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1. Plot
Outline
2. My Analysis
3. Production Journal
Outline
I don't know where to start! This
won't be the most coherent thing you've ever read, but hopefully
it will fill you in a little, Grace-wise. The following text
RUINS the plot of Grace, so watch it first!
Quick outline:
Travis pursues what he thinks he wants (FAME), but realizes
that he will have to compromise his morals to reach his goal.
He is tempted, but chooses the right path, finally learns
the difference between Fame and Glory, chooses the latter,
and is fulfilled. Meanwhile, Cecil chooses the wrong path,
achieves his goal, but is unfulfilled.
Not-as-quick Outline:
In an enormous, futuristic city, a
warrior/mechanic/inventor named Fabron is "Mayor"
over a district of people, and carries on the tradition of
fighting crime and enforcing justice for that area, which
he inherited from his father and his father before him. Improving
on the tradition, Fabron opens a training facility and begins
to train multiple leaders for the next generation. The two
most powerful up-and-coming warriors are named Cecil and Travis.
• Fabron puts Cecil and Travis
in a rigorous training program. The young men are extremely
competitive, to a fault, and develop a bitter rivalry. They
both have commitments to the facility, but are also both harboring
a secret longing to procure the Phoenix Badge, the ultimate
symbol of physical strength and fighting technique.
• Meanwhile, Fabron begins to
make large advancements in the area of robotic prosthetics.
Some of his designs leak out, and a shady character named
Darcy shows interest in buying some of Fabron's inventions
and turning them to a more violent, lucrative use. Fabron
turns him down vehemently, angered that his peaceful intentions
are being twisted so early on.
• Cecil and Travis train together,
putting each other down verbally, meanwhile, and fighting
a little more sincerely than intended. One day while training
on a rooftop, things begin to look serious. Punches get harder
and faster. Eventually Travis slips on the edge of the roof
and hangs from the edge. He asks Cecil to help him, but Cecil
doesn't, and Travis falls, injuring himself badly.
• Fabron learns of this, brings
Travis to his lab, and tries a very risky operation that exchanges
damaged organs and limbs for robotic replacements. Fabron
is concerned about keeping his secret, but the operation is
the only way to save Travis' life.
• When he awakes, Travis finds
himself in a dilemma. Cecil is to blame for his injury, but
he doesn't have witnesses, and he knows Fabron can't trust
him on just his word, since he hated Cecil so much already.
• Both Travis and Cecil push
themselves mercilessly in training, attempting to become the
best warrior in the city.
• Travis and Cecil both overhear
about a ring meet that the phoenix badge holder will be attending.
Cecil and Travis both attempt
to leave for the rings, but Cecil's vehicle is sabotaged (by
Travis).
• Travis locates, fights, and
defeats the warrior, as if by sheer will. He rips the badge
off the defeated warrior's chest, and sticks it to his own.
He walks off, but attention strays to the defeated warrior,
struggling and bleeding (FAME). A shady character (Darcy)
offers Travis a career as a prize fighter. He obviously notices
Travis' mechanical enhancements.
• Travis returns with Darcy (who
learns of Fabron's whereabouts), and Fabron sees Travis' badge,
which causes him to make his Fame, Glory, Grace speech. During
the speech, Fabron is shot, and passes out in Travis' arms.
Travis confronts Cecil. "Did you try to kill him, the
way you tried to kill me?" Cecil denies it, but also
notices Travis' badge.
• They have a terrible fight,
and Travis gains the upper hand. Travis has vivid flashbacks
of Cecil almost killing him earlier and raises his weapon
in rage, but also ringing in his ears are Fabron's words.
"A glorious warrior shows grace, even to those who do
not!" What's right and what makes you famous can be two
different things. He opts for the knock-out instead (GRACE).
• Travis is shot by Darcy. The
bullet paralizes his robotic limbs, but Travis thinks quickly,
and by luck is able to throw his gun to the now barely-conscious
Cecil, who shoots Darcy, though not before taking a fatal
wound himself.
• Travis continues on, a better
man, mourning Cecil, who saved Fabron's life at the very end.
Cecil's glory is posthumous.
