Rationale

In my research of "Ring O Rosies" I discovered the main belief of what the rhyme was referring to. The most popular theory I found was The Plague theory. This interpretation was a very dark one and it interested me a lot. However I cannot decide whether or not to believe this theory of the rhyme because after researching into it as both arguments had fair points.

I wanted my own interpretation of the rhyme to be modern and I did this by addressing a very big problem of today: bullying. I wanted people to get a "shock factor" from my story and to realize that it is a very harsh reality of what bullying can achieve. I want the audience to think twice about their actions.

I chose a very influenced Tim Burton style for my characters and along with it a very messy, scrawled, textured style to the animation as a whole. I want to communicate visually the moods and ideas behind my chosen theme and I feel these dark (lack of colour) and messy styles portray this just so. 

I chose my fonts to be creepy and quite informal. I want to get the viewer on a personal level with the main character of the story. The title seems as if it has been written in blood which relates to the theme of death -"we all fall down." The rest of the text however Is very thin lined ad looks as if it is written by a child. I wanted this is link with the style of my imagery within the animation.

The music is in Korean so the lyrics wouldn't distract from the viewer. I chose a very raw, emotional song with soft female vocals. I researched the lyrics and discovered that they were about feeling alone all the time and how crying for them has become their default setting. The fade out at end of the piece suits the theme, style and animation perfectly. It is very slow and has no instruments, so the audience solely focuses on the emotion of the singers voice and what is happening in the animation. 

Final Animation

Theme Ideas and Changes from the Start

Originally the theme I took from Ring o Rosies was that someone has something to hide, it gets discovered and everything doesn't end well -"we all fall down." 

However when I discussed my storyboards with Claire we changed my story around a bit. My story was a girl is getting bullied at school, she tried to hide it from her mother, her mother discovers her diary and then her body. This then changed a girl getting bullied and tormented by her bullies (represented as shadow monsters) then she takes her own life because she cannot take anymore. This still relates strongly to the Nursery Rhyme, mainly to the last line "we all fall down." because no matter what happened to her the girl would still be unhappy with whatever outcome. 

Extra Notes:
Symbolism and Meaning in my Animation:

• The flickering Text: Shows the girls uncertainty. Symbolizes the girls hope fading. 
• Grungy Textures: The girl trying to claw her way out. The scratchy textures represent her past self harm
• The Shadow Monsters: A metaphor for her bullies. Are represented as shadows because shadows cannot go away without light. Shadows are always there.
• Girl fading away as the Monster gets her:The bullies are always attacking her, when she disappears its like no one can see she is getting bullied or they choose to ignore it 
• The Circling of the Monsters: This was originally going to be clear that it was monsters circling her, but I felt the fast motion and not being able to see them clearly, represents the girls confusion on how she feels: like she is going in circles and is confused. Birdseye view to show her vulnerability 
• Isolated shot of the Girl: Obviously to show she feels alone
• Close up of her eyes:  A strong shot to feel her emotions instantly, raw, a very personal shot, we feel what she is feeling
• Panning down her face: Following her eyes down at the same speed soon to reveal the rope she is holding  in the next shot
• Holding the Rope: Thinking about ending her life
• The Circling of the Monsters (again): A flashback shot to reinforce her pain and how often she gets tormented by her bullies

• Music: In another language not to distract from the words on screen and the animation, a soft, pleading woman's voice -as if the girl is singing this, slow, emotional, a build up at the start, once translated to English it says that sadness is the only feeling they feel now
• Colour Palate: Dominantly black and white with a subtle blue in her tears, this was the only thing I wanted to highlight and colour did this perfectly, black represents death, darkness, evil, grief: The Monsters, White represents purity, innocence: The Girl. 
• Text: Font: Title looks as if written in blood -representing death, Thin & scrawled text looks as if written by a little girl, looks like a font used for a suicide letter
  Words: "We all fall down" -enforcing the theme that everyone falls, never could have been a happy ending
  Animation of Text: The flickering of the text idea was inspired from my research of animated text a while back, I feel it suits the animation style and story, shows the girls uncertainty, symbolizes the girls hope flickering out (fading away) 
• Style of Characters: I was originally going to try and combine the two styles I researched (the cutesy almost anime style and the Tim Burton style) but I felt It would work better with just one style. The Tim Burton style suits the theme and story a lot more I think. 

