Update

I have changed the aspect ratio of my both my animatic and pre viz as for some reason, my After Effects only had a 1050 x 576 resolution template so I changed it manually to 1024 x 576 to make it 16:9.

I also added the timecode to my animatic through After Effects. I tried to do it with Adobe Premier but it wouldn't show up. My CPU on my windows pc had overheated so I was borrowing a macbook pro and apparently the timecode issue common on a MAC OS. I checked a few threads and read there wasn't really a solution to it.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4026043?tstart=0

Therefore I decided to do it in After Effects.

Part B. Research into the development of a film of my choice.

Research into the development of ‘Finding Nemo’ (2003)

Through my research I learnt that at Pixar, films generally take approximately five years to produce and go through four specific stages; development, preproduction, the making of the film and post production.

The inspiration for this film came to Andrew Stanton, co-writer and co-director of ‘A Bug’s Life’ through a series of events in his own life. He visited Marine World in 1992, which made him think about making an undersea world using CGI. He also enjoyed trips to the dentist because there was a fish tank in the office. It was the relationship with his son that was the final piece of inspiration. Stanton then pitched his idea to his coworker and mentor John Lasseter, an animator film director and Chief Creative Officer at Pixar. Lasseter said he knew right away when Stanton mentioned the words ‘fish’ and ‘underwater’ that it was going to be great.

In “The Making of ‘Finding Nemo’”, Lasseter said ‘I always believe in research. No matter what the subject matter is, you cannot do enough research because so much believability will come out from what’s really there’. During the development stage, the directors, art directors, character designers and others went on numerous field trips to aquariums, museums and diving stints. Lasetter urged the production team to become certified scuba divers as he believed that they all had to experience the under water word first hand.  Ralph Eggleston, production designer explained how one of the biggest decisions they had to make was how much they were to caricature reality. Andrew explained to him that he didn’t want to ‘overly anthropomorphize the characters’. They understood if they put realistic fish in the film, the characters wouldn’t seem appealing, as fish are slimy and scaly. It was imperative the audience would love the characters. Pixar had study sessions in front of a 25-gallon fish tank and a series of lectures from an ichthyologist who was in the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish.  They decided making the fish luminous made them appear more attractive. They resulted in having three types of fish; gummy, velvety and metallic. The main protagonists were Marlin and Nemo who were ‘gummy’ which had a density and warmth to it. Using backlighting and rim lights, they took the focus from their scaly skin. The character Dory, Marlin’s companion, was ‘velvety’ because of the soft texture. The schools of fish were the metallic group and were the typical scaly fish.

Preproduction began in 1997. Andrew wrote the screenplay himself and had a complete screenplay before beginning the story boarding process, which normally didn’t happen. Therefore they assumed the process was going to be more ‘smooth sailing’. However, they realized in reality, when they put the screenplay in storyboard form, a lot of aspects come to light that aren’t as clear as when you read from a printed page. Stanton said that a good portion of the rewrite process doesn’t come from the screenwriter alone but from the storyboarding department. Stanton sat in with the department for around two years. The process was malleable, messy, frustrating and glorious. Bob Patterson, the co-writer said that ‘When it got dark and we didn’t know what to do, Andrew Stanson and I would jump in a car and drive to Los Angeles’.  They would drive for around six hours discussing ideas without distractions. 

By the end, there were 43,536 storyboards drawn.  The editors spent years cutting the storyboards together, honing the story reel, trying to create the best entertaining template for the film. The next step in production was to establish a range of underwater colours to track the characters throughout the film. In the film, the reef is a clear and very light greenish turquoise colour. As the film progresses, it becomes a dark turquoise, then black and blue. When it gets to Sydney harbor, it develops into a greenish murky colour. They then needed to make the fish emote and so they studied how how dogs emote. The subtle movements of a dog’s eyebrows were enough to emote sadness and happiness. They then put enough eyebrow mass in the character designs to capture the nuances of emotion in facial articulation. The hand drawn picture below represents the character's various emotions.

