Sasha Lawrence, Digital Animation Level Two.

Production report: ‘Poppy and the

Pasty Factory – Silence of the Pies’
Pre-production bible.
I have now completed the pre-design project and have a finished bible - this is a production report of my
working process, the difficulties I’ve encountered and my achievements.

I decided to do ‘the pick n mix' pre-production project over the post-production option as I am interested in the
thought process, design and concepts of animation - as they are important for a successful film ('story is key'). I feel
I have put enough effort into the bible and am pleased with the results, I have developed my skills in research,
character design, setting design and storyboarding and now have a better understanding of the work
and content of a pre-production bible – so hopefully in the future I can create one to help effectively pitch an idea.

Initial Ideals - 'Pick N Mix'

To start the project I was given four random words to use for the basis of my animation:
Character: Pie, Setting: Prison Camp, Style: Underground Comix & Show: Satire
Initially I struggled with these words as;
1) I was unfamiliar with the Underground Comix style of work
2) Thought satire is tricky to convey effectively
3) I was most apprehensive about ‘Pie’ as a character - I wasn’t sure how that would work without being too
overtly cartoony and childlike (which isn’t my style of animation) and with the ‘prison camp’ setting I’d wanted it
to be something darker and more for adults.

So I rectified these problems, firstly with a lot of research into my chosen words:

Research
I learnt a lot from this project in how to research an ideal and get inspiration from my
surrounding.
I took a road trip to visit Bodmin Jail as I thought it would be perfect research
for my 'Prison Camp' setting. I was taking inspiration from the Pixar video we
watched at the start of the project of how the directors and Pre-production
designers took a trip to Tepuis in Venezuela (the setting of Up) to experience the
location for themselves, whilst my trip wasn’t quite as adventurous as that - I
think it helped my designs, particularly for the environments. The visit and the
photos were great reference to recreate the atmosphere, getting a real feel for the
place – which you’d never get from just looking at images on the internet, to really
experience what it is like in a prison – how dark/damp/cold and creepy it is!

For the Cornish town settings I took photos around Falmouth to depict a
proper picturesque sea side town and took photos of pasties, also using greasy
pasty wrappers for the layout of my bible for that authentic feel.
I also did market research at Asda into the variety of Pies that were
on offer as research and inspiration for character designs. (I primarily
tried to imagine how Pies could represent society e.g. The class divide:
Posh Gourmet pies of the Deli counter... Vs the Smart Price apple
pies (with their wall paper paste filling), Age Divide: Old school
Tinned Pies Vs the young n hip 'Pukka' Pies). This was a great
starting point for character and story development.

Tinned, minced and frozen - Cruelty to Pies must stop!

I looked at books from the library for research of the 'Underground Comix' style and focused
my project on the work of Robert Crumb - his detailed line work/cross hatching and
illustrative fashion.

Books
-Nasty tales : sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, and violence in the British underground / David
Huxley
-Below critical radar : fanzines +alternative comics from 1976 to the present day / Roger
Sabin & Teal Triggs
-Expressive anatomy for comics and narrative : principles and practices from the legendary
cartoonist / by Will Eisner with Peter Poplaski.

Initial ideas + development

I began mind mapping ideas and initially came up with;
First Idea: The Rise and Fall of Pie.
A Pie character is in Prison, the animation follows its
journey of how it got there - From the history of its
creation, it's powerful use as a slapstick weapon against
Political/social injustice and its fall as a fuel for fat
people causing global obesity.

Robert Crumb style: Silence of the Pies Pastiche.

I then worked on a ‘pasty face’ prison character and did a
sketch of a parody/pastige of the film 'Silence Of The
Lambs' with my Pasty man prisoner as Hannibal and a
'Pie bird' (Ceramic Bird that is put in pies to vent steam)
as Agent Starling, for use as a concept art piece in my
pitch.
 Once I had done enough research I re-worked the story and developed ‘Poppy and the Pasty Factory – Silence of
the Pies’ and began fully designing characters and environments. I also wrote a rough draft of script which helped
me to really establish the story, and imagine wow images for the storyboard and concept art.

Character designs
This project has taught me a lot about designing a character for animation, I
got inspiration from research and the book called 'Prepare to board! : creating
story and characters for animated features and shorts' where it talks about
using basic shapes for characters (like Kathy mentioned) stereotypes and scale
and how to use them in a clever way - not always being cliché. The book also
talks about keeping the design of characters, background and props unified
& coherent- so they exist in the same universe. This is something I think I
achieved in my bible – establishing more emphasis on the use of Robert crumb
style illustration throughout and keeping everything Cornish and pasty-
shaped. I’ve achieved this style by varying the thickness of line (thick outline,
fine for detail) and using more cross hatching. Initial sketch - Local Shop keeper
Initial sketch -
Poppy Cobbledick
(a true Cornish Pitch
name)

Before doing my final pitch I did a practice pitch to Derek who gave me feedback for what to work on. He
suggested I need to tell the story visually, so I developed a ‘teaser trailer’ storyboard for my idea (Adding the main
characters + using photos for background my research e.g. Bodmin Jail) which helped really helped to tell the story
in my pitch and get the the audience interested!
The pitch went well as I was prepared - I practised saying the pitch in an interesting way, and had developed my
story, characters and concept artwork to help tell the tale and to set the dark tone.
I got some good feedback to work from and used this to develop my final bible (also incorporating an ending to my
film... ‘let's just say that I think Poppy would make a tasty Pasty!’)

Finished Bible!
I wanted my bible to look professional so I spent a lot of time working on the design of it in In design, I also
wanted to be creative in the design of my finished bible, so I thought outside the box and decided to make my bible
pasty shaped – I thought this would help make my bible be more eye catching and stylised. I plan to make a hand-
out version of the bible and will cut along the pasty template so it is physically that shape.

I worked on more pieces of concept art

for the bible – to help make the design
more interesting and sale the story.

Overall I am pleased with outcome of my polished bible and could really

imagine the idea working as a short animation in the
future, which is impressive considering the concept came from four
random words! This project has taught me alot about the pre-production
process for animation.