We've just been awarded some funding for a new film by Screen West Midland and 4mations as part of the Digishorts scheme.
We've never done this before but we thought we'd take you through the process, the ups and downs, the long nights and early mornings. We've got to deliver the film by August so it's going to be a busy few months.
The film is titled 'The Moon Bird'. The story came about after Greg challenged Myles to write a Brothers Grimm tale. We're going through script tweaks at the moment and Greg is working on style sheets, character and layout design.
Check back regularly for new posts and keep track of the film’s progress.
We're just starting on draft two of the script and have a couple of weeks before it needs handing in to our Executive Producers at 4mations and Screen WM. We’ll also be sending a copy onto our appointed mentor at Aardman. We’ll be addressing some issues that mainly relate to the passive-active nature of the main character ‘Teardrop’. This is one of those interesting things that comes from adapting a work from prose to film (even if it's your own story you're adapting!). A character might remain in one place for a long time in a prose story, which can be uniquely unsatisfying in a screen adaptation. Salman Rushdie recently wrote an interesting (if slightly pompous) article on the pitfalls of adaptation in the Guardian. It’s worth reading for his comments about preserving ‘essences’.
Ernest Hemingway famously said that, “The first draft of anything is shit.” This has certainly been the case with some of our scripts. But you need manure to grow a good crop. We’re not convinced we feel quite so pejorative about our first draft, but we’re looking forward to seeing how it shapes up in the next draft.
Once we've got the script finalised and have a solid idea of the world we'll start designing the key components, the characters, layouts and props. We'll also start storyboarding. There’s already an early storyboard that we did about a year ago when we first started developing the idea in house. The first version of the new storyboards will be a series of ‘thumbnails’. Using the thumbnails, we’ll work up final storyboards or perhaps skip to the animatic. The method we choose depends on the particular project.
We have finalised the character design for our main character 'Teardrop' - We will post soon - Oh the suspense!
In the meantime, here's the first design for the antagonist's house.
The main character in our new short film The Moon Bird is called Teardrop. We've been through several designs, and tried out different styles, colourings, heights, species... but here is the final design.
And just in case you're wondering, here are some of the other designs for Teardrop that Greg drew along the way.
Sometimes when you choose a name for a story or a character you find out someone has got there before you.
Is it because you heard the words before subconsciously? Is it because it's just a good idea and therefore several people have found it to resonate in some way? Is it because you've reached for the first thing that comes to hand and need to try harder? I suppose depending on the idea it could be any of these. Then comes the tough question... are you going to change the name you came up with just because someone else has used it?
We are in pre-production on our next short film called The Moon Bird. I thought it was about time I googled the name in case it had been used before. I don't want to get into any legal wranglings after all. It turns out the concept of the Moon Bird does have heritage... here's what I found.
The most startling find was an animation. And not just any old animation, but an Academy Award winner (for Short Subjects) from 1959 by John and Faith Hubley. Check out Michael Sporn's blog for more info.
But this isn't the only Moon Bird out there. Joan Miró the famous Catalunian artist created a bronze sculpture in the forties called Moon bird.
There's also a picture book, that has been made into a play. In this story the Moon Bird teaches a deaf and dumb prince how to communicate with sign language.
In addition to these Moon Bird is also the name of a band, a yacht, an etching by an Australian artist, also a watercolour painting by a Mexican artist, a brand name for tampons and cosmetics in South Africa and plenty more besides.
“Old Women tell that, after showing the people how, by honouring eggs and oval stones, and making sacrifice to the Great Mother, the gift of fertility might be won, the magic bird flew back to her home in the sky ; whence, with folded wings, soft brooding, she still watches over the children of men. Mortals call her ‘ Moon,’ and sometimes, when people are sleeping, the Moon-bird floats down from her home on high and pecks up grains, or other food, which she may find lying about.”
So the concept of a Moon Bird goes back a long way! It's obviously an idea shared by a lot of artists. There must be something in the imagery of a bird and moon linked that appeals to a lot of us.
So what about that thorny question? "Are you going to change the name you came up with just because someone else has used it?" The short answer to this is... no. The Moon Bird is reborn (again!)
