DFT Student Film

I first met with the DFT group on the 22nd of March, to discuss the main theme of their film and the possibilities for the animation. The film is looking at the Sex Industry in Newport, in particular a woman who looks after the prostitutes, and a few women from within the industry. We discussed possible lengths of the animation and styles. The group was very enthusiastic to have the animation and made me feel the same way. They mentioned that they had 5 minutes of recording they wanted animated, but that they would like an animator per minute. So 5 animators with a minute each, which sounded a lot better than just me! And so I asked my fellow animators who would be interested and enlisted Nina, Cassie, Rory and Alex.

We then exchanged emails for some time, keeping me updated with how the filming and recording was going, and sending examples of how they would like to the animation sequence to vaguely look like. Examples were Persepolis, the story of Mohammad Mostafaei and Waltz with Bashir. They also thought that a grey scale/monochrome palette would work best for this film, we all agreed as this would only make it is easier to not have to work with colour.

Today, 23rd of April, all 5 of us met with them again, and showed our work. John (Director of Animation) and Johnny (sound) gave the others a run down of the film structure, content and message, and played us a few clips that we could be animating to. They were extremely moving and tragic, and I really hope that I can portray this through the animation I produce.

The next steps are for them to send us all the edited minute clips so that we can all decide who gets what clip and start working on them straight away. They did want to start editing on the 1st of May, but at one week away it would be impossible for us to have any finished animation by then. We should receive the first clip on Wednesday, we plan to look at it as a team to try and decide who gets it, and also to form some of our own ideas on how we'd like out segment to look. John had stressed that he wants us to have creative freedom and so we are all feeling extremely excited for this!