Final Font

I narrowed it down to three fonts I think will suit the animation the most.

I think I will go for the third on because it is a messy font and is thin lined, like my illustrations. It has a creepy feel to it as well. Perfect for my animation! 

Draft Animation

This is my animation draft. I need to fix some timing, transitions and other issues in it but I like the way it is going so far. I haven't put any text in there yet because I am still deciding on the fonts. 

Trying out the Puppet Tool in After Effects

I played around with the puppet tool in After Effects and came up with this. Its not great, I was just experimenting and teaching myself this awesome tool.

First Try:
Its a shadow monster opening and closing his mouth and moving his arm at the same time. I need to put the expansion up on this particular image. It was on 10. 




Second Try:
I tried it out with changing the scaling, rotation and position of the image. I find this one hilarious because his mouth is awfully animated. I think I needed to animate his mouth first then play around with his positioning etc. 



Third Try:
Again with scaling, rotation and position of the image. This time I used the puppet tool on the teeth first to give a less munted effect.



Fourth Try:
I decided to add wind and make the girls hair move. It's a first try but I like the idea.

Audio Editing in Garageband

Testing Garageband. I haven't used it before but I am slowly getting the hang of it. The video below doesn't have any visuals by the way... 

Final Backgrounds

Birdseye view, when the monsters close in on the girl

Birdseye view, when the girl looks at the rope in her hands

Isolated quick shot of the girl

Starting shot, longer to pan across showing the hanging feet

Subtly textured background for the text

New Storyboard: Final Storyboard

Animatic Story Reel Edited

Claire and I talked over my animatic and I made changes to it, we had discussed. We thought it would be more effective to take out the part of the hanging girl from the monster because it tell rather than shows the story.

The first animatic:


Second animatic:

I feel I also improved the timing with the music in the second animatic also. 

Made Imagery

I made all of my imagery on photoshop drawing with my tablet. I really wanted to achieve that sketchy, messy style that Tim Burton successfully portrays really well. 

Close up: Before I added tears

With tears added (subtle colours to not distract) 

Full body

Hanging feet

Girl looking up: Transition

Bird eyes view of Girl 

Holding the noose

The grey of the Shadow monster has its opacity down to give a shadow effect

Closing in Monster

Chosen Song Meaning

When I finalized my idea for this project I knew what music I wanted to have in it. I knew this song would be perfect because it is such an emotional and raw song. I knew it was about sadness and being alone when I heard it (even though the lyrics are in Korean). I researched up the lyrics today for it and it means so much more now. It relates so much more than I thought to my story I want to portray.

I wanted the last chorus to play during my animation. Chorus lyrics:
"Now I cry without tears
Just like breathing, I cry again
The sadness that became a home
Though I try to take a step out, I cry at the doorstep
Without knowing, I cry"

(Go to 3.40 for that cut I'm using for my animation)


I am immensely happy with my song choice and how the lyrics fit my ideas perfectly.

Font Influence

I'm not sure if I'll create my own font yet or use a readymade one. These are a few fonts I think will suit my animation style and story. These are from dafont.com. (Each font is spelt in its name. Hence the random phrases.)

 The fonts I really like are Nightbird, Oh No, Oh Shit, I Still Know and Lakeshore Drive. I don't want my text to be in capitals so I hope that the fonts Nightbird, Oh Shit, I still know and Lakeshore Drive have lowercase letters available.

I wasn't planning on animating my text because it would just appear with the plain background or just fade up. However I found this example and I think it could look quite cool with my animation if it was done at a slower pace and with a simple, scary font I have chosen. 
 
The second example could also work if my text went from a faded red to whatever coloured text I want to end with.
The third video I like the flickering of the text. It is simple but really effective and could go really well with my animation. 
Fourth Video: Another example of the flickering effect. I think I will go with this idea because the smoother animated fonts won't go too well with my theme or style of animation. The flickering will look very effective and not distracting from the animation also.

Final Style: Flickering Animated Text. 

