Alice in Wonderland - thumbnail storyboards, book cover

For the peer review feedback, I wanted to show an example of how I wanted the storyboards to appear, how the structure and appearance of the storyboard would look like in the final outcome. As I wanted to use this brief to focus on locating my practice, specifically the use of storyboards and how I can show different depictions of the same narrative, I felt that it was vital for me to at least show a rough storyboard of how the imagery and media would appear with in the storyboard. I felt that using watercolour helped to show the colour and lighting of the environment and how Alice interacts with the frame. Adding Alice's expressions in the frames helped the peers to understand the emotions that the character is portraying and the use of watercolour aided the enhancement of these emotions through adding colour to the hair and dress which made the face standout to the viewer more; the use of white space helped to emphasise the face so that the viewer would focus on this element more. I felt that the narrative I had used worked well with the theme of the front cover as it showed Alice falling through the rabbit hole and how she interacts with the objects. I liked how the rough storyboard ended with Alice running after the white rabbit and finding herself looking at the environment that is called Wonderland. I felt that this was a good point for the animation to then possibly pan up to be able to see the 150th anniversary logo and the title of the book.

Rough Storyboard 1

Rough Storyboard 2

As much as I liked the first rough storyboard, I felt that it needed to relate to the book more with what interactions that Alice does whilst she falls down the rabbit hole. In the book, Alice grabs a jar of orange marmalade and opens the jar lid only to find that the jar is empty, so as she falls further she places the empty jar back on the shelf. I felt that this part of the narrative could work successfully with the young audience through the silliness of the interaction with the jar, her facial expressions could easily be exaggerated to make this more humorous to the viewers. I incorporated this scene into my storyboard, ending the scene with Alice landing on the ground and turning to see the 150th logo, however I felt that this didn't work with the rest of the storyboard as much as the turn to see the logo seemed to end abruptly compared to the rest of the narrative. I asked my peers for feedback on the storyboard so far to see if I could gain some insight on how to improve the narrative to make it feel less abrupt. The feedback I was given was positive however the inclusion of the marmalade jar narrative didn't seem to work with the peers that I showed my work to, this is due to the scene being too complex for a short animation that would be under a minute long. The scene would have been successful if it was a longer animation that included more complex narrative and taking detail from the book.

Thumbnail Storyboard 1

Thumbnail Storyboard 1 part 2

My second storyboard for the cover involved Alice sitting on the grass with her sister and she notices a rabbit jumping into a bush, as she follows the rabbit she finds the rabbit hole and accidentally falls in after the rabbit. As Alice falls she moves to be in line with the cover illustration and then falls past the text and lands into the 150th logo. I felt that this narrative was successful through how the storyboard incorporated the logo and the book cover illustration which would work well with the password that is hidden with in the image. I found myself liking the ending of the storyboard more than the beginning of the narrative in which she notices the rabbit and runs after him. I think this is due to the beginning of the narrative lasting for too long compared to the rest of the storyboard, and it also lasting longer than the short animation that it would be intended for. I asked my peers for feedback on the piece to see if my thoughts were correct. The feedback I obtained from my peers was extremely positive, they loved the idea of the cover illustration and the logo being in the storyboard as it helped to promote both aspects of the brief, including the 150th logo and that it has to be centered around Alice in Wonderland. However they agreed with the beginning of the storyboard not matching the ending of the narrative, they didn't think that it would make the storyboard last longer than the intended duration but it felt that part of the storyboard was missing through the amount of frames that was given to the start compared to the rest.

Thumbnail Storyboard 2

Thumbnail Storyboard 2 part 2

Through the feedback that I had received for both of my storyboards I decided to merge elements of the storyboards together and design these digitally so that I could ensure that I have clean lineart for the final outcome.