Script and characters
Brief
Characters
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The boss of a mafia
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Highschool boy
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Panther
Genre
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Horror
Location
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Church
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Trainstation
INT. CHURCH - Afternoon
High school boy is praying. He comes here everyday. The boy is having a rough time. His father is the boss of mafia so he's in constant fear of losing him.
INT. TRAIN STATION - Meanwhile
The boss of mafia is on a mission to sell this stolen rare kind panther. The panther is aggressive and hard to handle.
Arriving train made a loud noise which frightened the panther, the mafia guy tripped and fell on the tracks.
INT. CHURCH - A few months later
The high school boy is praying. He comes here everyday. The boy is having a rough time. His father was the boss of mafia before his death.
Tonal drawings are a bit challenging to me. The most difficult part is shading, I feel like I have no idea how to use the pencil, how to draw strokes and how to make it at least a bit realistic. My drawings remind me more of cartoons for some reason.
On the other hand, I enjoy the process and I like how the stairs turned out.
Drawings based on images
Images the drawings are based on
Proportions
I like drawing bodies in different movements, I think I got the hang of the proportions. However, it's much more challanging when it comes to drawing faces.
A sponge and hand sanitizer in my head appeared as a flaming cartoon race car
Visualising the narrative
Composition of different shots and angles
From previous composition cut out more of different narrative visualising shots such as long shot, close up, dutch, pan and etc.
Child’s dream sequence
Mood board
Development work
Colour palette
On the right I added a brief script of scenes I imagine that I will draw later on.
‘Brain-storming’ ideas
My background idea is a swirl path with hills around with colourful sweets such as lollypops, marshmallows and chocolate fountains.
Characters of the sequence
My characters inspiration came from Pixar animation characters as well as from 'My little pony' series
Unfortunately, I realised that redrawing these characters a few times and in different angles in the sequence would have been a disaster. Maybe to a more experienced drawer it seems like a simple task but I'm struggling to maintain the same character features when redrawing. Thus, I simplified them and I was inspired by anime.
Child's dream
The Landlady
A mood board of the Roald Dahl 'The Landlady' as well as a few sketches of the Mr Weaver and The Landlady
Haven't drawn faces since I'm still looking for inspiration on that.
Preliminary character designs
Synopsis/treatment of 'The Landlady'
Short animated film based on Roald Dahl's short novel 'The Landlady'.
The story is about a seventeen year old Billy Weaver who travels to Bath for a business meeting and decides to stay at a local 'Bed and Breakfast'. The place from a glance looks warm and cosy, the landlady is welcoming and sweet, however, something doesn't feel right. One of the stranger things is that there has been only two previous visitors in the past few years. How can it be so when the place is surprisingly cheap and lovely? Why does Billy find the names of previous visitors familiar?
The story is about a happy seventeen year old, the mood is uplifting. However, when arrived at the 'bed and breakfast' place the vibe gets a bit creepy or mysterious.
The music and sound effects begin as a happy or calm music and goes into some mysterious, a bit scary sounds. But the ending is calm despite the creepy ending.
Script & shot list
1.
Billy Weaver arrives to Bath.
_
the station
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9 o'clock in the evening
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cold/windy
5.
Billy rings the bell and the doors instantly opens
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The landlady greets quest in the sweetest manner
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Billy steps inside
9.
The landlady steps into the living room with tea
_
She sits on the sofa, Billy is standing near the piano
_
Billy is asking about the previous visitors and thinks why they sound familiar while the landlady is distracting him
13.
The landlady says that she stuffed her animals after their death
2.
Billy speaks to the porter, asks for directions to the nearest hotel.
6.
Talks about the price, it's very cheap
_
Billy gladly decides to stay and follows the lady upstairs
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Enters to a cosy and quest-ready bedroom
10.
Continued talk about the previous visitors Christopher Mulholand and Gregory Temple
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Billy thinks he saw the names in the newspaper
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The lady briefly describes them to him
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states that she is picky with her visitors
14.
Billy finishes his tea
_
He is fascinated by the stuffed animals
3.
Billy walking down the street
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tall, almost identical houses on both sides
7.
The landlady asks to come downstairs to sign quest book
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Billy unpacks and goes downstairs
11.
Billy sits down on the edge of the sofa since the lady was asking for it
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Both are drinking tea and a moment of silence appears
15.
Billy once again asks the lady if nobody else stayed at her place
_
She gives him a warm smile and says that only him
4.
Billy notices 'Bed and Breakfast sign'
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takes a look through the window
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wonders in the outdoors whether to knock and stay here or head to the hotel
8.
Billy, alone in the living room, checks the guest book.
_
Only two previous quests in the past few years
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Billy is confused and the names of the guests sound familiar
12.
