Expanding on the previous logo idea with the crescent sun/moon.



We later combined the previous two formats for this new possibly final design.

The logo well and truly needs putting to sleep now. Not that our efforts have been little, as we have endeavoured in dozens of logo designs, but perhaps looking at a hybrid of Dans latest and kins honeycomb could be the way to go?

Also all synopsis' have the ability to be scripted into something perfect for what we're looking for. I think tomorrows talk, should cover what would be the most effective to animate in regards to our time constraint however.

see you guys at 1.

Below the depths of Earth in a secret laboratory, lies the most horrific creation yet. The perfect killing machine born from the mind of a madman, an unsuspecting baby doll brought to life to reign terror on the surfacers above. Now he has escaped and walks among us. This is the Day of the Chainsaw Wielding Baby from the Centre of Earth!

--
Stuck with the traditional cliché of a mad scientist creating new life, such as the terror of Frankenstein.

In the distant future man moves deeper into earth in search of minerals and alternative sources of fuel. The working class population slowly migrate closer to the centre of earth mining for the world above.


As each generation passes, the once human workers below the surface slowly mutate from the extreme climate, evolving into ever more volatile lifeforms. The population on the surface of the earth feel increasingly threatened by them and seal the pathway between the two worlds, dismissing them as humans.


To feed themselves they develop the ability to consume magma which is rich in minerals. The lack of nutrition in the underworld halts the natural growth of the humans, leaving them forever in a physical and mental state of infantality.


These magma creatures become antagonized and breach the surface, wielding weapons of their working class ancestry. This is the day of the chainsaw wielding babies from the centre of earth!

A dismissed worker from a toy factory goes rogue, he creates a tunnel from a toy factory all the way down, close to the center of the earth. He sets up a laboratory type workshop in which he will devise his master plan;

'To revenge against the people who dismissed him!'

He sneaks up each night and steals/takes different parts from prototype dolls. He works during the day to create the monstrosity that is a... Baby.

'A Baby?' you might ask, yes, an Evil, posessed demon baby. (With a chainsaw moulded onto his arm)

A Mad Scientist, whose laboratory is located in the Earths core (the centre of the Earth), gets to work on his latest elaborate creation: A Bionic Baby.

'The Baby', given the gift of life, much like any baby, is naturally inquisitive, and through its curiosity manages to find its way to the surface of the Earth.

A tale of loneliness and acceptance, 'The Baby' tries to fit in and be like those it encounters, but being bionic (and having a lethal chainsaw for an arm) makes it extremely difficult, as he harms all he tires to befriend.

The baby unaware of his wrongdoing, is hunted and lynched, seen as a machine, not a life, it is destroyed.








Now before delving into the semantics or significs of this plot, it is clear to see it draws a lot from other classic movies. Frankenstein in particular, with the whole mad scientist creating an abomination. The Terminator 2 and Edward Scissor Hands have both been referenced too (the idea of something designed for one purpose trying to break free of that mold, fit in with others, but ultimately being unsuccessful).
Now although some could argue this sounds quite soft, they haven't seen the horror side of it, as that is a mostly visual impact. after all Frankenstein was a horror that had a sad story running through, so it definitely can work.

So we had our first group meeting today. All four group members showed, which was extremely helpful, and we all had some decent input, managing to cover a lot of ground.

Topics we covered included:

Our final logo choice: Kin dropped a bombshell, bringing 4 new brilliant designs to us, which we decided to use as our final piece. The final choice will be uploaded by kin as and when, and we will be using this as watermarks and headers on all our up coming works.

Research: We spoke of the research myself and Leo put on the blog, and out of this we began spit balling story ideas. More research will follow as and when we have our finalised synopsis. The concept artists will be researching researching relevant work to them etc.

Storyline/Script: We all had an input on this, and gave ourselves some perimeters to work within. These will be revealed in time, but we all agreed that we would each come up with a synopsis and post it this evening (fingers crossed).

Full attendance, good input, nice work guys.

With children possessing a natural uncanny ability when it comes to horror, perhaps we can push this further by making the humanoid baby a doll/puppet. Dolls and puppets are perhaps even more uncanny in their strange likeness to humans, and whether they are 'alive' or not.

Chucky from Child's Play springs to mind as an initial point of inspiration, capturing the creepiness of dolls with a true sense of horror.



The puppet from Saw also features uncanny characteristics in its stillness and ever so subtle movements.



The arms of the baby doll could be tweaked to be a chainsaw blade itself, perhaps the result of some mad experimentation to bring the puppet alive similar to that of Shelley's Frankenstein. Check out the 1910 version of Frankenstein below.