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My
Analysis of Grace
Filmed 6/7/06 through 7/17/06 as an
entry for the Fame, Infamy and Glory contest, Grace is my
second big Brickfilm. It received first place out of 13 films.
It was a great learning experience for me, as well as a lot
of fun to make.
I will say first, when visualizing
this film, I knew two things. One, I wanted Grace to be fun
and interesting to watch, animation-wise, and I wanted it
to "have fights." From the beginning, story was
to be second in line. That meant the plot needed to PIVOT
on fight scenes. It also had to fit the contest theme of Fame,
Infamy, and Glory.
For the theme, I chose two of the
three, Fame, and Glory, and compared them to each other. I
defined Fame as being empty and, in the end, pointless. I
tried to define Glory as being worthwhile, as it involves
being true to who you were meant to be. To be famous, you
need to receive recognition, whether it's deserved or not,
but Glory is earned. It's what you know you have when you
do what's right.
But oh, yeah, the film is titled "Grace"!
What about that? Well, the tie-in is this: true glory is destroyed
unless one shows grace to others, even when they don't deserve
it. This is in based on the biblical concept that it is not
man's duty to dispense personal justice, AKA "get revenge,"
but rather to show love to his fellow man, and wait for God
to execute perfect justice in the end times. Unless he shows
grace to others, God will not show him grace. Unless he shows
grace to others, he will not become the man God wants him
to become, and he will be out of alignment with God's will.
*Ahem*, hopefully that explains a little of my motive, writing-wise.
Looking back, I see I didn't give
myself enough time to write and develop either of these ideas,
and I had too many details that I was attached to, and encumbered
by. The robotic suit is a good example. It "had to be
there;"
1. To explain why Travis survived his fall (easily replaceable,
just don't have him fall so far, etc. etc.)
2. To give Darcy something to steal (easily replaceable).
Originally, Travis was going to be the victim of robotic racism,
and be forced to overcome physical handicaps to reach his
goals, but that got cut out when I realized his goals were
skewed to begin with (essential to Core Idea, character arc
and all that), and needed to be corrected by Fabron. I realize
now that once that was cut, I should have cut the entire concept,
but I had this vague feeling that it was helplessly tangled
into the story. Apparently not.
Beyond the plot itself, Grace is encumbered
by its too-large scale, its ambiguity,
at times a lack of focus on a single concept,
and its poor pacing.
Scale: Frankenstein,
as an example, is almost feature-length pace, and thus doesn't
tell all that much in its 9 minute run-time. It doesn't tell
"that much," but it tells it well. Grace is much
faster paced, and tells a lot more in its 10 minute run time,
comparatively, but it does not tell it as well as Frankenstein
tells its story.
My biggest problem there was just inexperience. I didn't know
Grace was going to be as big as it turned out. I wrote 14
pages, cut it down to 9, and still could have made those 9
come out to 11-13 minutes.
And Grace's plot was a headache to sort out, compared to Frankenstein,
which was really a 9 minute montage with two quick dialogue
scenes and a scream at the end. 
Ambiguity: Because I
cut so much of the script, Grace became a little hazy. It's
not even a particularly complicated story, but it's a little
hard to decipher at times just because so many holes have
been carefully, or, not so carefully punched out.
Focus: Unfortunately,
cutting the script back did not resolve the lack of focus.
For example, I wrote three climactic moments, as opposed to
one:
1. Travis gives up the badge to save Fabron. Happens in about
5 seconds. This could have been the end of the movie.
2. Travis doesn't kill Cecil even though Cecil deserves it.
10-15 seconds. This could have been the end of the movie.
3. Travis trusts Cecil enough to give him a gun, even though
Cecil just tried to kill him. This one came across fairly
well, and could be called a side detail, almost a twist in
the pulling motives, but I still don't think I gave it enough
time to flower. Again, there's the Grace concept to grapple
with, in addition to Glory Vs. Fame, which seems a little
silly now.
