first scene for my film

Leonie advised me to treat my narrative as though they were chapters and list the actions that will take place in each part. Here is the script to my narrative and the actions that will take part during the sentances.



To an audience, I am elegant and weightless, balancing on the points of my shoes. An illusion.

• Shoe is shown perfect 
• the shoe goes onto pointe and the angle changes.
• the shoe is shown to become battered and broken

My shoes are uncomfortable at first. They have to be broken.

• the shoe is bashed
• The shoe then is then scored on the sole
• the shoe is bent and snapped
• a hand places it onto pointe position

Together, the shoes and I, we have to train ourselves, many hours, days, weeks, years….

• the shoe does a pirouette
• camera angles change and the shoe is jumping
• the shoe does more floor exercises
• as it performs the shoe slowly becomes more broken and smudged. Fading to a screen of black.
  

Then comes the moment, when the crippling pain is gone – and I AM weightless, beautiful, soaring …. such a brief moment!

 

• a ribbon appears on the screen as a beacon of light.
• ribbons swirl around the screen graceful and light.
• the ribbons drift to the ground as a pair of battered feet are in the middle.

 

Pain can be forgotten, shoes wear out.

• the battered feet have bandages on them.
• the shoe is wrapped up and put to the side

There is always someone waiting in the wings, hungry.

• the shoes are on the left and the screen pans to a newer pair of shoes on the right of the screen.

I have the first scene of my film so far done.

New Script

Have alot of old updates to blog.

My altered script was as follows

   A ballerina's feet are her best kept secret.

   To the audience of a ballet performance, the ballerina is elegant and weightless thanks to her pointe shoes. However, what the audience see's is merely an illusion.

   Pointe shoes require breaking-in so that the ballerina may dance in them comfortably. Usually they are bashed, bent and scored and may even have pieces torn from them. Handmade from satin and canvas, these shoes may last from a few hours to a few weeks. And, after a show, the ballerina will feel like those battered pointe shoes. She may suffer broken or lost toenails as well as blisters, bruising and bunions. A dancer runs the risk of being crippled by her shoes, her own tools. She may protect her feet and her lively hood by taping her toes and stuffing her shoes with cotton wool but pain is always an inevitable thing. Art is so rarely derived from happiness.

   A dancer may train in these agonising shoes for up to twelve hours a day, increasing the risk of injury. One wrong turn could end a dancer's career. Some may even hide their injuries, such is the desire to hold onto a part they have been given in a performance. There is always someone waiting in the wings, hungry to fill their shoes.

   A life of a ballerina is full of training, which doesn't stop when they leave the studio. They must hone their bodies to be thin yet with muscle, not unlike an athlete. Their bodies are also the reason why ballerinas are born, not made: they are required to have a thin, elegant frame.

   A ballerina will spend weeks training for a performance, undergoing battling fatigue, injury and stress. But during the final performance, their hard work will pay dividends, for it is their chance to shine in the spotlight.

   In that one performance, the training, endurance, shoes and the dancer's body come together for a brief moment where all the hardship was worth it.

   In a way a dancer is like the very shoes she dances in. She is born, she is trained and injured, and enjoys a moment in the sun, then she is finishes her career when she cannot dance anymore and is thrown away from her company.

  

Although it was a true depiction of a ballerinas life, this was too much of an essay. Leonie went through my script with me a few weeks ago and this is the finished version which will be a narrative to my film. We timed it out and found that it came to a minute.

To an audience, I am elegant and weightless, balancing on the points of my shoes. An illusion.

Together, the shoes and I, we have to train ourselves, many hours, days, weeks, years….

My shoes are uncomfortable at first. They have to be broken.

Then comes the moment, when the crippling pain is gone – and I AM weightless, beautiful, soaring …. such a brief moment!

(‘in the sun,’) Show this in the images… swirling movement in sunlight?

Pain can be forgotten, shoes wear out.

There is always someone waiting in the wings, hungry.

A New Idea

Two weeks ago I had a tutorial with Leonie which i found profoundly helpful. My idea has changed to being just a depiction of the shoes with a narration. The shoes will be twisted and turned while the narration talks about the life of a ballerina and how the pain and drudgery is worth it in the end. I was set to do some life drawings of the shoes that I bought so that we could work with them under a line tester.

Things to Change

After my feedback tutorial, I agree that my drawing style needs to become looser and that I need to take more risks with my film as it is all too safe. I intend to start by changing my animatic, mostly adding more dance scenes and changing alot of the camera angles. I made a quick list of what to start changing.

1. Shoe box, more to the right side of the frame following the rule of thirds. Maybe even get rid of the box and have the ballerina take the shoes from a bag.
2. Over the knee shot of ballerina taping her toes. I have reference footage which will give a more 3D feel as the camera has the dancers knee in shot giving perspective.
3. Putting on shoe, change angle perhaps from dancers perspective.
4. Jumping scene, perhaps from a view below the dancer or a pan of her body from feet to chest.
5. Tutor will not be static, but will be seen watching her movement carefully.
6. Cane shown from below, to show the power that the teacher is exerting.
7. Splits, show from behind, and close up of her face.
8. Bashing shoe, need more thought on the perspective of this scene.
9. Pirouette from above and from below the dancer. maybe even a shot of the tutu turning.
10. Dancer moving en pointe to the side. I imagine the camera to be at an angle and the dancer moves towards it.
11. Simplify barre scene and put more dance scenes between it and the scene where her feet are shown battered. All the audience needs to know is that she is tired.
12. Big opening scene of the stage, the music goes quiet for a moment then picks up.
13. the choreography for the final dance needs to be changed. Will watch more ballets and see what movements go together.
14. more dance scenes are needed in general.

Feasibility test with digital colour

I have taken a few frames from my animatic and coloured them digitally as a test to see if it is feasible to use this type of style in my final film. Overall I like some aspects such as the way in which the wood flooring looks but I'm not sure if this style will hinder my final film. I'm going to have a tutorial during the week and get a second opinion on whether to use digital colouring as a way to colour my film.

Sketches and Colour Tests with digital colouring

Here I have what I intend the pointe shoes to look like in the final piece in order of how worn out they are.

Here I have when the shoes are perfect and new. Stiff and the box shape of the toe is still recognisable.

Slowly the lines become smoother, the shoes are becoming dirtier and the box is slowly becoming rounder. the tip is becoming more worn away and the soles are dirtier.

the lines are more smudged as the shoe becomes more worn in, the tip is tearing and wearing away. the shoe is more broken in meaning the sole is alot less stiff

the shoe has reached the end of its life and is going to be thrown away. the sole is broken, the tip is worn away to the canvas and the shoes are extremely grubby.
















I have also coloured each stange digitally in photoshop, following the colour pallette I uploaded in a previous entry.

Colour Mood boards

Here are some colour mood boards for the stages of my film. They show what colours will be brought in and out as the film progresses.

The shoes are new and so there will be bright and pastel colours of pink and peach and also white and pale blues to denote the newness of the shoes.

The shoes are beginning to wear and so the pink fades, red is brought in due to the pain and fatigue that the ballet dancer is under. Brown, black and grey are also brought in due to the grubbyness of the shoes.

The ballet dancer is performing and is happy and energetic. Pink, white, and pastel blues and yellows are brought back during this scene.

The shoes are thrown away into the bin, grubby and broken. Grey, black and brown denote the death of the shoes.