The Oval Portrait – Production Notebook

My last post was about an animated attempt at The Oval Portrait that can’t really be considered a threatening precedent because of its rudimentary nature.  What I mean by “threatening precedent” is something that has been completed before your production that covers the same subject matter and is competent enough in story-telling execution and production value to be counted as a definitive and sufficient adaptation of that material.  In other words, to those who have seen it, it is “the” visual (or specifically in this case – animated) adaptation of that literary work.  It would make someone say something like, “I love that story, have you seen the cartoon version?”  As far as the Lego version goes, no one would really consider that the definitive animated adaptation of the story, even if only for the reason that it was not a serious attempt at film-making.

 So where I’m going with this is… I finally found an authentic, animated adaptation of The Oval Portrait that was completed in 2004 and has already been in at least one film festival.  Read the rest of this entry »

Browsing around YouTube, I found that a high school student made a stop-motion Lego version of The Oval Portrait for his English class.  Of the five and a half minutes, I think about 60 seconds actually have to do with the story, but I enjoyed it.  It’s interesting to see someone else’s vision of the story.  I laughed when I noticed the disolve shot from the painting to the live girl; exactly like the first shot in my short.  I guess it’s a pretty obvious way to go, so I shouldn’t be surprised. 

 Lego… why didn’t I think of that?

I stumbled upon an article that focuses on the possibility of Disney getting back into producing hand-drawn animated features thanks to John Lasseter.  However it has an interesting interlude that includes an old interview with Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid, Alladin, …Treasure Planet) about their writing process.  It’s cool to read about how they work as a team, utilizing each other’s strengths, tossing the treatment back and forth, etc.  An unexpected gold nugget.

The article:
http://www.laughingplace.com/News-PID510530-510531.asp

This time from the mouth of Pixar art director/production designer Ralph Eggleston in an interview on the Spline Doctors site.  Click here to download the full audio of the interview.

 Question: What are some of the common elements found in a really good short film?

“Brevity, Clarity, Sincerity… that’s it.”

“Be brief; get in, get out.  The second it’s done, get out.”

Thursday I had an incredible opportunity.  I got to pitch my OP storyboards to Pixar storyman Jim Capobianco!  Of course I was pretty nervous because I already had a big list of changes and fixes queued up, but not yet drawn, so I knew I was pitching a flawed piece.  But it was great to get his input on my project and hear him echo suggestions that have already been made, as well as new important ones.  Basically he ripped it apart, but fortunately he also explained that’s just how it goes in story.  You can’t get attached to your ideas, you have to learn to sacrifies your “babies,” so to speak.  And interestingly enough, he said, more often than not, the first big idea that really got you going about the project in the first place will, after a while, be the very thing hampering the piece because you’ve developed it so far that it doesn’t fit anymore, but you don’t want to let it go.  So the big things I got from listening to Jim are to enforce limitations on yourself when creating the initial story and to remain flexible throughout the development/refinement process.  And also that refinement only comes from reworking and reworking and constantly exposing what you have to criticism, so you can rework it again and again.

 Thanks Jim!