Production Concept: Set Design

After speaking last week with a fellow UCA student, Natasha, studying Creative Arts for Theatre at Rochester and Film, I discussed having some 3D simulated design generated of our set. She is able to help us with the design but I would need to present her with some sketches of how the set would look.

I called upon a friend of mine to help me with the design and we sat together and discussed how it would look. Yesterday she gave me this amazing sketch for a potential design for the set. This is the first sketch and I am really pleased with how it looks and is just the right sort of style I'd hoped for from the research that I had done!

After receiving this sketch, I noticed that she had drawn a Stag's Head/Moose on the wall. I really liked the idea of the bringing the head to life within the shop. I think maybe as a minor character who would come to life and talk to the other characters about the object they have found, or, I even like the idea of him almost being a security guard, and they ask him in the morning if he'd had any stirs in the night, almost like a night watchmen! I am going to discuss this with gabby and see if she likes the idea.

Production Concept: Animating a Title Sequence

Today I spoke with the course leader for CG Arts & Animation at UCA Rochester about sourcing a potential collaborator to help aid me with the animated title sequence. I explained about the project and what we are looking for and he kindly put a post on their course blog for me. Hopefully I hear back from someone that may be interested in helping us.

Production Concept: Opening Title Sequence

Today I've been researching title sequences for children's television. I am particularly interested in the animated style sequences and this would be the sort of titles which i would like to create for our show.

Get Well Soon

This link starts with the opening titles for the show, which is half animated half film. I like this style, but without our prototype puppet made and the use of our presenter, it would be too difficult to film.

DipDap

These opening titles are really basic using full animation. These are really simple and effective but do not accommodate a theme tune which we definitely want for our show. 

Justin's House

These titles are excatly the sort of sequence that I woould like for the show. I will not be able to create these without the help of an animator so I am currently seeking someone who may be able to help me.

Production Concept: Puppet Design

After our change of designer that was going to help us design our puppet, I have been in contact with a friend of mine who is currently studying on another UCA course for Theatre and Film design, Ria Allison. Ria has agreed to draw up some prototype sketches for us over the weekend for our puppet design. As she is really busy, I have also emailed the course leader at rochester to see if he may have any other contacts which may be able to help us.

Here are the notes which we have devised for our Puppet Design.

Production Concept: Puppet Design

I have been in contact with a  Professional Puppet Designer about our project over the last few weeks. her name is Sally Preisig and she is a successful puppeteer and designer who has been in the industry for many years. She has been the brains behind many well known puppets and costumes used across theatre and film.

It is unfortunate that she is not able to help us with our project as she is so busy, but has been a great help in guiding us with useful information abut puppet design, a subject that we primarily knew very little about. She was able to help us with information of costings and design ideas. Here are some of the email conversations which we had about our project.

Production Concept: Graphic Design

So over the weekend we had some bad news which was that our graphic designer had decided to drop out of the project. This was a huge blow for us as they were going to help with set design, logo design and even input towards our puppet design.

Losing our main contributor at this stage has been a major disappointment but hopefully we can find replacements that will be able to produce some designs before the start of next week for us.

Production Concept: Mood Boards and Planning

I've been busy looking into television sets which resemble and are similar to what we are looking at within our idea. Here are some general images which I've picked out from my research of some ideas for our set. These images are of real charity/vintage shops which I have discovered. The detail in this shop will obviously be converted into ideas for our 'basement' which will be more appropriate fro children.

I've also been looking into the ideas of a 'chute' for our basement. These are some of the different styles we could incorporate into our set. The first, is a door style chute which objects would be found inside the door. The Second is a slide style chute which would allow objects to come down the chute for our presenter to find.