The big one: Pacing. If this
film had spent 3 weeks in the editing room, as opposed to
1 and 1/2 days, I would have realized many of the issues that
I just mentioned, brainstormed solutions, and probably filmed
more footage to clear up ambiguity (then again, if Grace hadn't
had a deadline, I would probably only have about a quarter
of the footage filmed at the time I'm writing this). Moments
would have been slowed down, background scenes would have
been added, and long, scrolling credits with a cool song playing
over them would have been tacked onto the end to brainwash
the audience into liking the film and forgetting inconsistencies
(only joking . . . but seriously).
Some statements at Brickfilms.com
seemed to convolute into a sentiment something like, "the
backdrop was too intriguing, and distracted from the main
point of the movie." That's encouraging! I worked hard
to make a cool-looking Lego world, with experimental light
and shadow, etc. And there WAS a lot of background information
which is only hinted at in the film, so it's good to know
that that came through, and added something. As to it being
frustrating, that's bad. But I'll see what I can do, either
through a different cut, or a new film with a better script
(can't guarantee it'll be Lego, though).
Technically, this is my most craziest
film to date. The animation was very difficult, very fun to
do, and came out cool-looking, which is what matters. Something
clicked in regards to acceleration and deceleration, which
I'll hopefully improve upon.
The dialogue animation was at times just as hard as the fight
scene animation, but never as interesting. I'm looking forward
to animating more interesting objects in the future . . .
There isn't a lot of background animation, which is a pity,
but I'm pleased with what there is, especially since it was
a contest entry.
The camera quality is far superior
to Frankenstein, thanks to the borrowed PV-GS200. It was tough
to get some of the angles I wanted, and a heck of a lot easier
to get others (and discover new ones) thanks to the (also
borrowed) tripod, and the zoom lens on the Panasonic. Using
nice equipment is nice.
Foley-wise, Grace is a little skimpier
than Frankenstein, especially towards the end, when that electro-rock
piece takes over. I finished that track half an hour before
the deadline. Dialogue-wise, however, it is much stronger.
To get the dialogue I wanted, I brought each of my actors
into my garage, looked over the script, re-wrote most of their
lines, and did many takes of each line, with different intonation
and feeling, to see what worked. I think doing this in person
rather than over the web was crucial to how well the dialogue
came out (which is pretty good, for my first big talker).
Besides that, it was a lot of fun bossing my family and friends
around, and screaming my lungs out early in the morning and
late at night (see how this manuscript is all over the place?
Now I'm telling personal stories). I remember hanging from
the rafters, doing Travis' "Cecil!" line for the
beginning, and worrying about the neighbors hearing . . .
it was the loudest I'd ever screamed. Kudos again to the voice
actors, I think they did a really, really good job. I mean,
doing laps around the block for a Brickfilm? That's insane.
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Production
Journal
6/14/06
"grace.0001.pct" was captured a week ago today,
June 7th, and it's been a wild ride since then. It's sort
of a blur now (maybe I'll quiz Dad for the details later,
he's good with details), but I think I finished the "final"
script that same day. Thanks to Dad and Toph for their help
with dialogue and story arc, respectively.
The story for this film is, I think,
pretty strong, especially considering I started writing it
wanting a movie with "lots of fight scenes." One
should also take into consideration the trimming the script
underwent the last two days before shooting. From 14 pages
down to 9, exact same ending, exact same story - but shorter.
I cut one fight sequence, and a bunch of dialogue. Actually,
it may have been a really good thing, looking back the script
looks a little bloated.
My desire for a decent story is to
blame for the overlong writing session, which in turn is partially
to blame for the current date - I should have started filming
a month ago.
Obviously my laziness was the other
factor, and now I'm paying. I've taken 2,316 frames since
I commenced filming, and I'm still feeling the pressure of
the approaching deadline. It took me a WEEK to film 2 and
some scenes? There are 23 scenes! I have 26 days! The first
number is deceiving - some "scenes" are a single
line of dialogue - but the script is 9 and 1/2 pages, which
is definitely not deceiving anyone. My plan for success is
this: I film all the action scenes first, squeeze in the dialogue-recording
sessions somewhere, and do as much of the dialogue scenes
as I can before I'm forced to use stills (heaven forbid).