I think one of the most valuable lessons a screenwriter can learn is that the worst thing needs to happen. I don't mean the writer's fingers fall off... I'm talking about story. I think I made a common mistake when I first started writing and that was liking my characters so much I didn't want anything bad to happen to them. But think of any of your favourite films or TV series and you'll usually find that the thing the protagonist really didn't want to happen... happens.
In ET, Elliot is separated from ET and ET appears to die.
In Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie thinks she may have killed the person she loves.
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Joel realises too late that he doesn't want his memories to be erased.
Only once it's happened, does the protagonist realise they're going to pull their socks up and do something even more extreme and dramatic to rescue the situation. I think this rule particularly applies to the mythic adventure stories that Hollywood thrives on. Often it's represented as the antagonist getting what they want for a few moments - think of any Bond film. There's always the bit where the bad megalomaniac presses the World Destruct button. He seems to have won, and Bond's job suddenly becomes even more difficult, but the hero still overcomes. From a viewer's perspective, this is much more dramatic and therefore much more satisfying.
Which is one of the reasons the Transformers film that came out a couple of years ago is so unsatisfying. There's this All Spark thingamabob that gives life to machines and the bad dude Decepticons really want it. But they never get it. We never get to see what they'd do if they got it. As a result the film suffers from a lack of tension. There's just this big fight where you're not really sure who's who or what's going on because of all the shaky camera, so you don't really care. (This is only one of the problems with the film along with overwordy scenes, an off kilter sense of humour, scenes that could be trimmed at the ends, and a massive hole in the character identification department, especially with regard to the Transformers themselves).
With our latest short film The Moon Bird we're trying to create a more traditional narrative tale and trying to crack that way of storytelling. One of the crucial elements therefore has to be that our antagonist Experimentia (a witch) has her moment of triumph.
Some of our latest style sheets below. Getting the look right has been as painful as usual (Greg's such a perfectionist/worrier) but we're happy that we've cracked it and we're looking forward to getting on with the film.
The storyboard is underway and we're planning shooting the first scene as reference before starting the full animatic.
Here's an interview about our in production short film The Moon Bird on the 4mations blog. The blog is in the very capable hands of Suspicious Productions' Madévi Dailly and Andy Fielding.
4mations has recently had a revamp, using their main site as a blog and a hub for their activities, while setting up a new YouTube channel to showcase some of their favourite animations.
So we are off and running. The script is done, the designs are finished. The storyboard complete. So it's animatic/animation block and animation from here on in. Finished the opening chunk today, about a minutes worth. Already identified some technical issues, but nothing too serious. All looking good so far. Some images from the animatic below.
A quick note on terminology.
Our animatics are basically a dry run at the film - no detailed animation, the odd camera move or character action but all fairly minimal. This process allows us to check timings, pace and makes sure the story is working. For this film we're running the animatic in with an animation block which is where we prepare the film to be animated. By doing this we hope to save a bit of time and get onto the actual animation a little quicker. With the deadline at the end of August we'll need all the time we can get.
It became apparent that our plan to do an animatic and animation build at the same time was not going to work. We were spending far to long lighting the scenes and not on getting an overview of the story. Before we put all the work in we need to make sure the story works - building complicated shots that may never be used is futile. So back to our usual method of using the storyboard to construct the animatic. (See below)
Coming as we do from the guerilla school of filmmaking we have a tendency to try and do as much as we can in one of our films. That means the story, the design, but also the voices and the music too. Perhaps we are Jack-of-all-Trades, or maybe just control freaks?
In The Moon Bird we made a decision early on that we would make this a non-dialogue film. There were three main reasons: (1) it immediately makes the film more international which is important when you're entering loads of film festivals (2) it presents a challenge to us as filmmakers - we have to create a story that can be followed through visual storytelling alone and (3) initially we thought it would be nice to get a big name actress to do narration and voices, but they were going to cost a third of the budget.
So... this time we're not doing the voices, and neither is anyone because there's no actual talking. But what about the music?
Sometimes we're quite instinctive about our soundtracks and we'll go into the studio quite late on with some ideas and see what emerges on the day. But other times we'll start looking at the music a long time beforehand and try to take a more considered approach.
