Title Sequence: Animation Test

Although small tweaks are constantly being made to the order and timing of our animatic, it currently does not include any animation. 

The above animation test is just a small segment of our animatic, but will hopefully be useful to us as the art style and music pull together. I shall continue to experiment with animation techniques in Adobe Flash over the upcoming weeks.

Title Sequence: Greek Pottery Designs

When continuing my research into Greek pottery, I came to find many designs that featured images within a patterned circle.I experimented with different shots from our animatic to see whether this style could be implemented.

An example of the art style that has been referred to.

This symbolic shot of Samson's hands worked best out of the test art, although as the group remains undecided upon the background design I have experimented with both plain white and a terracotta-like gradient. 

Title Sequence: Research into Pillars

The silhouette art style for our title sequence was influenced by Greek pottery. When carrying out research into the art style, I stumbled across the different types of pillars that were created for Greek temples. Temples were not only used to worship God, but were also symbols of their society and culture and were typically built on the highest ground of every Greek city and conquered territories around the Mediterranean.

There were three types of pillars, each with their own proportions and detailing:

• Doric

The oldest, simplest and largest of the three designs. The pillar typically has no base and the shaft was decorated with concave curves (called flutes).

The Doric pillars of 'Parthenon' in Athens.

• Ionic

This design is used for smaller buildings and interiors. There are two scrolls on the capital (called volutes) which Virtruvius compared to the 'delicate female form'. 

The Ionic pillars at 'The Temple of Athena Nike' in Athens.

• Corinthian

These pillars were very rarely used and were elaborately decorated with two tiers of acanthus leaves.

The Corinthian pillars at 'The Temple of Olympian Zeus'

This research may be used to influence the design of the pillars at the end of our title sequence.

References: 1 | 2 | 3

Title Sequence: Idea Progression

Joe and I had a meeting to brainstorm ideas for the elements and art style of our title sequence. 

We are yet to have a meeting as an entire group so I have no doubts that the ideas we currently have will be tweaked over the next few weeks. However, this is a rough outline of the sequence:

1. Grass is waving in the wind.
2. The grass grows upwards, forming the shape of Samson.
3. A transition of Samson's hair becoming the lion's hair.
4. The lion roars. 
5. Zooming into the lion's mouth fills the screen to black.
6. The fox runs across the shot (on fire).
7. Fire transition.
8. The donkey's jawbone hits the ground.
9. Hands bound by rope.
10. The rope snaps.
11. The rope trails on.
12. Rope morphs into a spoke of the mill.
13. The mill is rotated.
14. The mill transitions into a pillar. 
15. The pillar cracks.
16. Cut to another pillar - which also cracks.
17. Full shot of the temple with both pillars continuing to crack.
18. The temple collapses.
19. The rubble spells out "Samson".

Research into Title Sequences

It has been decided that our title sequence will be created for the biopic of Samson - a character from the Bible.

As hair is a strong element within his story, I decided to look into Disney's 'Rapunzel'. The title is revealed with her hair trailing along the floor below it, which could influence the artistic style of our sequence when we come to design it later this week.

Throughout the past two weeks I've been looking at a range of title sequences for inspiration. So far, my favourites include: