NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Short Film Project (Idea pitch, research and analysis)

For this short film project, first, we were tasked with creating a short film idea and pitching it to the rest of the class, in order to decide on a final movie idea for the class/group to work on.

During this phase of the project I came up with multiple ideas I could use. But first, I gathered inspiration for my ideas by searching for similar short films to my initial ideas and interesting short stories that others had created.

The pieces of inspiration I gathered through secondary research, to help create my ideas, included:

• "Blood Punch" (great low budget horror comedy).

• "The Ritual" (horror movie with Viking connotations).
  

• "Junji Ito" (horror director).

• "The Rake" ("Creepypasta" horror story and monster/character).

• "Poilus" by ISART Digital (WW2 short film).

• "Machina Mortem" by Jan Postema (another WW2 short film).

• "Best Friend" by Gobelins (dark short film about future technology).

• The "Autodale" dystopia series by Dead Sound including episodes such as "Model Citizen", "Don't feed the Freaks" and "Friendly Shadow".

• "TRACE" by Markus Dahlslett (Viking short film).

• "The Rite of Holmgang" (Viking short film).

• "Ragnarok" (Viking short film).

From these points of inspiration, I created a list of short film ideas consisting of different settings and genres. The list of my short film ideas included:

• A Viking battle or short story, such as an ambush, medieval battle in the woodlands or perspective of a Viking village.

• A WW1/WW2 battle or short story, exploring the nature of war and the ruin it brings. For example, by showing the life of a man during peace time, growing up, going to their father's funeral, having a child, then showing the child go to war and the final shot showing the man over their son's grave, with the sentence "In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons." shown above them.
  

• Viking horror film, similar to that of "The Ritual", I came up with the idea that I could use Norse imagery and props with the use of horror elements such as zombies, strange creatures, a cult or Norse monsters such as "Draugr".
  

• A horror film based around the Creepypasta "The Rake", such as a group of campers in the woodlands getting attacked in the night, leading to the creation of the original Creepypasta's iconic image.
  

• Murder mystery horror film, this could take place in a house or abandoned building with the story consisting of a group of rich acquaintances with one of them getting murdered and the remaining people needing to find out who the murderer is, similarly to Sherlock Holmes.
  

Using these ideas as a basis, I made a list of possible locations for filming these ideas with locations such as:

• Filming in a nearby park (may be limited due to Covid19).
  

• Filming inside a public abandoned building or old site (also may be limited due to Covid19).

• Filming inside a house, possibly a public building or teammate's house (again, may be limited due to Covid19).
  

•  Using 2D or 3D animation with a mix of filming or instead of filming (time costly).
  

On top of this, I also gained primary research by asking others what type of short film they would most likely be interested in, this had varying answers with the results I received being:

• A "Horror" short film (23%)

• A short film of a "Dystopia" / "Dystopian" future (21%)

• A "Detective" short film (16%)

• A short film about "War" (17%)

• A "Sci fi" short film (16%)

• And "Other" (7%)

As a result of all these factors, I used them to come to a final decision for my idea of the short film. Therefore, I decided that the best idea I created was the" WW1/WW2 short film about the nature of war and the ruin it brings". However at this point in time, it might be rather difficult to make, as filming it would be greatly restricted due to Covid19 and animating it would be time consuming and costly.

So to rectify this, I decided to use one of the more easier to create ideas, however, I would still present both as potential ideas for the project. The backup idea that I chose was ultimately the "Viking horror short film" idea, as I have many props that could be used in the production and while still being restricted by Covid19, could be filmed in a nearby woodland or park rather than in a more enclosed space, as there would be less restrictions. However, filming would also need to be appropriately done in accordance with Covid19 social distancing regulations, in order to maintain the safety of those involved with the project.

(WARNING: This Project has been DISCONTINUED because this Project was not supposed to be given to Unit)

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Ball (basic animation)

For this small project, we were tasked with animating a bouncing ball and using some of the 12 principles of animation to enhance the appearance and flow of the animation.

For the animation, I had two seperate ideas and decided to create both ideas with different animation methods. My first idea was a stickman picking up the ball and throwing it, while my second idea was a ball rolling to the edge of a obstacle course and falling into it, bouncing to the other side.

For my stickman idea, I decided to fully animate it in after effects using the shape tool to segment parts of the stickman, allowing me to animate the stickman through the use of a moveable character skeleton structure. Despite this, I didn't spend particularly long creating this animation, so the final product was much more clunky and ridged than the other animation.

As for the obstacle course animation, I decided to create it in photoshop, using the frame animation timeline menu setting. For this, I drew different layers for each part of the animation, using the transform tool to move the ball accross the screen, making use of the anticipation and squash and stretch principles of animation, making it look much smoother and making it flow much better.

Overall, I believe that I did well on this small project, though if I could improve this project I would go back and improve the animation on the stickman ball animation, while also using squash and stretch to make the thrown ball appear more believable.