Elements I'll need to Create

Backgrounds:

• Grungy wall with floorboards, longer format for sideways panning
• Birdseye view background of floorboards (for when monsters close rotate and close in on the girl)
• Black background for all text with subtle texture
• Same background as the start but high enough resolution to zoom back from (hanging girl with monster shot)

Drawn up Characters:

• Girl looking down
• Monsters shadow creeping up
• Monsters shadow grabbing the girl
• Hanging feet
• Birdseye view of monsters (all on separate layers)
• Birdseye view of girl
• Text: Ring o Rosie
• Full body shot of girl
• Extreme close up of girls face (separate layers for tears, separate layers for tears)
• Hand holding noose (birdseye view)
• Girl hanging by monster (hanging girl, shadow monster holding rope, rope)
• Text: We all fall down

Animatic Story Reel

This took me way longer than I expected... I also added the music I wanted and it fits perfectly. I am worried that 49 seconds is too long though.

Colour Palettes

I was thinking of having my animation in black and white but I was considering having a little dull colour in there too.
I found these samples that I quite like. 

The red next to the black is way too bright. I want to have subtle colour -If I do have colour at all.

More animation Inspriation

Emotional Eyes:

In the anime Attack on Titan, I really like how when the characters get upset or emotional how their eyes shake and how their tears form. I want to achieve this in my animation also. 

(Episode one contains spoilers in this video...) Go to 1.45, 2.03, 3.20 for emotional eyes. 

Storyboard changes

Feedback from my tutor Claire 

After Claire and I discussed my two storyboards we decided to rearrange and add some things to the second one.

I had a feeling that not showing the full main character was not a good idea so we added an establishing shot of her so we can see how much of a beaten down and sad character she is  (through her clothing and body language). 

New Storyboard:

Backgrounds

I would have drawn up background on paper but with my storyboards I felt like I didn't really have anything to draw. All my backgrounds I want to be quite simple but full of grungy textures and darkness. I originally wanted to achieve this by overlaying images from Google to create new ones but I feel like that might be a bit too close to the whole copyright thing. 

I created these backgrounds with Photoshop brushes and the last few with an image from Google and brushes overlaying them. 

Version 1: Darker 

Version 2: Lighter

The peeling on the left I think is too big in comparison to the size of the character will be

Version 1: Google image with Photoshop brushes overlayed

Version 2: More textures overlayed 

I created these images slightly longer than usual video dimensions because I wanted to pan across them without having to zoom into the images. These are just mock up backgrounds.

Storyboards

I didn't use the mother character too much or most of the monster characters - I used the shadow monsters mainly as the bullies.

Storyboard 1

In the second storyboard I didn't use the mother character at all. I think having more characters distracts from the story and also the visuals so I might cut her out all together.

Final Characters: Profile and Front Views

Girl (Bullied character):

The Mother: 

I wanted the mother to remain unknown. I wanted her to be seen as materialistic but stern. I felt like the outfit and her thin frame communicate this idea.

The Monster Bullies: 

Character Development

The Bully:
I experimented with angry faces and poses but found it hard to make them look childish and basically not weird. 

I thought of having the bullies portrayed at monsters and shadows rather than human children. This will add a great visual effect and make the bullying seem more scary to the viewer.

Main girl (bullied character):

I thought I had sorted this character out quite quickly but I felt like she needed more work. She also looked too much like a character already made by Tim Burton. 

I experimented further with the character face shape.

Excuse her lack of hair. I wanted to see what hair style would suit her...

I played around with hairstyles. Influenced by typical children's hairstyles. 

Could I portray my story without humans?

Character Style Influence

Cutesy Style:

• Looks like its been drawn quickly on a tablet
• Little or no mouths
• Big eyes
• Eyes are one solid colour
• Big heads in comparison to body
• Scribbles on their cheeks to show their emotion
• Not in detail (no fingers)

Tim Burton / Tim Burton influenced Style: 

• Big eyes with little pupils - Always wide open
• Eyes have dark around them
• Huge heads
• Skinny necks
• Skinny arms and legs (like sticks)
• Little feet
• Little or wide mouths
• Very rarely smiling
• Bigger shoulders with little waists

I feel like these styles are really similar in some ways and I think they could easily merge together for a video. These styles (Tim Burtons style especially) would go really well with the theme of my rhyme and also the styles of medium I like too. 

Deciding on the final Narrative

I had a few ideas to chose from so I tried to narrow them down by looking at their pros and cons. I compared them against each other. 