This was how it worked with Pedro and Frankensheep. We talked with Exec Producer Gillian Scothern and Producer-Creator Phil Cooper about the kind of music we needed for the series. There were titles and credits songs, background music and then feature songs sung by Hector and Hugo the sheep ticks. In this case the music was created over a series of weeks and months. You can listen to some of the Pedro songs on our music player.
And this is also the approach we're taking to The Moon Bird. We've already created seven basic themes for the film. Over the coming weeks we'll test and develop more themes, and work some of them up to finished tracks. The test themes are useful for adding flavour to the animatic which we're creating at the moment.
We've found that music and soundscape should not be underestimated in a film. Sometimes in a comedy, you might have been working on a scene for so long you're not sure if it's funny anymore. Add the sound effects and music and suddenly it comes alive again. And in a piece like Moon Bird, which is darker, we hope that the music will convey a powerful sense of mood and atmosphere.
The music we've created isn't song-based as such. We have gone for a much more expressive form of soundtrack which is really using a few simple sounds and instruments together to create a sense of wonder, or dread, or discovery, or discomfort. Here's a sample of one of the themes we've produced.
To polish the music, we always head down the road to Bidford on Avon to see our friend Paul Johnston at Rhythm Studios. He's been mixing the sound for our films (and bands) for years. He gives that final touch of magic, plus he understands Midi which is like some kind of weird alchemy.
Animation on our new film 'The Moon Bird' is going well. Great to see it all coming to life. Here's a still to demonstrate the progression from animatic to animation.
So, I nipped for a quick pint and dose of the real world before returning to the studio. The moon appeared at the edge of the window soon after 10pm and now at 2.18am it has passed beyond the frame. All goes well with 'The Moon Bird' and it's nice to have the moon for company, if only for a brief moment.
There’s many different phases to making a film. The first moments are always fun. At the genesis of the idea you feel excited and open to all the possibilities. There’s the quick fire ideas that add to whole. There’s the first few loose sketches to pour over which unlock the doors to a new world. At the end of this first phase there may be some notes and maybe even a loose story or script.
The next few phases tend to be more frustrating, but are essential to get any film made… the waiting for funding, the writing and rewriting the script, locking down the design, the animatic, the blocking of the scenes…
Finally animation starts to roll out and then the post production can start which is a mixture of both frustrating and exciting as the film starts to come alive (which is where we are now).
The Genesis of the Moon Bird
For The Moon Bird the first stage was Greg going on holiday and asking me to write him a Brothers Grimm style story. That was in August 2007. It was penance for when I was away on sabbatical, leaving Greg to direct Dog Tired on his own.
The first thing I noticed about the tales collected by The Brothers Grimm was that they were often very short – sometimes only a hundred words; but they all had a similar style, often morality stories, with compelling melodramatic characters. There was often shocking violence coupled with extraordinary visual ideas, like the lady who has her hands cut off and is then given new hands made from silver. There was often a happy ending. Bad guys got their comeuppance. Good people usually did well in the end but often went through terrible suffering and loss on the way there.
I wrote a 1200 word tale in their style (or at least the old fashioned style of the English translation) and that became the basis for the film we’re making now. It started:
“Once there was a little girl called Teardrop. Teardrop never knew her kind Mother or her noble Father because they were struck by plague not long after she was born. And so Teardrop was raised by an old Aunt who lived in the forest.”
The story evolved over time. In the Christmas of 2007 Greg spent a lot of time in visiting the hospital because of an ill relation, and started to work on storyboards during the long hours spent there. Those eventually fed ideas back into the story, and also provided useful in our application to Screen WM and 4mations for funding.
When the time came for the application, the story changed again, becoming about 400 words longer and including more detail about Teardrop’s past. We also put more emphasis on Teardrop being an active character. Here’s the opening paragraph from that version.
“Once there was a little girl called Teardrop, born on the last full moon of the year. Her Mother and Father were married many years but had never borne a child. When at last they found themselves with a baby to call their own they could not stop weeping for joy and so called her Teardrop.”
