Boy & Bicycle
Brief: Produce an animated film poster based on one of the four films below:
- The Lunch Date
- About a Girl
- Boy and Bicycle
- Lad
- The Beach Combers
I began by watching the five short films several times over to fully understand the signs, meanings and messages behind each motion picture. I decided to design an animated film poster for Ridley Scott's first ever film Boy and Bicycle; I liked the simplicity and engaging imagery to the picture, the storyline focuses on a boy who skips a day of school to ride his bike.
After selecting the film, I sketched out multiple variation's in design for the poster. This in turn guided me to experiment with layout, context and form, but ultimately it enabled myself to highlight meaning within the poster. I wanted to tell as much of the story as I could, describing how the boy feels about school and how he just wants to break free to ride his bike. For this I looked at various other forms that allude to a similar story to Boy and Bicycle; for example Pink Floyd's music video for Another brick in the Wall highlighted certain imagery that the boy might of experienced at school, a sense of imprisonment from the school and its teachers. From looking at works such as Pink Floyd, it sparked visuals of german expressionism, which in turn inspired me when drawing the head teacher.
After finalising a design for the poster, and figuring out what elements would animate, I scanned my drawing of the head teacher into photoshop. I felt the best way to create the animated film poster was in the form of a gif, and as with the previous GIF project photoshop was the most efficient way to make one. After making some slight changes to my drawing, adjusting the hue, brightness and saturation, I began to build up the rest of the poster, starting with adding a red strip then placing the text. I wanted the teacher to stand out more so I highlighted him with a red and white edge that I added noise, to reinforce texture. I finally placed a dirt layer over the top just to mute the colours, and again strengthen the texture to the piece. With the animation element I drew out the the boy on his bicycle, scanned it into photoshop's timeline, and enlarged the scale and changed the position with each frame, ending with the result of the boy cycling out of the teachers mouth to of screen.
Overall I am happy with my final animated film poster. I believe I have captured the essence and story of the short film, for me the boy skipped the day of school because he wanted to be free from the constraints of school during the 1960s, he wanted to escape the harsh reputation that teachers had back then and just ride his bicycle. With this in mind I purposely made the teacher have grotesque characteristics alluding to a monster, this in turn emphasises the viewpoint that the boy has on the teachers and school. The open mouth with the boy cycling out of it, illustrates that the boy is being consumed by schooling, and him cycling away from it is his escape to freedom. If i was to change anything, I would enlarge the teachers head ever so slightly, just to reinforce the over arching intimidation that the teacher has over the boy. As whole my final poster is visually engaging, exciting and interesting, the text is clear and speaks for itself, but ultimately the animated poster tells the story of the boy and his bicycle.