Dylan Brown, supervising animator explained how they had to study the movements of fish. He said underwater, fish travel three feet in the blink of an eye. They watched a video of fish’ movements and slowed it down to figure it out.  Alan Barillaro thought the process was fun and challenging to come up with a range of how the characters would communicate and gesture. Due to there being no gravity underwater, they realized when a character made a gesture, they would drift a little.  The next step was creating clay models of the characters. They would be remodeled until they were perfect. Using the clay models as a reference, the 3D modelers would produce the characters on a computer.  Robin Cooper, art director and responsible for shading scan dead fish to find out how they are responsive to light and further understand their skin texture.

During the voice acting process of bringing the characters to life, the voice actors must give a perfect performance to make the characters more believable.  I learnt that for one of the emotional scenes, the voice actor for Dory shut himself in a room with pictures of people and things in his life that were gone. He said it was a depressing day but it put him in the moment to get appropriate dialogue for the scene.

One of the primary reasons as to why this film was a huge success was due to the level of research and development that was put into the film.  From researching the movements of eyebrows and creating emotion in the characters to studying the lighting under the sea and the transitioning colours throughout ocean. Andrew Stanson was correct in saying that believability is enhanced when extensive research is done. 

The images below show the progression of development. 

Here are a few of the sources from where I based my research;

http://www.pixartalk.com/feature-films/nemo/finding-nemo-production-notes/

http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/the_making_of_finding_nemo

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/family/how-finding-nemo-works1.htm

http://renderman.pixar.com/view/reflections-and-refractions-for-finding-nemo

I also watched 'The Making of Finding Nemo', which I found very informative.

PREVIZ

R&D Previz from Jason Rk on Vimeo.

Hopefully, if I have enough time, I will animate the character's more so that they are not simply still images.

Animatic

FINAL ANIMATIC from Jason Rk on Vimeo.

Script

SCRIPT

Andrew and Daniel have just eaten dinner. 

Andrew: How was the food?

Daniel: It was really good. It's been a few years since I've done anything for Christmas.

Andrew: The last Christmas I spent with someone was in 1971. Anyway, that's a story for a different time. There's something I want to show you over there.  

They get up from their seats. Andrew walks towards a door and unlocks it.

Daniel: In the basement? You're not going to kill me are you haha?

Andrew: Not you.

He leads Daniel to the basement. Daniel looks around on the walls and sees various framed photographs on the walls. They were pictures of Andrew and various blonde haired woman. 

Daniel: Who are all the women in the pictures?

Andrew: They were whores.

They walk into a pitch black room. Andrew turns the light on. There is blonde naked woman, lying on the table, covered in blood. The shot zooms in a little.

Daniel acts calm.

Andrew: Do you recognise her?

Daniel: She's one of the strippers we saw. Is she dead?

Andrew: Yes. I had my fun with her before you came over. I followed her and found out that she had a fiance. I asked her if she'd sleep with me for money and she agreed without hesitation.


Reverse power angle shot of the dead woman on the table.


Daniel: She deserved it. I wish I could have done it. So how many have you punished?


Andrew walks to the other side of the room and opens a door. Inside are shelves of what appear to be random items, from hair brushes to pieces of clothing. Daniel understands that they are trophies. 


Andrew: I have killed many. They are everywhere. We can talk more about that later. How about we go out and find you someone?

Daniel: How about you put your hands up. You are under arrest for the murder of Sasha Connor and a minimum of seven counts of suspected first degree murder.

Andrew appears shocked and angry. Feeling betrayed, he picks up a knife and runs at Daniel.

Daniel: Put the knife down

Andrew: You manipulated me! ARGH!

As Andrew charges with the knife, the camera pans along with his movement. 

Daniel shoots him in the knee and Andrew falls to the floor, dropping the knife. The rest of Daniel's BAU task force burst into the room. 

Andrew: Why didn't you just kill me?

Daniel: You will get the death sentence. The family of your victims deserve to watch you die.

