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.