The lady says that the visitors that stayed here a few years ago are still here, on the third floor
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Billy is silent
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Looks into the calm dachshund near the fireplace, all curled up
_
He notices that the parrot is not real
_
the dog as well
Character desription & mood boards
Billy Weaver
-seventeen year old teen
-navy-blue coat
-brown suit
-'brisky'
-tall
-perfect teeth/smile
-handsome
The Landlady
-45-50 year old
-welcoming looks
-pale lips
-blue-eyed
-small white hands
-red finger nails
Other characters:
-Porter
-Dachshund
-Parrot
-Mr Temple
-Mr Mulholland
______________________________________________
Designs using range of colour
This is my stories main characters made out of basic shapes from a textured paper. The man figure or Billy Weaver in the original novel is described as handsome or 'brisky'. Therefore, it's the main reason why I used red color for his look.
The woman figure or 'The Landlady' has welcoming looks that's why I choose to make her body in this burgundy color with gold hair and clothing
Designs using range of colour
Colour sketches of main characters outfits
I'm going for a vintage 1960s look in this story, therefore, the landlady has short curly hair.
Her dress is inspired from my characters mood board.
She has white gloves and holding a cup of tea.
Billy weaver in this story has two looks. One is his navy coat and bowler hat.
On the right, Billy is wearing a brown vintage suit with blue lines. Under his coat he has a vest which was particulary significant in the early 1960s.
Schedule of work
Designs using range of colour
cut-outs
Here are a few more of designs using range of colours of Billy and The Landlady.
Recently I visited Paris and brought back a French magazine which I used to create these designs.
The first Billy Weaver is wearing analogous colours such as purple and blue. His subtle yellow shoes are complementary to his purple jacket.
Billy Weaver on the right has wears a navy coloured textured jacket and and wearing complementary light orange trousers. His red tie is to stand out and draw attention.
I choose red for the landlady because of her bubbly and extroverted personality. She is confident and red shows that.
The second landlady is wearing white robe with french words and black accents.
White is often called as the colour of purity but in this case her white is disrupted.
She seems innocent at first but when she speaks you start to notice the darkness of her.
My own photographs
St Mary's Church, Ealing, London
Every time I come to university I pass this church and every time I stop for a second to look at it (if it's not raining).
It feel this church have this Bohemian style which inspires me.
Therefore, the church itself is not that relevant to my story but its style is.
Westminster, London
This area is a bit similar to Bath, where my story is based at.
These buildings remind me of Royal Crescent architecture.
Klaipeda, Lithuania
This city is close to me and I always use it as my inspiration. I used it as a reference for my mid-tone paper experiments.
Paris, France
Recently I was in Paris and this Gothic city gave me inspiration for The Landlady's story.
Generally, Bath has Georgian architecture but the style was getting slowly abandoned and Gothic style appeared in Bath as well.
Paris, France
This is another picture from my recent trip.
The picture is of REM public transport sprayed with graffiti of the recent 'yellow vest' situation.
The graffiti is not relevant but I thought that this train could fit into my story as a shot of station.
Jurmala, Latvia
This is a hotel bedroom that I stayed in a few months back.
This is just a reference image for the bedroom that Billy Weaver is staying in. I drew this bedroom in coloured pencils.
Designs using full range of tone
Range of angles
I decided to go with more cartoon like characters, therefore Billy is extra tall, have very skinny legs and a large hat.
In the original story the landlady is described as 45-50 years old but I think it would be better if she was a bit older in mine.
Here she is wearing a cosy robe
Experiments with working on mid-tone paper
These are pencil drawings on mid-tone paper with added acrylic paint highlights.
My favourite is the coat, I imagine this could be Billy Weaver's coat.
The house is the 'Bed and Breakfast' from the story.
And the beetle is just because I like them. In my home country the beetle is often called a little bug.
Mood board of exterior and interior
Preliminary Designs & Sketches
Here are some sketches of a living room, Billy Weaver's different outfit, The Landlady's face and the little dachshund
Designs using a full range of colour
Here I have a coloured drawing.
On the right is the reference image (my picture), however, I drew a close-up of it.
If I'm being honest, I enjoy trying different techniques but after trying a few times I see that coloured pencils is just not for me.
But with this one I'm quite happy despite that it took me in total 5 hours to complete.
Final concept design
To show my final concept design I choose to draw a scene of my story because I've been drawing the characters and environments separately so now I combined them into one.
So, I have two main characters: The Landlady and Billy Weaver. The first sketches of these characters are quite different comparing to the final ones and I am happy with how they turned out.
In the beginning I thought that my landlady will be 45-50 years old as in the original story but eventually I aged her a bit and made her skinnier.
On the other hand, Billy Weaver hasn't really changed from the start. I might just remove the hat from his look.
At some point while drawing designs they both had glasses but I decided to remove them from both.
Below I put the start and the final character design for my story to compare