More brainstorming

Taking from some original ideas:
Original ideas to draw more ideas from: 

• A man has a girlfriend, a lot of men try to hit on her, the boyfriend gets jealous, he breaks up with her, they are both unhappy (we all fall down)
• A successful business is going bankrupt, they try to hide it from their employees and business partners but go into liquidation, everyone loses their jobs and the business partners are owed money they cannot get back

The new general idea: Something bad is happening, a person tries to conceal it, but it becomes known and out anyway

• Something bad is happening, a person tries to conceal it, but it becomes known and out anyway
• A girl is getting bullied at school, she tries to hide it from her mother, her mother finds her diary about her bullying
• A girl loses her virginity at a party, she doesn't want anyone to find out, the boy she lost it to tells everyone, she gets labeled a slut
• A boy is cheating on his girlfriend, he tries to conceal it, the girlfriend discovers his texts to the other girl
• A student fails his exams/or didn't get into university, his parents are strict about good grades so he doesn't tell them about it, they discover it when they open his mail saying he failed/didn't get into university
• A man murders someone, they try to get away with it, the police figure out it was him, the police catch him and he is broadcast on the news
• A boy is gay, he writes his feelings in his diary about it, doesn't want anyone to find out, his mother discovers his diary confessing it
• A young girl finds out she is pregnant, doesn't know what to do about it yet but still wants to keep it a secret, her boyfriend/parents find her pregnancy test in the bin 

Chosen Nursery Rhyme

Indepth Research

Ring o Rosie

Ring-a-ring o' roses,

A pocket full of posies,

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down

Initial observations:

• "A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down" - Death, plague
• Skipping
• Sounds happy but also sounds dark too
• Roses, the name Rose
• Tissues
• When singing as a child, skipping and falling over, I think of laughter, games and friends
• Children
• Garden and flowers
• Confusion - I don't know what "posies" are

Secondary Observations:

"We all fall down" - fun with friends - playing, joy, dying/death - factual, sad, no more

Skipping - fast - tiring, fun - bonding, brings people together, friendly

Roses - fertile - wild, romance - together

Tissues - sick - unwell, disease, spreading sickness

Children - innocence, inexperienced, honesty

Garden - fertile, growth, ordered

Posies - My confusion because I don't know what posies are

Idea Stage 1: 

The plague: I have heard before that this nursery rhyme is about the plague, so I could play around with that idea or alter it slightly to make it about another disease or about death in general - that everyone will eventually die "we all fall down."

The children's song: Children skipping to the rhyme - it could end happily with the children laughing etc or have a dark twist and mix with the death idea and when they fall, they die also

The Proposal: A girl on a date with her boyfriend (spinning around links to the spinning and skipping of the children's reaction to the rhyme), boyfriend pulls out wedding ring and proposes, the new fiance walks away on the phone talking about the proposal, gets hit by a car or collapses    

Research the Rhyme: 

• The first printing of the rhyme was in Kate Greenaway's 1881 edition of Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes:

Ring-a-ring-a-roses,

A pocket full of posies;

Ashes! Ashes!

We all fall down

• The rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the Black Death in England. Interpreters of the rhyme before the Second World War make no mention of this
• "The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English versions have given would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the rhyme dates back to the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and "all fall down" was exactly what happened."
• The line Ashes, Ashes in colonial versions of the rhyme is claimed to refer variously to cremation of the bodies, the burning of victims' houses, or blackening of their skin, and the theory has been adapted to be applied to other versions of the rhyme. In its various forms, the interpretation has entered into popular culture and has been used elsewhere to make oblique reference to the plague
• The Plague was not selective in its victims; both rich and poor, young and old, succumbed - this gives me the idea that anyone can be affected/unhappy no matter what your upbringing or privileges 

Idea Stage 2:

• Flashbacks of a happy couple in photographs, pictures slowly morph into hospital visits, she dies  (could show this with the man visiting her grave), the man then either commits suicide or goes into a deep depression and shuts everyone out
• A man has a girlfriend, a lot of men try to hit on her, the boyfriend gets jealous, he breaks up with her, they are both unhappy (we all fall down)
• "Ashes! Ashes!" -somehow incorporate fire/smoke into the story. (American version says "Ashes! Ashes!" instead of "A-tishoo! A-tishoo!". I wouldn't change the version I am working  on but I think it would be interesting to include it somehow. 
• A family who is happy with life somehow gets caught up in a fire
• A successful business is going bankrupt, they try to hide it from their employees and business partners but go into liquidation, everyone loses their jobs and the business partners are owed money they cannot get back