The doll/puppet idea could be worked to be a parody to the cliche of murderous dolls as a full scale horror, or perhaps even comedic depending its style and presentation. Whether its plausible to go down this route is up to discussion.

A Meteorite crashes into a remote part of earth, boring through until it reaches the centre.
Tremors are felt miles away, until a humanoid baby Breaks its way through the ground to the surface.

(Not revealed yet, but the baby was sent in the meteorite to destroy infant inhabitants of another planet, unbeknown to the baby, the meteorite went off course)

The baby is found wandering by a childless couple who take pity and decide to take it in.
whilst living with the couple the baby continues to wander and See's his surrogate father chopping down trees with a chainsaw.
Needless to say the parents are butchered, and the rest of the film shows the town police trying to find a killer, unbeknown that it's the baby the whole time.

i haven't come up with an ending, as it will be made into a trailer, and it's not as though we'll be showing it.

any thoughts let me know :)

Guys, 11am Baseroom this Monday (flexible) just to check in where we are.

We will be discussing our theme, story and character ideas, as well as finalising our logo design - so be prepared! - Leo

It is optional, but if you decide not to come for whatever reason, decisions will be made without you, and this could lead to you ending up with roles you may not have chosen yourself, and other creative choices made without your input.

It won't take long, so hopefully see you all there.
i dont want to start my day an hour later because someone wants a lay in either, if you don't have a legitimate reason to postpone this meeting, then don't ask.


just taking the bull by the horns guys :)

Now would be the best time to say, that I'm pretty much taking the bull by the horns in terms of research, so that's why there's a lot coming your way at the moment.

Our baby has to be all these things to be a successful character. I would go into more detail, but until we know what this baby is doing, and for what reasons it's going to be hard to draw inspiration from elsewhere (or necessary inspiration for that matter)

Just for the hell of it, here again, are The Simpson's parodying The Village Of The Damned. Perhaps this is the kind of thing we could go for? comedy/parody/horror?

This project for my group, without writing an entire script, is clearly going to be centred around horror and/or sci-fi.

'The Day Of The...' already brings to mind the works of George. A. Romero and Lucio Fulci, which is horror. 'Chainsaw' immediately evokes a reaction in my mind personally, of horror or gore. Because of this, I would be more likely to lean towards Horror than Sci-fi, however using traits from both could be beneficial.

The 1950's gave birth to some of the most recognised Horror/Sci-Fi titles of our time including:

Godzilla
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
The Werewolf
The Blob
Dracula
The Mummy
Plus many more

As you can see, these are some well known movies, even by today's standards. By looking at some of these 50's trailers of successful movies, this will surely give us an insight into what we should be aiming for.



The sound is so much different compared to what I see in a cinematic trailer today. It is dramatic from the offset and there is no dip or let, in it's pulse. there are no moments where the music cuts out for a particular reason, and it is well suited to its genre, it is genuinely spooky.

As well as this, i can notice the transition of scenes are few and far between compared to today's standards, and the actual sweeping transitions are non existent, it literally just moves into the next clip.

It is also very text heavy, again compared to today's standards, and the text itself is in a particular font.




Although the musical score isn't brought in immediately like The Mummy trailer, when it does come in, it is necessary and dramatic. Even though it isn't brought in straight away, the dialogue gets straight to the point. This is the opposite to today's kind of trailers, which leave you guessing right until the last minute.

Once again, a strong yet sterile voice over is telling the story, almost an entire synopsis of the movie is given in the trailer, all the mystery is gone. Also in this trailer (and many of the others I've viewed but not posted) the text is arranged and fonted in a particular way, and is used often.

The actors are again introduced as a big part of the movie, to draw in the crowd (how the hell Steve McQueen is playing a teenager when he looks about 37 I'll never know) and are given their own portion of the trailer.

These things mentioned, are the same in pretty much most of the trailers i viewed, there is a 'formula' so to speak, in what makes a successful 50's trailer.

The score, the font, the voice over, the transitions of clips, and introduction of characters/cast, and the pacing of the drama and suspense are all different to what you would see in a trailer today, yet were considered successful in the 50's.

The Simpson's is easily the most successful cartoon of all time, and arguably the most successful TV show in general. the longevity of the show, its net worth and ever increasing mainstream exposure, would tell even the least informed TV watcher, this show is extremely big.

As mentioned in yesterdays lecture, The Simpson's is a poster child for Post Modern animation. It is renowned for it's clever parodying of old and new TV/movies as well being topically humorous.
The reason I have brought this up, is because if you look at some of the subtle, and some not so subtle parodies that The Simpson's features, you will actually realize (depending on the amount TV/Film history you know) that 80% of the show is parody of other media.

