Hitchcock's Spellbound

Watched Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound last night. It is worth watching because it has some nice ideas and a fairly good story about a mental institution, psycho analysis and repressed guilt. Unfortunately I thought it was far from his best. In many ways this is a very generic 40's film that feels very dated now. Some of the story drags and the music - unlike say Psycho which is iconic - is again generic and dull. After watching the film I read an interview with Hitchcock and he echoed some these things himself. Apparently he had a producer who had some influence on the film and therefore it is not pure Hitchcock. A Salvador Dali dream sequence is a nice touch although it is not quite as cool as it sounds. Cinematograpy wise there were some nice moments. When the leading couple share their first kiss he cuts away to a long corridor of doors opening before fading back to the kiss. It was a nice metaphor opening up the sub-conscious mind and memory that kick-starts happenings in the story. Also later on in a plot twist moment (I'll leave out spoilers) the leading lady is in a crisis and panic, suddenly you see some classic Hitchcockian shots and cinematography. It really stood out in this moment and then he is put back on a leash.

Overall score: 60%

A birthday card I did for my Nan, a huge horseracing fanatic!

This is the kitchen at my Nan and Da's, I had been practicing drawing with skewed perspective. Fun to do.

I sat and sketched my garden one afternoon, I need to do some more of this. I drew it straight down in ink which I prefer because you have to be bold with it. Coloured it in photoshop, toyed with the hue's for variation's. This was one sample.

Haven't been blogging much of anything lately. Lots going on behind the scenes but haven't been drawing stuff that I can post yet, it's all very hush hush. Also busy with the webcomics. This was a kind of mood board for a sports comic freelance pitch. Didn't get it, but I like some of these.

K-9Lives Episode1 from Doug on Vimeo.

Comics Roundup

K-9Lives - The comic is back and running after the hiatus and things are going well. With the animated short going round festivals it is advertising the comic around the country. Last week I came up with a topical Swine Flu story that fitted in nicely with the theme. The Dog goes to Mexico to try to infect the Cat with flu... Ending with the CDC tracking them down, and an underground resistance group of pigs who've joined forces with refugees of the bird flu and BSE epidemics who defend them from the CDC patrol! http://www.k-9lives.blogspot.com/

Bloodwhat? - My new comic, at it's core is a parody of an 80's dungeon adventure game, but it will go further than that and I will develop the world and characters into unique stories and situations. With 13 strips up so far it is early days but this is going strong and I have a good buffer built up so I should be able to keep the updates regular. http://www.bloodwhat.wordpress.com/

The Von Spleen Experiment - This is very early days in production... I was developing this as an animated short but the story kept growing and growing and ended up being beyond my ability to produce independently at the moment. So I am translating the thumbnailed story skectches into full comic pages. The hope is that I can generate interest in the story and characters through the comic first, eventually print a book and then see whether an animation would be viable afterwards.

And with all these projects going, I am now slightly burned out... I need to go out and have a beer, chill out and re-charge the batteries so I can get going on all these projects.

At the weekend I made it down to the Worthing End of the Pier International Film Festival to see my film K-9Lives play. It was a really nice fest and the people I met were extremely nice, helpful and encouraging. Thanks to Roz and Linda for their kind words and for selecting my film for the competition. Go see http://www.eotpfilmfestival.org.uk/?q=node/25 to see what pipped me for best animation... Concragts to Carl Medland for winning an award for his film My Beauty. There were some really good films so it was just an honour to be screened. Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the awards ceremony but I recommend the fest for next year, and hope to have another film there!

Rocket Jo (France 3)
Uploaded by Tele-Loisirs

This is the TV show I worked on in France for 6 months... It is showing now on French TV and will hopefully come to England? Or maybe DVD soon. For now though there is an episode on Daily-Motion. This one was animated by Christophe.

Storyboard Comparison (read bottom to top)

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I thought it might be of interest for some people to see the story sketches I did for the animation below. As you can see I work very roughly, on various scraps of paper. I find it is easier to get ideas on paper if you are not feeling too precious about the result, It doesn't matter how it looks to me... so long as I have the idea. Then if it needs re-working I do that when I approach the scene in animation.

I chose this shot as the first animation test because I was happy with the shot, I knew it would be in the film.... wheras some other things in the film are shifting and changing still. I have probably half the story worked out, with the rest roughly mapped but needing some things adding. At the moment the story reel is running about 6-8 minutes and we're about half way through I think. So probably it will end up being about 12-15 minutes. I have about 1 minute of finished animation, so we're on our way!

Animation Test second pass TVSE from Doug on Vimeo.

I have been working on this shot for a while, trying to get the visuals to my taste. It takes a long time cleaning each frame of all the dust and debris that the scanner picks up. I need to see if there is a quicker way but for now I think this is how the film will look.

Festival Update:

K-9Lives Episode1 has been selected for screening at Worthing End Of The Pier Festival.

The screening is on the 30th April.

I've decided to do all the shadows rendering in pencils, I really prefer the look and it means I can spend more time at the drawing board which I prefer to staring at the computer screen. The comments from Sketch Tavern by Spagetthi016 and Dozer (dont know their real names!) were very helpful and I've made a few improvements on these shots.

I went off the grimy look of the previous B+W stills so I did a cleaner crisper version here. I also added colour to the yellow wires... This could be a god way of doing B+W and still having some visuals pop in colour on certain items.
I've posted my concept stuff at Sketch Tavern and just got an in depth critique on some of these stills, I'll post up the altered version soon.

I'm trying to define the visuals for the film, this is where I take some stills and try endless variations of colours, photoshop effects, chop and change different things. I'm quite likeing the black and white style.... I have always been drawn to B+W but haven't utilised it in any of my films yet. It seems like quite a big leap to take colour out of the picture. I do think it will fit the style of the story tho.

Early Animation Test for The Von Spleen Experiment from Doug on Vimeo.

For your viewing pleasure........ a veeery early test on The Von Spleen Experiment. I'm planning on using this very rough pencil style, the colours kinda rough too. I'm using a shadow layer which will take much longer to paint but I think it looks much nicer. I want to get things rolling with this project and don't want to hesitate too much.

It's a bit early for poster design but I wanted to do a sorta concept sheet, with the main characters and the title. I can put this with the pitch materials but basically I'm making this without funding anyway.... so it's just for fun.

I actually started animating the first shot yesterday! It will give me a chance to try some things out and define the style, and I've picked a shot that I really like to start with and it's a lot of fun so far. I'm still storyboarding it but since I don't like getting bogged down in one area I'll move about onto different departments (storyboard, background, layout, animation, colouring etc) as and when I get the inspiration. That way I'll always be fresh.

Character sheets for my new project "The Von Spleen Experiment". I have had this project in slow development on story, character design, etc for about a year now and it's beginning to shape itself into a ready for production project. I am planning on getting some close friends to contribute some work in their particular fields of expertise, partly just to keep things interesting for me. I am planning a 6 month schedule for this which is 6x that of my previous film "K-9Lives Episode1". I think it will be important to aquire some outside assistance if only to keep my own inspiration levels up.

Unless I get some freelance work this is what I'll be working on for some time now so expect more of this to come over the following weeks.

Watch the trailer for my short film K-9Lives Episode 1 on the film's IMDB page.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1358980/

Be sure to give it a rating after you watch!

Festival Update:
K-9Lives Episode1 has been selected for screening at "Shorts on Walls" as part of the Flatpack festival in Birmingham Sat 14th March.

Check my website http://www.dougwilson.co.uk/ for further details, and I'll keep updating on the blog about any other screenings.