Winter Break? HELL NO. Vis Dev

Soooooooo. I've decided that there will be no winter break for meeee. I'm really anxious about my film and while my plan was to take a week break, i'm gonna do some visdev stuff PLUS refine my animatic. I'm really inspired this year and I really want to do an awesome film.

I've found a new inspiration! Edmund Dulac!!











I have no idea why it took me so long to love Dulac, but i really do.

I'm gonna spend the next few days trying to emulate this look and combine it with my style. :) Stay tunned! I'll be posting soon. :)

Film concepts.

So I've been messing around in photoshop trying to emulate a painted or at least illustrated feel. Early on I cam up with this:


Since then, I've sorta changed the entire concept of the film. It was much more...pleasant back then. hahaha. I really liked the way I did the floor and the trees overall though. I was going for a Klimt feel again.

Tonight, i came up with this:

I'm really liking it. I developed some actions that will do the coloring pretty much for me. hahaha. Again though, this is more bright and pleasant...which I guess I do want for the start of the film. Since i've actaully started boarding my film idea has gotten progressively darker and darker. lol. So I've gotta do some research and figure out how to evoke a "darker" feel. Not sure how I comminicated it in the animatic, but the film is supposed to go from midday to evening. Progressively getting darker and darker as they go through the woods.


I really liked my animatic, but it's a shade over time. I think part of that is the timing on the boards. I'm going to make another attempt some time this week (if I get time) to go at it again. Watching it, I know there's a lot that can be fixed/edited to be quicker.

My characters aren't final at all, so I'm gonna do a bunch of searching for that. I really want to get my film idea pretty stapled down before I leave for winter break. I'm not going to make the mistake of not working on my film over winter break. I haven't counted the backgrounds I have to do, but it really doesn't seemlike it's more than about 25. So I'm ok with that. I'm gonna make a point of doing MOST of the backgrounds over the break. I really dont want to make the same mistake over again. lol. Trying to avoid it! lol.

Ok well that's all. <3 my blog is lonely, so comment you meanie heads.

ANIMATICCCCCCCCCC DESU.

Soooo. This took me damn near forever. lol.


Unfortunatley, it came out to around 3 minutes, which DOES scare me, but i dont feel like much of it is too long. Just right actually, but I"m sure it'll take a while to actually decide that and see what can be cut.

So here it is...the story of a lute player, who enchanted by beauty is lead into a compromising position where he must overcome his fear and sacrifice his love.

3rd Year Film Animatic from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

AAAAAANIIIIIMAAAAATTIOOOOOOON!!!!!!

So I realized that I haven't had a lot of animation on my blog. And I'm a goddamn animation student! hhahaha.

I really love animation this year. More so than any year. I"m finally getting it. I think it's thanks to my great teacher, Scott Wright! He's a very inspiring, encouraging and honest teacher. The most helpful animation teacher that I've ever had. Truly look up to him. :)

Here's my animation assignments. :

Falling Leaf from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

Falling Leaf Assignment. :)

Bouncing Ball from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

Bouncing Ball!

Heavy Ball from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

Heavy Ball

Walk With Arms from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

Walk Cycle with arms

Frustration from Kit Wilkins on Vimeo.

Frustration, a scene.

I think I'm really getting the hang of animation. :) I'm really excited to do my film. Like really excited. :)

Working on my animatic, so be prepared. :)

New Plot Synopsis and inspirations.

So I've decided ot change my idea. I"m sorta freaking out over it, because i'm running out of time, but I've made the decision and I love love love my idea. :)


Here's my plot synopsis. Let me know what you think. :)


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A young man walks into a clearing in the woods in the midday. He walks between trees and sees where a tree has been cut down. He sits on the stool and starts playing his lute. He plays and then begins to sing a little. He's startting to get into his song. Feeling it emotionally. He's in solitude where he can finally be alone and comfortable. As he's playing his song, a woman appears from behind the bushes. LIstening to his song, their eyes meet. She is a beautiful woman with long hair that is constantly smiling. She walks over to him and puts a flower in his hair. From there, she starts to dance around him as he plays his song. After a while she dances into the forest, tempting him to come with her. he stops playing and follows her into the forest.

