[YEAR 3] Travelling Experience Research

My idea is inspired by the idea of that you meet some interesting people while travelling, so I decided to ask other people what their experiences were with meeting or encountering 'odd' people.

• A man with the biggest afro, the afro was so heavy when he moved the afro went first.

• A rent boy, he smelt of piss, cum and was high on weed. (This was just on a bus going home)

• There was a man wearing a kilt and he had a banjo, but couldn't actually play the banjo. 

• A weird guy offered to give me a tour and then started to hold my hand.

• Recently a lady on the bus shouted at the driver every time he stopped to pick passengers up. "NO! I TOLD YOU! I DON'T WANT THIS STOP!"

• There was a man who decided to take a poo on the bus as we were driving. 

• I had a man who wanted to tell me all about his brain surgery and talking about his bikes. He kept getting extra close to my face, it was very unpleasant.

• Once I sat next to a man that kept shouting words, single words, but I couldn't tell if he was talking to someone on a phone or was just a little bit weird.

• There was a drunk man on the bus one time, he kept getting upset when more people got on the bus, yelling "NO ROOM" at everyone. Later on in the journey he finally gets into a fight with the passengers and the bus had to pull over and call the police. 

[YEAR 3] Bus Sketches

[YEAR 3] Story Development Ideas

Today was the first time I got to talk to my team about the project and what I would like to achieve and what my ideas are at the moment. 

Team Members: 

Emma Garner: garneremma.tumblr.com

Rob Gray: http://ramkeham.tumblr.com/

Wai Han Lau: blog address~~

I have been mainly struggling on where to take my basic story idea, so it was great to get some ideas from my team mates :) 

The bare bones of my idea was that I wanted it to be about a woman who was obsessed with matching hand bags and shoes. She one day sees this lady with a bag she really wants and becomes determined to get it from her in any way possible. 

I didn't know what to do at this point. 

• The lady with the bag could finally hand over the bag to the crazy woman after all the stalking and then the crazy lady sees a woman with some great shoes or another hand bag and then goes after us just like the other woman, and it ends there. (this idea would allow for small skits between the two woman).
• Whilst the crazy lady is after the new bag, another old lady like her manages to steal the crazy lady's bag from her and then gets on a bus and leaves. (This would play on the idea that you get some strange people when you are travelling and would bring the location into play) 

We also talked about how to introduce the character and random ideas of skits that we could include, this is just random brainstorming but I want to have it all the review over.

• The lady could always be stealing pretty bags from people, so instead of being iinteressted in just one bag, she goes for many, this idea would also involve different skits of how she gets these bags. For example one idea given was she steal one bag but it turns out to be a baby carrier, the crazy lady takes out the baby and runs off the bag. The woman could always travel home with tons of bags and then takes them back to her bag filled home. 

[YEAR 3] Film Development - Character ideas

Main character: 

The main character is based off a woman my mum used to see often when travelling, I asked her to give me a bit of a description because I have never seen her on my travelling times on the same bus. Hopefully this description will give me more ideas and development for the main character and also help push my story along.

'She was 50ish, medium height and dark hair (coloured I think) she was a smelly smoker who always needed her smoke before getting the bus. She was always very neatly dressed, every thing matching. Bags and shoes always matching in the same colour. She has a weakness for bags and shoes she told me. Every day she wear a different pair. She is very house proud I had the impression, but of course she smelled of smoke and had a smokers voice. She went into town several days a week to do all the housework for her disabled sister.'

I tried to find some photos of older ladies with interesting fashion as well to help give me inspiration of how the character could look, some of the woman are a bit old but they give the impression I am looking for with my character, to stand out from the norm. 

to be updated~ 

Background characters: 

Since my setting is a bus station there will be a few background characters to add to that feeling of a busy location. I would also like that to help the main character stand out even more, so most of these characters would be business people or maybe just still in normal clothes but grungy dark tones so that then the main characters bright choices in handbags and shoes stands out from the crowd. 

At the moment I am going more towards that they will be mostly dressed in business outfits because it will be easier to design many characters in similar outfits and would have a greater contrast, but this is still open to change. 

[YEAR 3] Film Development - Background/Setting ideas

The main setting for my film currently will be based at a bus station/bus stop as this will give a variety of characters that could appear there, such as my main character idea so far (the lady with many matching hand bags and shoes)

Here is just a reference board of lots of different bus stations, bus stops and train stations, so I can come up with a clearly idea of what the setting will look like. From the look of most of the images I found they are normally quite grungy which I think would work nicely to contrast the main character again. 

Below is some pictures I took at Lincoln's bus station, the one I go to every day, its very grungy and dark even on sunny days. 

I also have a reference board of the sort of look I would like the backgrounds/settings to have, a lot of shape language, block colours.

I did a quick doodle of what the setting may possibly look like, it was mainly me trying to work out how to create that look myself. 

[YEAR 3] Feedback 01

Emma has submitted work that demonstrates that she can take this forward. However more in-depth research is required for her to understand exactly what aspects of commuting/travelling and character that she would like to focus on and make into a film.

She is advised to put in a lot of development work in order to achieve this.

[YEAR 3] Film Idea Draft FINAL

Final Draft Of Final Film:
(other drafts of my story can be seen in the September folder)

Theme/Subject: Obsession.

My original idea was all based around the idea of how you spend so much time with people when travelling that you have never met before. I'm always curious about who all these people are after travelling with them for about 3 years  of my life. Yet still I know nothing about them. 

Character(s): 

The main character I currently have is based off the story my mum once told me about on her bus journey. There was a woman who see always sees with matching handbags and shoes. One day the woman comes up to my mum who is wearing bright green shoes and asks "can I buy your shoes from you? They would look great with one of my hand bags."

The main character would be an older lady who stands out from the rest of the other people at the bus stop. 

She would be a strong and forceful character but also have a soft, feminine touch to her look. 

(the current lady I have drawn is just a space filler at the moment with very little development).

Basic Story Idea: 

The story would be based off the story my mum told me, about the woman with her many handbags and shoes. Since the location is a bus stop/station, you see many many types of people. So one day the woman will see another lady with some bright, colourful shoes and handbag. And she would become obsessed with trying to get it off the lady. 

Inspiration: 

My inspiration for the film came from all my time travelling. I travel with the same people about 5 times a week. I spend a good amount of my time sitting in the bus station and at bus stops. 

Here I have pictures of the Lincoln bus station, even if its a sunny day the bus station is still dark and grungy looking. 

I want the location of the whole animation to contrast the character so that she really stands out from bland, grungy bus stop.

I originally wanted my film to have a similar style to the 'Thought of You' animation by Ryan Woodward. But after Neil mentioned what does it do for the story I thought I should re-think how I would want it to look. 

I think a look similar to Craig McCracken or 90's cartoon look would work well for my animation because of the strong shape language used to backgrounds and characters.