Research 2

My next step was to find locations where I would theoretically shoot the short film at.

Due to being an avid fan; I already understood what some of the words meant.

Locations:

For the shot where Andrew Kaufner is in prison, I looked for ways to create a realistic prison cell. I came across a YouTube video where I am shown how to make one using PVC Pipes. They are generally 8ft tall and about 1/2 inch thick. Using a charcoal black paint, the results look fairly authentic.

Looking for a basement where Andrew Kaufman would kill his victims, I found a place called Murder Mile. They are located near Liverpool Street and are a 'location for hire' studio.

http://www.murdermile.co.uk/facilities.html

Chamber 3 was ideal for my film.

This is a stainless steel mortuary table which I could picture the character of the murdered stripper lying on in one of the final scenes of the film.

For the scene where Andrew opens a walk in wardrobe, I thought this would be suitable.

Inside would be where Andrew kept all of his trophies.

For the murdered stripper at the end, I would have tried to hire a model from Murder Mile.

http://www.murdermile.co.uk/models_amy.html

She fitted the victim type; the model being blonde and dressing provocatively.


I also need a house for where I can shoot the dinner table scene. I went through locations based in London, looking for locations that were fairly small as Andrew's job was just a Security Guard.

http://www.shootfactory.co.uk/apartments/928/tv-video-photo-film-location.html

RESEARCH

To be honest I didn't really have to even look elsewhere for inspiration because for the past 5 years or so I have always watched tv shows and films that are in the crime genre. When coming up with my idea and the moodboard, from the top of my head I knew to reference films and TV shows like Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Flashpoint, Dexter and many more. My story came to me rather quick. It was just a matter of rewriting it until it made more sense.

My main inspiration to produce a story about a serial killer came from a TV show I watch known as, Criminal Minds. The show revolves around government agents catching murderers. I thought I should research both fiction and non-fiction serial killers.

http://www.criminalmindsfanwiki.com/page/The+ABC+of+Serial+Killers

I briefly read through the traits of the serial killers and their stories.

From this page I recognised a real serial killer known as Ted Bundy. He was one of the most prolific serial killers in US history. He was executed for 30 homicides. Prior to being executed he gave up information on 50 women he had murdered.

http://crime.about.com/od/serial/p/tedbundy2.htm

I wanted to find out what one of his early triggers were and I learnt that in his teenage years his girlfriend broke up with him because 'he lacked any real future and was not husband material'. This became an obsession and from then he started murdering women. I decided to base my character, Andrew Kaufner off this serial killer. He would have hate for women because his girlfriend had broken up with him. She cheated on him and became a stripper which was the trigger for him to label all strippers as whores.

I wanted to find out the age limit for people to visit Gentleman's clubs aka Strip Clubs. I searched google for relevant information from the 1980s. I found only one article that helped me.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-23/local/me-330_1_strip-club-owner

I learnt that 'Patrons need only be 18 to enter' and the clubs 'enforce a 21-year-old- age limit' to be served liquor. I needed to know this information so that my character's age would be above 18 when he started killing strippers. He would need to get into the strip club to choose his victim.

I also decided to make his killing spree period occur during the 1970s as DNA testing hadn't been admissible in court.

I learnt this information from a website that presented the history of DNA.

http://www.prophase-genetics.com/history_dna_paternity.html

I also needed to learn some terminology that would be commonly heard in cases relating to serial killers. I knew to look for the TV Show 'Criminal Minds' glossary page as this talked about words that were used in the show.

http://www.criminalmindsfanwiki.com/page/Criminal+Minds+Glossary 

Key words that I would be using were:

Trophy – A personal item taken from a victim and kept by the offender in order to be used as a memory aid for the offender to relive the crime.

UNSUB – (Unknown Subject) The term used by Profilers in lieu of a suspect’s name.

Sociopath – A person with behavior identical/similar to a psychopath, but the personality was forged by social forces and environment during the maturing process.