Finally, once we had the funding in place, it was time to tackle the script. The first draft was quite faithful to the written story and had a number of flaws; chiefly Teardrop was still too passive as a character. We made some notes and also gathered feedback from our exec producers Camilla Deakin and Dan Lawson and our mentor Golly at Aardman.
The second draft of the script stripped out a lot of original story elements, changed locations and altered the ending quite dramatically. In fact, if it was a well loved book, you’d probably scoff at our adaptation saying… well, it wasn’t like that in the book.
And the tweaks haven’t stopped there. We altered elements after watching the animatic. And even now, during the animation, we are adding small details to make the story flow.
Soon the film will be complete and then the story will be truly locked down… except that then it’s the turn of you the audience to watch and interpret it. I wonder what people will make of it?
The animation on ‘The Moon Bird’ is well underway. I’ve got an amazing team of animators working on it. It’s all done remotely via ftp. Blocked scenes go up, animators download, animate then back up onto the ftp then back down to me. The wonders of the interweb tinternet.
It’s really rewarding to get back scenes and see the film starting to come to life. I’m animating some shots, comping and directing the animators and it’s all very full on but this is one of my favourite bits – lots of late nights, adrenaline, stress, hissy fits, brain drain plus general madness and mayhem – I wouldn’t have it any other way.
We made the decision quite early on to make The Moon Bird a non-dialogue short film. First of all it's a challenge to tell a story without dialogue and rely on the visuals, but also it helps the film travel to an international audience on the film festival circuit. That's not to say we didn't need some voice actors though!
The two main characters are Teardrop the orphan girl and Experimentia the wicked sorceress. Both vocalise throughout the film - from screams, to sounds of wonder, from whimpers to gurgled mumblings, from crying to furious roars of anger.
Ophelia Colver and Rachel Ferjani came down to Rhythm Studios in Bidford on Avon in August to make all of these noises and more! It was great to hear our characters coming alive and we're looking forward to actually adding their contribution to the finished film next week.
You may have noticed the last few blog entries on The Moon Bird showed Greg going into a kind of meltdown. This is a feature of most productions. Usually there's a phase where the director's brain goes turns into a purply mashed potato and starts behaving like a small frightened shrew hiding in the woods.
We had reached the point where most of the animation was back and we'd put together our first rough cut. Inevitably certain sections worked well and others were less good. We realised that we hadn't cut things together in the first section in the best way.
What is usually required in these circumstances is some time away from production. Greg also came down with an almighty cold which demanded he come to a full stop.
We've now had some time to recover and regroup. The front end section of the film is packed full of story points - things you need to know and understand to fully engage with the rest of the story. Our battle has been arranging those in the edit so that the story unfolds very clearly. It's a mix of introducing characters at the right time in the right way while also showing what characters want. This is all the more tricky because it's a non-dialogue film so we have to do this by showing and not telling. Yesterday we finally sat down and watched our new edit for the front section and were happy. Hooray!
The next challenge is to tighten up the end of the film where there's an important conflict and make the resolution feel satisfying. After that, once we're happy with the story flow, we'll be going through the whole film with a fine tooth comb to make sure that each scene is just right.
It's 5am and I'm sat at work in a hat and scarf working on the final shots of 'The Moon Bird'. I have a stinking cold and am high as a kite on industrial strength pain killers and fueled on hot tea. There's a tramp outside the office coughing up his internal organs (at least that what it sounds like).
And so as Christmas approaches our film 'The Moon Bird' is very nearly complete - the final render of the scenes is chugging away, the little blue bar endlessly crawling across the screen.
We're doing the sound early New Year and the final tape transfer on the 7th Jan.
It's been a hell of a year getting this monster made, it's been technically complicated and getting the story working while retaining some originality has been a real challenge.
Done some long hours and tip toed on the edge of animation madness (fallen in a couple of times, usually at 3am)
So thanks for everyone who has followed this blog and hope you will all get to see it in the New Year.
Also a big thanks to everyone who has worked on the film - it's been a really collaborative effort, some amazingly talented people have made it a really rewarding project - Ta
So it is done. There's quite a tale to tell of the last few days of it's completion - more soon. For now though I shall sleep, eat nourishing food and drink deeply from a glass of fine wine and maybe eat some cake.
