The Oval Portrait - Production Notebook

Officially Beaten to the Punch

Andy — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:26:09 +0000

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. Those who know me well know that originality means a lot to me. I have been known to abandon what I considered really good ideas after finding that I wasn’t the first to come up with them, despite being urged that the overlap is “no big deal.” Obviously in this case we are dealing with pre-existing literary material, so of course I have no claim over that. But before beginning this project, I tried my best to see if there had previously been any attempts at adapting this particular story, especially for animation. At the time I couldn’t find any evidence of anything in the works. Furthermore, despite being a Poe fan in early high school days, I myself had never come across this story before, so I assumed that it was relatively unknown to others as well. I have since learned that The Oval Portrait is pretty common reading material in high school lit classes across the country.

Anyway, I’m ranting further and further from the topic. Basically, if I had found a significant animated version of this story before I started, I probably would have moved on to something else. However, now that I have come as far as I have, I don’t think I’ll abandon it. I believe that the way I can portray the themes of the story is unique enough to stand apart and still be important. I hope that my version is significantly distinct enough to avoid unpleasantries like confusion and accusations of theft, unoriginality, redundancy, etc.

The Short in Question

The first evidence I found of the prior film was at this link, which gives some production info and a thumbnail still. That was all I knew about it for months until today when I did another search and found the animator’s website. From there I finally found a link to watch the short online.

I liked it. I think overall it’s definitely a valid interpretation. I’m relieved that it’s a different take than I have in mind. There are things I can learn from this and even the Lego version. I think it’s funny that they both end with the poor girl as a skeleton. He definitely has great music, looks like he got it professionally composed and recorded for his piece. That seems to be the way to go. Of course his painting session is a montage sequence like mine… not really any way to avoid that. Those close-ups of the brushstrokes are dead on with what I want to do… oh well. I like how he chose the light/shadows moving across the floor to show time pass; I’m not planning on using that at the moment. His artist character seems more villianous than I want mine to be, and I would say there are things about both characters that aren’t developed enough for this to be a stand-alone film that a viewer could fully appreciate without knowing the story already.

Anyway, I could go on over-analyzing it, but the point is there is a lot for me to learn from it. I’m sure I will be changing some things around as a result.

Lego My Eggo Story!

Andy — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:51:33 +0000

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?

So you’d like to write for animation?

Andy — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:41:34 +0000

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

More Words of Wisdom

Andy — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 03:35:10 +0000

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.”

Pitched to Jim Capobianco

Andy — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 18:54:22 +0000

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!