Illustrative Pieces

Concept drawing of Andrew Kaufman (The serial killer)

Concept drawing of Daniel Hodge (The undercover cop)

Concept drawing of one of the BAU task force infront of the basement stairs

Contrasting Mood Board

Photo Montage

Mood Board

First mood board attempt

I didn't want the viewer to associate my idea with the actors in my mood board so I decided to produce another mood board that would convey more emotion. 

Treatment

I have decided to go forth with my second idea. Below are both minimal and extended treatments.

America's Stripper Killer: The Life of Andrew Kaufman

Minimal treatment:

Explore the Cimmerian shade of a sociopath.

Extended treatment:
Watching the live video feed and sympathising with the cleaner, he yearns for another to also remove their metaphorical leash of humanity. 

Perception is in the eye of the beholder.

MY SECOND AND FINAL IDEA

The Stripper Killer: The Life of Andrew Kaufman (A Short Film)

Andrew Kaufman, a surveillance officer of a supermarket is a serial killer. He has murdered seven women in different states between 1972-1979. His victims were all in their early 20s, had blonde hair and were exotic dancers. His pattern is to kill one woman every year on Christmas Day.

During the month of September 1980, Andrew, a 29-year-old security officer watches the surveillance camera day after day and watches the cleaner leading a miserable life. Unbeknownst to Andrew, the cleaner is actually an undercover FBI agent, Daniel Hodge who works for the Behavioural Analysis  Unit (BAU). Andrew will kill again in three months. Daniel's task is to befriend the serial killer and catch him in his next murderous act. They talk briefly every day at the end of their work shifts for around four months. Andrew sees hints of himself within Daniel and so he chooses to socialise with him. Daniel takes him to a strip club where he gets intoxicated and talks about his previous relationship with his girlfriend and how she betrayed him by cheating on him with a richer man. He makes a few remarks about how he wishes he could kill her but she has left the country with the other man. Whilst staring at the blonde stripper on the stage he say that all whores deserve to die. Andrew believes that Daniel could be his prodigy. Daniel explains he has no family to spend Christmas with. Andrew also has no family or friends and feels that Daniel is similar to him. Andrew invites the Daniel over for Christmas dinner. After dinner, Andrew leads Daryl to the basement saying he has a present for him. In the room there is a stainless steel table with the naked blonde stripper tied to it. She is covered in blood. They exchange words whilst other members from the BAU task force are outside the house listening to what is happening through a hidden mic and burst in to take him down. The serial killer is told he will be facing a death sentence. The killer claims that he has killed other people than they are aware of and makes a deal to spend life in prison instead of being killed if he reveals one name and the location of a victim every two years, to Daniel every Christmas.

The film ends with the Daniel, now retired, being 32 years later leaving his family on Christmas Day to go to prison. He sits infront of Andrew and receives the name and location of the "Stripper Killer's" 16th victim. 

First Idea

A college student (Tom) rings his friend (Dick) up explaining that his car has broken down and he needs a lift. Dick comes to help and finds out that Tom had stabbed and killed a gang member and he needed help to hide the body. Dick is terrified as the gang member was part of a dangerous group. They then quarrel in the car park.  Tom sits in the car and tells him to get in. Dick sees his girlfriend with her friends and tells Tom he'll be back in a minute. Dick goes to his girlfriend to seek advice but she first goes to the toilet. One of the girls say that she had been cheating on him with Tom.

Dick's anger overwhelms him. He goes to the car and doesn't mention anything. He drives to a forest to bury the body where he confronts his friend. As they are burying the body they start to fight and Dick hits Tom in the head and Tom instantly dies. Even though he did not mean to kill him, he is now dead and panics. He then plants the shovel in the gang member's hand and the knife in Tom's hand.

First Thoughts

I had my first lesson this week. I was made aware of the brief and exactly what needed to be done. I understood that for this module I was to create a concept and was to tackle the pre production aspects of film.

I will start to think of a few ideas for my film concept. I am not great at drawing things like story boards, so I hope I can get my point across. I am also unfamiliar with Maya so it will be interesting to learn more using this software.