AT this point, it is getting darker and the forest becomes more mysterious and dark. There seems to be an aura around her as she dances around and through the forest. The man is following her, enchanted by her beauty. He follows her into yet another clearing. This time, the clearing has a body of water. A small lake. The lake seems to be enchanted somehow, illuminating light. She disrobes and gets into the water slowly. He walks towards the water wanting to join, but not wanting to get his lute wet. He begins to put his lute down, when she grabs his leg desperately and attempts to pull him in. He's taken by surprise by this and he attempts to steady himself. She is insistent and continues to pull in into the water. Pulling him harder and harder. She seems deranged. Something is off about her. Her features become sunken and appear elderly. The man is in histeria. He cant seem to free himself from her grasp. In an act of desperation, he raises his lute and hits her over the head. the lute breaks in half, but she is almost unfazed. He takes the broken lute and plunges it into her chest, killing her. She sinks back into the water and disappears. The man finally frees himself from her grasp and has no idea what to do with himself. He picks up the broken lute and walks off, alone, and distraught into the darkness. His body silhouettes.
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I want it to feel like, again, fever ray music videos.




These in particular, i guess.. I'm gonna spend some time trying to figure out what it is about these music videos I love so much and then try to inject that into my film making.


I want it to be inspired by some sort of fusion between Klimt and John William Waterhouse.







I"m going to work on trying to emulate a "painted" look via photshop. We'll see how that goes. :)

I'm really inspired and ready to goooo!!!

Film: Character and Story Concepts

Another post, yay.

So last weekend, I decided to devote some time into drawing the characters for my film. Just sorta drawing and searching and seeing where it all takes me. I'm trying to be pretty open minded, but i often find, i settle with this pretty quickly and I'm easily inspired.


Sorta searching here. I was really trying to figure out my character and the male rolemodel he wanted to be.

I came up with this character for the male character he aspired to be. It's the second real sorta character that I had figured out. In retrospect, I wasn't sure how much i liked him, but you gotta start somewhere. :)

I decided that there should be some sort of elder. Some older figure that leads them into taking the test. Someone who's been there and done that, ect. So I did this guy.

Out of all my characters, I really like this one the most. He's the one character who I really want to do some sort of dialouge with. w

I did this lineup just to see what the characters looked like next to eachother. I was I was drawing this, I sorta thought about him being an older character. Initially he was a kid. But looking at the videos about the rites of passage, all these boys are a bit older. And even though they may be young in our culture to be "men" they are still old enough to be men if they really wanted to or needed to.


So I did a few darwing of him. First incarnation so he's most likely gonna change! But I liked this so far.

So since he was going to be an older guy, I thought about some sort of trial that he'd go through. I figured that maybe when he goes into the caccoon, he'd face some sort of spirit. Then I started thinking about what sort of spirit would this be? What would they look like. Since he was an older guy, I figured, I'd make the spirit a pretty girl.

After I drew this, I thought about her seducing him and then turning into something sinister. So I figured she'd turn into this

And he'd have to kill her, to pass the trial. I wanted to play with the whole concept of the Madonna/Whore. The sort of thing that a lot of men fantasize about. But I'm going to save you the feminist banter and I'll allow you to look that up on google if you're really interested in that concept. lol.

This is all very very very very very conceptual at this point and it's just one idea. I dont think I"m honestly going to know if it's going to work until I'm actually started boarding it. However, this is a starting point. I'm really into it so far and I'm glad that I'm back on this idea because I almost dropped it. lol.

So now I've gotta pin down a story! After showing this stuff to my film workshop teacher, she told me that I have WAY too many character...which I agree with. I guess it's really a matter of figuring out who's vital. To me, the elder, the boy and the spirit are all vital characters. She wanted me to trash the older male character and I agree with that. So that's a place to start. I gotta figure this out! I'm really inspired. I'm going to make sure that I'm smart about this year's film and that i don't give myself way too much to do. I want to finish this film! i have two goals. I want to attempt dialogue and I want to have a visually pleasing film. Something that is pretty to look at that also has a story! We'll seeeeee. Development is funz.

Film Inspiration: African Tribes and Writes of passage

Hey guys! So I thought I'd do a couple of posts about my film today. I wanted to sorta talk about my inspirations and ect. Maybe not even just to share it, but to also maybe get myself some ideas!!

So for those of you that dont know, my main idea for my film is a boy going through some sort of rites of passage. If you're not familiar with a rite of passage, it's basically some sort of test that a character has to go take to become, generally, an adult. Popular rites of passages include Bat Mitzvahs in Jewish culture and Quinsineras in Hispanic culture. These rites of passage, generally have a connotation of wealth or class, which is fine, but doesn't make for a good film. I wanted to create something more raw and more earthy. So I instantly went to the idea of Africa.

I was actually inspired, initially by a band called Fever Ray. I was in a car with a bunch of friends and my friend started playing the Fever Ray album..fever ray! I had a sorta tribal feeling to it, but it wasn't necessarily distinctly tribal from here or there, which I liked. Here's one of the many songs that inpsired me.

After that, i got pretty excited.

So I decided to take my starting point from an older character that I created a LONG time ago...warning, bad art up ahead!