The Moon Bird is not yet a month old, but already it's heading out into the world to fend for itself. It's already been selected along with our other short film Codswallop to be part of the British Animation Awards' Public Choice programme.
The shortlist of eleven films for Best Sound Design has been posted on the British Animation Awards website and we are included twice... once for The Moon Bird, and once for Codswallop. Hooray! You can hear some of the music for The Moon Bird on our music player.
The Moon Bird has won the Best Made in the Midlands award at the Stoke Your Fires film festival. We are very chuffed to have won, but sadly couldn't be there to collect it. So far we've managed to avoid any of the festivals where we actually win.
In other good and bad news from the British Animation Awards, Codswallop was shortlisted for Best Short Film, but failed to make the final three. The finalists were rather randomly revealed on the Forbidden Planet website a few days ago.
The animation magazine Imagine went monthly in March 2010 and we were lucky enough to feature on p18-20 with an article about our short film The Moon Bird.
The Moon Bird is flying East to the Czech Republic soon and can be seen at the Zlin International Film Festival For Children & Youth. It will also be screening even further East at its Asian premiere in Korea at PIFAN. But it's not all East East East... The Moon Bird will also be heading due South South West for Anima Mundi in Brazil.
We are pleased to announce that the Edinburgh International Film Festival will be screening The Moon Bird in the McLaren Animation 1 section. This is our second film to be nominated for the McLaren Award, but there's plenty of stiff competition as always including from several other 4mations funded animations including Emma Lazenby's BAFTA winning Mother of Many!
The Moon Bird was seen by reviewer James Campbell from Scotland's The Skinny. He wrote "The first collection was really very impressive... McLaren Animation 1 features a surprising abundance of snow, whales, foxes and magicians. Tone ranges from the sublime... to the down-right distressing ('The Moon Bird', while beautiful to pore over, is perhaps the scariest animation I've seen...)."
Andrew Robertson at Eye for Film has reviewed our short film The Moon Bird very positively... Four Stars. Blush!
"Starkly monochrome, like chalk on a blackboard, sometimes appearing a negative, it is not only the animation that is dark; this fairy tale from the Brothers McLeod might be from the pages of the Brothers Grimm. Beyond its striking visuals, it has a soundtrack with piercing choral tones, a discordant but lovely score, and a story that is frightening and magical."
The Moon Bird is being screened continuously at the latest Chapman Brothers touring exhibition in Plymouth. It's a Hayward Touring show. Here's some more details:
My Giant Colouring Book returns to this method of working, this time appropriating join-the-dot drawings from a children's picture book. Many of the Chapmans’ favourite themes are found here, often with a dark undercurrent. The series of 21 etchings include sabre-toothed owls, psychedelic grinning cats and bears trapped in the belly of the Loch Ness monster. This exhibition offers a fascinating introduction to the imaginations of two of Britain's most inventive and subversive artists .
Now showing at the Peninsula Arts Gallery in Plymouth.
We've just been awarded some funding for a new film by Screen West Midland and 4mations as part of the Digishorts scheme.
I think one of the most valuable lessons a screenwriter can learn is that the worst thing needs to happen. I don't mean the writer's fingers fall off... I'm talking about story. I think I made a common mistake when I first started writing and that was liking my characters so much I didn't want anything bad to happen to them. But think of any of your favourite films or TV series and you'll usually find that the thing the protagonist really didn't want to happen... happens.
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I wrote a 1200 word tale in their style (or at least the old fashioned style of the English translation) and that became the basis for the film we’re making now. It started:
You may have noticed the last few blog entries on The Moon Bird showed Greg going into a kind of meltdown. This is a feature of most productions. Usually there's a phase where the director's brain goes turns into a purply mashed potato and starts behaving like a small frightened shrew hiding in the woods.
The Moon Bird is not yet a month old, but already it's heading out into the world to fend for itself. It's already been selected along with our other short film Codswallop to be part of the British Animation Awards' 
The shortlist of eleven films for Best Sound Design has been posted on the 
The Moon Bird was seen by reviewer James Campbell from Scotland's 
Andrew Robertson at 
