Violet, Born of Winter.

And so onto something new.

As I reach the end of my BA year studying Animation, it comes again to the time for making another film, another Final Major Project in fact.

After the reasonable success of Prigley, I wanted to push my stop motion techniques further and intend to do something a little different this year.

Where Prigley was charming, quaint and verging on twee, telling an emotional and hopefully evocative story, my next project shall be cold, sparse and spooky.

For my next project, I shall be telling a Ghost Story.

It's working title at this stage is "These Four Walls" and follows a young woman called Violet Winterborne who moves into a crumbling and intriguing house by the coast.
She is disturbed by what appears on a canvas she is painting.
I want to create a cold, misty and stark atmosphere. One of breath vapour and creaking floorboards.

This project is incredibly exciting for me as it, personally, symbolises a new work ethic, to really cut away superfluous information and plot strands to make the story tighter and more affective.

The main "embodiment" of this as it were, is Violet, my first leading lady.
I was working on a male character initially and was getting nowhere, he wasn't interesting me in the slightest, then suddenly, in the grips of frustration, I though "Why not...." and so Violet was born. Winterborne in fact.

I started writing the story roughly a year ago as the production of Prigley began to reach it's end.
The story went through several forms, originally it was going to be a comical interview piece, which just wasn't working, in fact it was verging on painful at times, so I stopped that.
Then whilst at Broadstairs at the Kent coast, I began writing what would become the basis for this story, as a ghost story.
Finally when it came to seriously thinking about Final Major Project work, the ghost story proved to be an enticing prospect to bring to life.
After a short process of trimming and adapting what I'd originally written, I felt I had a strong story and still continue to prune and pare back the story to keep it simple and chilling.

It is already at the storyboarding stage and I have produced a proxy Animatic which I have showed to my reliable sound student who seems rather taken by it, a man who's personal musical and soundscape tastes err more on the darker side instead of the more charming cheerful stuff I've made him do (brilliantly) in the past.
Indeed he told me once I pitched the idea to him that he was, by chance, doing some recordings of the sea in a couple weeks time, which seems incredibly fortuitous I think.

Anyway, still very much a work in progress, and I shall endeavour to show more stuff on this blog as it carries on.

In the mean time, here is Violet, in a very very rough Concept Frame.