I'm not fudging on the action, though, I've done three camera
movements, plenty of cool angles, and a lot of scenes that
required masking plus the techniques outlined in Errol's "How
to Animate a Fight Scene" article. Thanks, Errol, it
was helpful to have all of my vague instincts about how to
make fight scenes set in concrete.
I guess I should explain - I'm going
away for a week, July 2-8, and am planning on doing sound
and editing during the remaining 9 days. My filming time will
probably encroach on my editing time, but I have a secret
weapon - I'm editing everything as I film it. As I finish
a shot, I export it, import it into Final Cut Express, and
add my rudimentary punching sound effects to make sure the
animation actually looks good (sometimes with the more "intense"
scenes it's hard to tell).
6/15/06
Time slows to a crawl as I devote every spare minute to either
filming, or thinking about filming, or thinking about thinking
about filming. I finished the second fight scene, and am darned
tired of orange and blue gelled fluorescents.
Today I tried to film some footage
in the morning + early afternoon, but had to leave for work
at 4:00, to get back at 10:30. My pot pie is in the oven baking,
and I'm bemoaning the fact that I should be filming . . .
my feet hurt from standing up all day, and I haven't had a
real break in three days. But this break is not good for my
"30 seconds a day!!!!11!" quota. I filled my ridiculous
quota the last two days, but today it's looking like it won't
happen.
Dialogue. I think I'll try recording
dialogue before I go to bed, it's quiet, and I don't feel
like animating. Not that I have the last few days, either,
in particular.
6/17/06
GAH! I lost my Travis mini-figure yesterday, and didn't get
anything done. Actually, I wish that were the only reason
for not getting anything done, but it wasn't. I just couldn't
bring myself to start anything. I had finished the second
fight scene, and I didn't want to embark on the third without
proper thought process. I've spent today so far refining Darcy's
character, making a cutoff shotgun (or pistol with silencer,
your choice), test-animating a fountain, and trying to decide
just exactly how this third fight scene will work. I have
a script, but it says things like, "a fight ensues,"
and, "after a fight," blah blah blah.
I'm sitting here, wanting to film, but I can't because I don't
want to jump into the idea half-baked.
6/19/06
Yep, another day yesterday "wasted." I recorded
some lines, generally thought about starting scene 17, the
second fight between Travis and Cecil, and had a jolly good
time with my friends (I do have friends) until about 11:00
PM. Rather than being a social "fix," it's making
me really want to spend more time with them and less on my
baby. But I'm trying to focus. I finished a 3.5 second scene,
so the ball is rolling again, but I have work from 3:30 to
8:30 today. I'll see what else I can fit in before and after.
6/20/06
I should be twice as worried about the deadline, and I suppose
I am, but I'm STILL not as motivated as I was during the first
two fight scenes. I need to finish this third so I can complete
the film! I don't even have all the voices recorded yet. I
re-recorded a lot of Travis' lines today, but I really should
be animating.
6/23/06
16 full days left to be completely done. I'm subtracting 7
to allow for my trip. I'm coming along pretty well on the
third fight scene. Everything I have I like, I just don't
have enough. Here's hoping the dialogue scenes are really,
really easy.
7/10/06
Wow, it's been a while. I've been to camp, and (fortunately)
shot some more footage, too. I'm at about 5:10 right now,
and I have a pretty intense schedule ahead of me. Every new
day involves me animating like I never have before.
7/14/06
We're at 00:08:15. I'm thinking it will be over 00:10:00,
and I'll have to cut down, which is always fun (actually,
it is). I have about three scenes left, which is appropriate,
because I have four days left, and that leaves me with a whole
day to edit things. I'm kinda going crazy right now, because
I need more time, and I don't have any (editor's note: WOW,
good observation!). I'm going to try to not shoot what I plan
on editing out anyhow. I'm sort of numb right now, I dunno
if this movie will suck or not. It looks pretty, anyhow.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
THE DAY BEFORE THE DEADLINE,
and I'm absolutely STOKED. I finished scene 22 and most of
scene 23 before I went to bed last night, so I have just a
few easy things to film, and a lot of music to write. Well,
and editing. And sound recording. And pacing-related things.
Can't wait for this thing to be over.
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