How can one show be so successful by borrowing from so many others and having so few ideas of its own? simple: The script is solid, the parodies are useful, meaningful to the plot, timed and executed perfectly and the characters in The Simpson's are likable and easily empathized with.

Look at these parodies (10 points if you get them without looking at the title), although out of context of the show, they are still extremely funny, and can be stood alone and still work!








Now, as mentioned, these are less effective as comedy parody when taken out of context with the rest of an episode, however, you can still see the attempt to make each piece humorous.

Feature length movies that are entire parodies (such as Meet The Spartans, Scary Movie etc.) are often known as spoofs. Although there was a niche for this type of film around 8 to 10 years ago, the overuse and over-saturation on the market of these types of film have led to those themselves becoming low quality cliché's. You know without second thought that when you're going to see one of these films, you're going to see utter shit 90% of the time.

despite this, The Simpson's, a show that for 20 years has relied on parody profusely is still extremely successful not only among viewers but critics alike. There is a correct way to use parody, and the Simpson's do just that.

To create a successful story (or in this case trailer) that runs by the brief, we need to understand the thin lines between humorous & stupid, love & hate and credibility & the unbelievable.

Cliche' and parody, used to be two separate entities in film, but along the years have become extremely similar in the sense that parody is almost done to death (we actually have entire motion pictures that are one 90 minute parody of another film) has made it a poor cliche'.

We are all familiar with real life instances of Cliche', for example; A man has a falling out with his other half, and in an attempt to reconcile, he buys her chocolates and flowers. it's a cliche'!
in film however, you have all these real life cliche's that can be scripted, as well as other dialogues, actions, problems and resolutions.




In this short countdown (which i HIGHLY recommend anyone who is struggling with movie cliche's to watch) celebrity movie/game critic James Rolfe, talks about, in his opinion, the top 10 cliche's used in movies. although this isn't a definitive guide, as there are literally thousands, this will definitely make you start realising the used and overused conventions in movie.

In retrospect, it is because of parody that a lot of movie cliche' is in fact a cliche'. Think of it like this, a good example of a movie cliche' would be, in slasher movies, the innocent girl survives and the drug abusing ''sexahoilc'' teens are the first to get wasted.

now think of the first (or arguably the first) slasher: Halloween. There was no formula or idea of this now convention to borrow from. However, it worked and Halloween was extremely successful.

Perhaps due to this success, perhaps for some other reason, other slasher movies not only used the idea of the impervious killer, but that same cliche' i mentioned before. it wasn't a cliche' when used in Halloween, but now it is? surely that can only mean that cliche's are made from overuse of a good/bad thing?

During our meeting, we discussed the situation of our studio name and logo designs. We came to the conclusion to rearrange our initials as 'KLED', read as one word, to form 'KLED Studios'.

We've also developed our logo further:



The simplicity in the design helps to ensure that it is easily identifiable, while being fresh and appealing with its typography and two tone colour scheme.

Hopefully, we will be able to determine our final design from here. Thoughts and feedback is most welcome.

Our first task on the agenda is to establish our brand identity with our Studio name and logo. So far, our initial studio name is LEDK Collaborations - formed by the initials of each our first names. As such, we've initially begun to design our studio logo around this name in mind.

I've gathered each of our logo designs into this post to help us finalise our design as a whole.

Dan


Elliot



Kin

I tried the design using "delk" instead as it can be read as a single syllable.

Leo


I'm leaning more to the use of 'Studios' rather than 'Collaborations' as the later is perhaps a little too long. Using our initials as 'Delk' is also something to consider as it can read as one word, rather than stating 'L-E-D-K Studios'. Although, I just punched 'Delk Studios' into google which came up with this site known as 'Delk Design studios' which could pose a problem. As for the design, I think simple is best as we'll be using these across our images so they shouldn't be too intruding.

Its important that everyone is happy with our brand name and logo as we'll be using it for quite some time as our banner to unite under.

Public are welcome to add their thoughts and comments to this post!

Welcome to LEDK Collaborations (name subject to change)! Ready to take on Unit 1 - Narrative: Retro-fest at the University of the Creative Arts Rochester. The members of this studio are:

Dan Bright - http://dbrightba.blogspot.com/
Kin Chan - http://kinseye.blogspot.com/
Elliot Mcgregor - http://ellymcgregor.blogspot.com/
Leo Tsang - http://ltsang.blogspot.com/

Our goal is to produce a short 2 minute animated trailer based on a random retro movie title with a total of 15 weeks. The title of our movie is:

Day of the Chainsaw Wielding Baby from the Centre of Earth


Its a crazy title full of possibilities, so this should be fun!