Pandora's Box (Animation Project): Scriptwriting, Storyboarding, and Concept Art.

Hello fellow animators and Greek mythology enthusiasts.
I've talked about my recent writing and editing projects I've been working on. So, I thought it would be a good time to do an animation project post. Two years ago I announced that I was going to be animating Pandora's Box, but I didn't give any other details about it, so I figured it was time to tell you...

The scriptwriting portion 

This was the first time I wrote a script for something (besides a one woman show that I had worked on more recently in the summer of 2019--more on that later...). I might have to rewrite the script in some ways, and add some scenes into it, but so far I think it is a good first draft. 

I would like it to make it flow in the same ways that some of my stories do. Perhaps, I could make it a little less comedic, because I want it to be more serious. I find that when I write conversations, they tend to be a little weird, often with comedic elements, even when it is not intended. The reason I might have accidentally written it that way was that I had been writing a serious story before I wrote the script and wanted to write something more light-hearted...which isn't exactly what I want the whole script to be like. (I want it to have light-hearted bits, but as a whole I want it to be serious and have an epic feel to it). I am aiming for the script itself to be a little like the the movie Clash of the Titans (the 1981 version, not the new one).

(Image from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/clash_of_the_titans)

I like how they took Greek mythology and retold it. Though, there were some minor changes to mythology, they didn't make it a different story or mess up the Greek Gods' family tree (like Disney's Hercules does). I also like the High Fantasy feel they gave the myth, and I would love to apply that to Pandora's Box. 

I also want to have a subplot with Athena and Artemis in animated movie, because it was not brought up as much as I would have liked in the first draft. And since Pandora was the first human woman on Earth, Artemis and Athena would be obsessed and excited over her. 

Another issue I still have with my script is the timeline. As far as I am aware, it is never clear  in mythology when the various gods or goddesses were born, but I am sure I can create a timeline for it. For example, Artemis and Apollo have to be born before Hermes in order for him to steal the cows, and Hephaestus has to be born before Athena in order for him to crack Zeus's head open and allow her to come out of it. And since in some versions of the myth of Prometheus (which is before Pandora's Box) Athena is there and breaths life into Prometheus's creation, she has to exist around this time...
The only period of time when it is clear that Artemis and Athena are not there at all is during the battle when Zeus dethroned his father Cronus. But that was only because at the time Zeus had not exactly been married yet and had no children. (And he married Metis later...) But in terms of timeline I really like how George O'Connor handled it in his comic book series Olympians, because he had certain times that all the gods came in, and he also figured out what myths the different gods should or shouldn't be in. 

The storyboarding 

One of the panels from my storyboard. 

Storyboarding is very different from actually animating but it at least helps you get from here to there. At the beginning it feels a little like you are making a comic in some ways without there being any actually speech bubbles. The thing about storyboarding is that it has to be rough drawing and you shouldn't do an overly detailed one. It's almost like plotting out a story, except that it is telling you where the characters will go, and how the character gets from A to B. And then after you're done with that, the actual animating comes in.

I began by putting the storyboard frames into the frames of the animation, though 

my animation will not be drawn in the same way, as the storyboard frames are drawn. The storyboard frames are just there so I can figure out where the characters are going.

For anyone who is interested in animating and wants to know what app I am using,
I am using Sketchbook. And I used Sketchbookx (a different app) to the draw the background. 

I then began inserting the images from the storyboard into the frames. This took a little while to figure out, since I had never used it for storyboards before. 

Hermes will not be floating (at least not floating and unable to see his lower half) in the actual animation 

My intention for the story board was to get something like this near the end: 

You can also watch it here

          Though I must keep in mind that the storyboard above is probably a final and complete draft story board and not what the story was originally like. There were probably many other storyboards before it. But I was aiming for the feel of it, though mine probably isn't the last storyboard because I might have to rewrite the script (and take away some of the narration).

After that I added in some keyframes, to make it move and not jump from frame to frame.

The next thing I did was to try to make basic frames in between the keyframes that showed how the characters flowed within the scene. Once I finish this one storyboarding for the whole script, I will be able to go in and make animation that feels as if it flows well.

Concept Art... 

In order to actually animate the characters, however, and not rely on my quickly drawn sketches for the storyboard, I have to figure out what exactly they look like. Of course this may change and grow as I am developing them...But here is the current view of the characters... 

I actually looked at several sculptures of Artemis to draw her. She will probably get a more distinct design over time, but this is what I have currently. The statue references I used were this and this. 