Research around the Rhyme:
Common Themes: Death, negativity, sickness, everyone in the end isn't happy, everyone can be affected/unhappy, concealment 
Linking to current events/ trends in media/ education/ entertainment: 

• MH370 Malaysia Airlines missing airplane with 2 Malaysian crew members and 227 passengers from 15 nations. Went missing on the 8th March 2014.
• MH17 Malaysia Airlines crash over the Ukraine: Killing 298 people on board, a lot of different ages and nationalities on board. The two sides in Ukraine's ongoing conflict (the Ukrainian government and the pro-Russian separatists) accused each other of shooting down the plane while denying their own responsibility. Crashed on the 17th July 2014. 
• GE222 Taiwan's Airlines crash while trying to flight in stormy weather. Kills 47 people and destroying houses below.

How others have interpretative the Rhyme: 
From researching again I couldn't find any other ways people had interpreted the rhyme. The only examples I had seen was the Plague theme and also the positive children's nursery rhyme (children skipping and singing)

Style Reseach:

• Dark
• Silhouettes
• Foggy
• Maybe black and white/ limited colour
• Stop motion look alike (jittery movements)
• Layers
• Sketchy
• Textured

How will I create my imagery:
I am not fully decided yet but I am thinking of:

• Drawing on paper and scanning
• Drawing on Photoshop
• Maybe use Illustrator for a vector influence
• Found imagery that I have altered to make my own (maybe redrawn them or produced my own version of them)
• Most likely a mix of styles to give an informal, messy effect

Text and Font:

I want my text to be subtle so I don't think I will animate it in anyway -however I am open to trying it if I think it will suit the story or style. I want to use single words from the rhyme or segments rather than have the whole rhyme in there. I think this is be used to enforce certain ideas. 

Sound and Foley:
I have found two parts of songs I would like to have in my animation. But I feel these are either creepy or smooth almost haunting soundtracks. I feel like my animation would have to be negative for these soundtracks to fit in. 
Tablo - Home (feat. Lee Sora) 3.40-4.23

Themes and Ideas

Nursery Rhymes

Ring o Rosies:
Ring-a-ring o’ roses,
A pocket full of posies, 
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down

• The Plague theory
• Children skipping along to the rhyme -Turns dark and when they fall, they die
• Starts off positive: "Ring o Rosies": Girl on date with boyfriend, (spinning around: links to the spinning of the children's response to the rhyme), Boyfriend pulls wedding ring out of pocket, the new fiancée walking across the road on the phone telling people about her engagement, collapses or is hit by a car.

Humpty Dumpty:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, 
Couldn’t put Humpty together again

• Literal: Man on a wall, falls, no one can put him back together again (Have you noticed how the rhyme doesn't mention he is an egg? Where did that idea come from?)
• A person starts with great power but tragically falls -tragic flaw
• A man with a huge ego, one day gets rejected in front of a lot of people, is shamed

Little Miss Muffet:
Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey, 
Along came a spider,
Who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

• Someone sat next to an overweight girl while she was eating, the spider-looking man scared the girl, she tried to run away from fear but couldn't -she had to waddle away
• A girl/lady gets scared by a spider-looking man but they realise that he was just grabbing his phone/newspaper from next to her

Jack and Jill:
Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water,
Jack fell down and broke his crown, 
And Jill came tumbling after

• Jack and Jill were on a mission, Jack was killed failing his part, Jill failed her part of the mission also due to her grief of Jacks death
• Jill went to help suicidal Jack, Jack committed suicide in the end, Jill got into deep depression/or suicide (came tumbling after) 
• Jack and Jill are running a race up a hill, Jack gets there first and runs through the "First Place" ribbon, Jack is so tired that he falls down the hill and collects Jill on the way

Orange and Lemons:
Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement’s
You owe me five farthings, 
Say the bells of St. Martin’s

• Owing someone a lot of money, not paying them back in time and resulting in that person being in a lot of trouble -A drug deal idea could apply to this also

Visual Mediums and Styles

Silhouettes: 

Rough Sketch Style:

Textured: 

The Blackwater Gospel: The black and white textures at the start mixed with the idea of silhouettes is a really strong style that works really well with the story. 

I also like the very quick flashes of birds wings and other scary elements. (0.44)

Stills from 'The Blackwater Gospel'

Layers:

Screen shots from 'Red'

Dada Style: Collage, messy cut outs