I had this concept of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly/moth and going through some trials within a caccon. I really liked that idea so I started trying to look up reference of moths and butterflies. After trying to incorporate them into my design, i decided to tone it all down and make it less literal, that's sorta where I'm going with right now. But, back to my inspirations.
I watched a couple of short ideos about ritses of passage.

'
They really inspired me and gave me a lot to think about.

I also looked into some african tribes. I decided that I LOVED the Himba Tribe of Nambia. They have this natural elegance about them that seems somewhat, other worldy.








So My goal right now is to mesh all these into a film idea! yay... This is exciting. :)

Lesson One: How to Get Bigger Boobs

Here, I'll show you how.

My second year film: Avoid the second year epic!

So I wanted to make a post about my second year film. I never really concluded where I was going with it and what it's going to be now. I guess I wanted to make this post just to sorta prevent people from making the mistake that I made.

Last year, I had been really inspired and really giddy and ready to start my second year film. I had already learned so much from doing my first year film and not completely finishing it and ect ect. I had this epic idea about this little boy who dreamed of being a little girl and this little girl that dreamed of being a little boy. There was this awesome tree house that morphed into cool things and blah blah blah. It was epic and I thought I could do it, full color and full animation too!!

Boy was I wrong. I made a schedule based on my animatic. I had about 70 or so scenes to do and a crap load of backgrounds to complete as well. I made the schedule so that I'd be doing nine scenes of animation a week and about five background paintings every week as well. It all worked out pretty well the first few weeks. I did everything the way I had planned it an after a while, I just couldn't finish when I wanted to. after all, i gave myself 70 or so scenes to animate! That's crazy. I kept telling myself that the animaition wasn't actually that much and that the backgrounds wouldn't be that hard to draw and that I could do it and ect. Come april, it was a few days before I had to turn my film in. I'm begging people online to help me paint frames, I'm animating stuff, poorly and I'm trying to cut corners. I worked endlessly. Day and night to get it done. I worked all the way up through the turn in date and at around 3 the day it was due, I finally started putting scenes together in final cut. I broke down in tears when I realized that I couldn't finish. That i had set myself an unrealistic goal that really honeslty couldn't have been reached by me at that time. I realized that I wasn't going to finish and that I had to accept that and just walk away from it all together. I told my mentors and myself that I'd finish the film over the summer, but reality hit me, I had to get a job and that required a lot of time. I didn't have the time or the energy to put into finishing a film over the summer. No matter how much I wanted to finish deep down inside, it just wasn't realistic.
When I came back to school, I told my Film Workshop mentor about my prediciment, she made an amazing statement that really made me change my mind about where I"m going with the project. She asked me if I had gotten anything out of it? If I've gotten as much as I could out of it. If there was really any point in continuing the film. I realized that I had. I realized that the mistakes I made with this film and the techniques that I learned were in fact what I was going to get from this project. And that's probably it. She told me that i should focus on my new film instead of trying to finish this one and then have to rush another one and have to finish my third year film in my fourth year of school. It would have been silly. It made total sense.

So I guess, I'm making this for any second year students in case they get the chance to read this before they start. i'd just say to be realistic. It's great to challenge yourself, but dont be unrealistic. Full color and animation was just impossible. I wouldn't have been able to do it. I got really close, but it wouldn't have worked out. at the end of the day, an unpolished film with storyboards is better than no film at all. So I guess, keep it simple and be real with yourself. If you're going to challenge yourself, challenge yourself, but be sure that your entire film doesn't rely on that one challenge.

This year, i'm seriously limiting scenes and backgrounds to 30! My film will still live on since I love the idea, but I have deicded that it is going to be a book and not a film. I think the idea works better as a book and I'd love to see if I can get it published and see where that goes with the entire story and content. Its a shame to waste all the animation, but I have to move on.

anywhos, that's enough ranting, here's some of the backgrounds from my film from last year.

A Blast from the Past: Some Character Designs

So I thought I'd upload some old character designs that I enjoyed. First four were done for class, the rest were done over my crazy freshman to sophmore summer. lol. Good times. I guess right now I'm trying to meld my two tastes together. That's the goal for this year at least. :) Oh well, enjoy!

Blast from the Past: Figure Drawings.

Hey guys. So I'm reuploading some of my old figure drawings for the sake of having them here. I dont have a figure drawing class, but I'm desperately trying to get into one. Hoping to get into Steve Brown's class on Fridays. I seriously miss figure drawing. :( I have a painting class this year, but that's only one pose for the entire three hour block. I can tell my drawing is suffering because I'm not doing as much life drawing. So here's some stuff from last year. :)