But this is my second concept drawing for Artemis, though I might keep the statue-like face while still making her more tough and less delicate looking. Or maybe instead make her look like this (even though I didn't use a statue as a reference): 

I am thinking that Aphrodite will have a different facial shape than Artemis (whether it be that I decide to make Artemis have the facial shape above or not). 

 As for her hair, I was trying to give her two different shades of red that made a cool pattern throughout. However I also seem to be referencing in her hair the fact that she was a cause of a war, the Trojan War to be exact, and that a lot of blood was spilled over that. (Also one of the people she loves is Ares the god of war). 

I think when I draw Hermes again, I'm going to make him tanner since he is the messenger of the gods, which would mean he would travel a lot.  But this is a basic starting point for his concept art... 

The next thing I want to do is what I did in the photo above, drawing the character multiple times. This was very helpful in developing Gletta's current appearance. So I assume this will also work with the concept art for the Greek gods and goddesses, and even for Pandora herself. 

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Who is your favorite Greek god or goddess? And what is your favorite Greek myth? (I plan eventually to animate every Greek myth.) 

-Quinley 

Movie Review: Coraline

Hello Adventurers.

I saw Coraline a little while ago and felt that I should make a review for it. This is not the movie I said I would review in this post, and I do hope to post a review for those two movies soon (because I did enjoy those two movies.)


Anyway I felt I needed to warn Coraline book fans that the movie is nothing like the book:

                                                   Coraline (2009) 

(image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coraline_(film)#/media/File:Coraline_poster.jpg) 

      Rated: PG

Spoiler free review: 
Be Careful What You Wish For, since this movie is sadly disappointing. 

If you like the book Coraline, you may not like the movie Coraline. The movie does not follow the scenes in the book accurately, changed the pacing and puts events out of order. A lot was cut out and they even brought in a character that really wasn't needed at all, named Wyborn (nicknamed by Coraline "Why Were You Born?" and "Wybie" by his grandmother). I felt like he was an unnecessary part of the plot. The directors justified this character addition that created a back and forth dialogue rather internal monologue by saying that having Coraline talk to herself wouldn't have been as interesting.

I disagree, because in the book she doesn't always talk to herself, she talks to the cat and the neighbors. Plus I would have loved to see what the screen writers could come up with to create a vision of what was going on inside her head and see her internal monologue. Also, near the end of the movie, Wybie did something that Coraline was supposed to do, for some weird reason. To me it felt as if the directors were saying Coraline wasn't strong enough to do it on her own, which to me felt a little sexist.

By cutting a lot out of the book, unfortunately the movie became more like a folk tale as opposed to what I felt it had been before, which was more of a gothic story with little elements of horror in it. By explaining things that were left unexplained in the book, they remove the story from the gothic genre.

In addition Coraline's character felt a little off and not completely like herself to me, because the movie character was sarcastically bored and unimaginative. As for the other characters–Miss Spink, Miss Forcible, and Mr. Bobo (renamed Mr. Bobinsky in the movie)–they all felt a little off to me, sadly. They didn't seem as if they could be real people as they had been portrayed in the book. It felt as if the directors had made them cartoonish for the movie, which wasn't necessary. Also, in my opinion they made the character of the Other Mother too powerful.

Also If you are an sensitive parent or child. I should warn you that there is a nude scene, but the scene is portraying the two paintings The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and Ulysses and The Sirens by Herbert James Draper. However, you could argue that the directors could have chosen paintings with no nudity in them. I was okay with it, because they were portraying paintings of scenes from Greek Mythology.

Even if you don't like the movie, the soundtrack is really good, and I would recommend listening to it.

My rating: 

The movie was not as scary as the book. The directors did not portray the book well. I also felt they didn't need to add in a boy character. I gave the movie two stars for the music and the animation, but in itself Coraline (the movie version) is a bad portrayal of a good story. I added 1/2  star for the Shakespearian and Greek Mythology elements of the movie.

Spoiler-full review: 

My thoughts on things that were edited out of the movie and things that were added in: 

Sadly, they cut the rats' song in Coraline's dream out of the movie.  I had been listening to the beautifully eerie end-credits music, I assumed that the rats' song would in the movie. Unfortunately, I was very wrong. Thankfully I did find the Coraline broadway musical recording, which had a version of the song in it, which sounded suitably eerie:

Song of the Rats 

You can also listen to it here

The movie also replaced the evil rats, which were running around Coraline's house in both worlds in the book, with cute mice. The mice later turned out to be rats in disguise, but this confuses the story. The rats in the book were the initial clue that something was off with the other world, since the Other Mother treated them like pets.

