with the boy climbing into a hole that opens within a tree. I will make this animation using the slide screen format so that its not too complicated for me to animate within the time limit i have for this project, however so i can experiment with animation from other points of view and to add more interest to my animation i will cut to various shots of different angles within the forest following the boy for example from behind or through some branches as though the viewer is looking at the boy from a predatory point of view.
street of crocodile directed by the quay brothers:
This short film animation directed by the quay brothers is a useful resource as inspiration for the atmosphere i might consider creating in my animation with the use of colour and how they have created an uneasy and creepy atmosphere with simplicity a well.
Silsoe Mouse from Upstart Films: a directing duo displaying a voracious apetite for film making and storytelling. Silsoe Mouse comprises a music composer (Pascal Bideau) and a film director (Ben Turner). These "Jack of all trades" bring a viral and creative energy to all the projects they tackle, and enjoy working with comedians, live action as much as creating their own world's and characters using models and CG. Animation & grade to complete this fairytale visual feast was then completed here at The Mill. Little Red is their first animation short.
"Babe's Lair" - Walt & Vervain from Joseph on Vimeo.
After making the storyboards in my sketchbook i then drew out scenes for parts of the animation set design and how i wanted them to look and used these as references for when i cam to create the elements for the scenes.
Easter 2012 from Kilogramme on Vimeo.
I kept referring to real images of creepy forests and of scenes fro the limbo game as style references:
Easter 2012 from Kilogramme on Vimeo.
Starting to make the slide screens:
I mad the majority of the trees in my animation by cutting the shapes out of card and hand making them and then i scanned them into photoshop to change their sizes and colours:
The rest of the elements and backgrounds i made in photoshop using various brushes and shades of black to grey:
I made the elements for my main set design of the animation on different layers so that when i animated them they moved at different speeds depending of their distance from the camera.
This background scene i made will be the slowest moving layer as it is the furthest away element in my animation
I also made more trees that are to be further back than the main make up of the forst to add more density to the forest and these will move slightly quicker than the background layer.
this layer is the main visual aspect of the forest and will move quicker than the previous two layers
This is the closest layer to the camera and will move the quickest i made this layer darker than all the rest as the forest i am making is a misty forest and so this layer is the least hidden by the mist
This is what all the layers look like when put together i have also added a vignette layer that will stay still as the other silkscreen layers move beneath it so that there is a vignette around the animation.
After making my storyboard and still animatics in my book for the athletics of each scene i decided to start building the scene in photoshop:
I made the shapes of the trees using black cut out card and then scanned them into the computer to place in photoshop. I then made the shape for the base of the trees using the brush tool.
For this scene i was inspired by Kilogrammes easter card animation made in 2012 as they used a silhouette style but had depth to the animation by making the rabbit move backwards into the forest environment. This is something i wanted to try in my piece to break it up and add a bit more interest to it.
I made the grass by using the brush tool and the eraser tool and then saving the shape as a png and using it as a stamp almost by adding more and more patches over each other to make it thicker. I also started to make the path the little boy would follow here by using a brush tool again.
I made the further away trees a paler colour to create a sense of depth and make the forest seem a bit misty. I also made the rocks using the brush tool and varied the sizes and staggered them (i also changed the colour of the rocks making the further away rock paler).
I then added a texture i found online to use for the floor to give it a bit more shape.
Making of view of this scene:
finally i added to vignette to create the eery mood for the set and to add darkness. This also filled in the empty edges at the sides of the scene well and make the silhouette feel more suited.
i drew up sketch designed to get a basis for my stag shape and then made the shapes in photoshop:
i also made a head looking back for when the stag looks back at the child.
i used this image as a reference
and i made a head looking forward as the mid frame between the stag looking backwards.
i spliced the shape into sections parting them at the the section that i will use as the joint:
So that i can now move the stag into various shapes:
Reference to limbo gameplay shot:
First Render Unfinished (week week):
I have rendered this animation out so far so that i can see what still needs doing and what needs fixing so that i can improve it more.
To change or consider changing:
. At the start dust particles fall sooner
. in the scene two fix how the stag is walking (legs move strange) And move position
. stag stops walking before clip changes (scene 2)
. boy silhouette starts too late (scene 2)
. add moving water to the water bridge
. first bid enters screen to quickly perhaps
. stag walking at 1:08 is hovering above ground slightly
. 1:50 particles stop and then move extremely quick (make them normal)
. last shot beforee the end the large tree moves slightly after the ground when moving off screen
. put the final text 'The End" in centre of screen (maybe have e as a capital?)
Making of video for my animation:
My Final Making of video:
I made some adjustments to my previous making of video by adding cleaner looking screen recoding footage of me making some of the elements on after effects and photoshop and changing the music as the previous song seemed to not go with the atmosphere of the animation i had made and felt too monotoned to keep the audience interested and had more of a 'ghost film' vibe. The new song i have added unfolded into a more in depth tune slowly (like the making of video does) and had a creepy feel to it relating to the animation style without feeling like a ghost film.
Sound:
This is a scene in terrence malicks film to the wonder which show how the subtle use of foley sounds can add emotion to the footage such as the eaves and the crunching of the grass and the slight sound of the win breeze.
To create an other worldly/ limbo style feel to my piece i was considering adding falling dust articles to my piece similar to how silent hill uses the continuously falling ash in the game and in the film made from the game which adds a feeling of somthing isn't right and other dimension or realm.
This is the final piece with my foley and ambience sounds added:
I thought it would be more effective if the sound used was more subtle and eery than dramatic or with use of music as it creates an other worldly tense atmosphere. I used all the sounds recorded from various forests near where i live along with a recording of a creaking door i gathered for some of the creak sounds and a track i found online for the ambience (the echoing knocks in the background). I was considering add some spoken narrative over the top of this sound track possible to strengthen the overall narrative of the piece especially seen as though i have the 'the end' text at the end i think this could work.
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