While the past few weeks have been mainly focused on making the animatic, I’ve still been working on the book when I had time.
After deciding the shape and context of the book, I began brainstorming ideas to include within the two sections of ‘How did I get here?’ and ‘Where Am I Now?’.
I was largely inspired by the Friday workshops when choosing the themes: I considered my culture, both the one I grew up with in Italy and the one I’ve gotten to experience in the 2 months I got to be in London before Christmas break and the current lockdown that’s making me stay at home. My family, who impacted me so much growing up, is also mentioned. My elementary school, that first taught me english and got me interested in storytelling, will have a page to itself too. My interests, both back then and now, are an important part of who I am, so I’ll talk about them in depth.
In the pages above, I brainstormed topics to talk about in the book.
I’ve decided to have the book contain both photographs and drawings made by myself, with text to accompany them and explain their context. Once the book is done, I plan to film myself flipping through it, and then animate on top of the video. The way I’m thinking of doing it is through a stop-motion of sorts: take many pictures, in sequence, of me flipping through the book. Then, I export every image into an animation program I have, and draw over them. It’ll be complicated, and maybe a bit time-consuming, but the final product could be really cool, like Feeling My Way.
Plus, this will save me time in the video; I’ve rehearsed flipping through a draft version of the book, and having to fold it back and around to flip through both sides takes a few seconds, which is way too much of my 30-second time limit. By approaching this like stopmotion, I can simply make the flip-around a few frames, maybe a second or two instead of five or more. It’s overall more efficient for the final product, so I’ll implement it.
I’ve made a quick sketch of how the pages will be separated and their general layout. The order of the pages could change (for example, I want the double-page spreads to match in terms of placement), but I’m firm on the topics, and I have a clear idea on how to create them.
Writing has always been one of my strong suits in school, so I’m not worried about that. The animation will probably take the most time to do, but if I manage my time right, I should be done in time for the 15th no problem.
I like my idea of the book; now all I have to do is make it a satisfactory reality.