(Image from wiki, https://coraline.fandom.com/wiki/Wyborn_Lovat?file=Wybie_Lovat.png)

The addition of Wybie created problems, because he added information which introduced gaping plot holes into the movie. For example, he said that his grandmother didn't rent out the Pink Castle to couples with children. So then why did she allow Coraline and her parents to live there?
Also I was annoyed about the whole Wybie "stalker" plot, which wasn't even part of the original story. Unlike the addition of Tauriel in The Hobbit, I felt that Wybie's addition to the story was unnecessary and annoying since he, as opposed to Coraline, defeated the Other Mother in the end (even if Coraline helped a little). It felt like the directors were saying the lead female character couldn't defeat the Other Mother on her own and needed a male character's help to do so. In the book Coraline set up a doll tea party around the well, and caught the Other Mother's hand in the well. In the movie this scene was replaced with an action packed fight scene between Coraline, Wybie and the Other Mother's hand where Wybie does most of the work. Also, I did not like that the stalking narrative thread with Wybie was romanticizing stalking. In the movie Coraline said, "thank you for stalking me" after Wybie rescued her. This felt wrong to me for the directors to do that, since I don't want anyone to think stalking is a good thing, or that a stalker can rescue them from something dangerous, because a stalker is themselves dangerous.

(Image from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/coraline#&gid=1&pid=h-32137) 

I was not particularly fond of Coraline's attitude in the movie or her blue hair. In the book she felt less like a rebelling teenager or troubled child, and more like a child who wanted her parents attention and was sad that she had lost it, because her parents were busy. The scene where Coraline walks around the new house is both in the book and the movie. I was annoyed and thought it could have portrayed  a little better in the movie, though I did like when she accidentally pressed a light switch that said "don't push."

The directors also modified the scene where the ghost children got there souls back. They called them "eyes" for some reason in the movie, which doesn't make sense because if they are eyes why is there only one of them?

(Image from wiki, https://coraline.fandom.com/wiki/Wyborn_Lovat?file=EE024AAC-E8AF-4AFD-934D-67A177DAC44E.jpeg)

Despite this change, all of the ghost children are shown to be wearing halos and wings, instead of the picnic scene in the book where Coraline is eating with them. The book does not tell where exactly the ghost children are going, however, in the movie they make it clear that it is Heaven. I believe the book left this purposefully ambiguous, but you are supposed to assume it is the Afterlife (without specifying a religion). The book version, I feel is nicer for readers in general.

Creating doll spies in the movie, I felt was really unnecessary. In the book and the movie the Other Mother had the rats to spy on Coraline, so why does she need dolls? The"evil dolls" were never a part of the original. This is a significant change, because in the book Coraline used dolls to defeat the Other Mother with her doll tea party.

(Image from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/coraline#&gid=1&pid=h-25517)

In the movie Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are creepily flat. They felt like sweet old ladies in the book, and in the movie they didn't have much that was human about them. For example, adding the taxidermy dogs dressed in angel costumes was depressing and didn't have to happen in the movie. This change was taken a step further when one of the movie characters' still living dogs almost dies and they sew an angel costume for him in preparation. In the book the dog was simply injured by the Other Mother's hand and went to the vet for it. Miss Forcible and Miss Spink were worried about their dog, but were not saying "oh well, he might die" and planning to stuff him. To let readers and movie watchers know, the dogs in both versions survive.

(Image from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/coraline#&gid=1&pid=h-30699) 

The movie also made "the old man upstairs" a little too cartoony in character. He was very flat and didn't feel as if he could be a real human. He was eccentric in the book, but in the movie they take it way too far, after all he was doing acrobats on the roof!  And I don't think his cartoonish feel had to do with the animation, an animated character can be realistic, even if they are hand-drawn or made out of clay.

In the book Coraline crosses into the other world despite the warnings. In the movie Coraline is given the warnings way too late, since she had already gone through the door. Why warn her about not going through the door when she already had?

The Other Mother was given way too much power in the movie, since she could shape-shift into Coraline's mother without button eyes. In the book she could only turn into Coraline's mother with button eyes or mimic her voice. Because of this flaw, it would be hard to tell if Coraline on her own could have defeated the Other Mother in the movie version. Where as in the book, it's easy to tell that Coraline defeated her and due to the Other Mother's weaknesses, we, as the reader, have hope that Coraline can do it.

The movie also made the challenge of finding her parents much more complicated.  Coraline's mantel (the real mantel, that is) in the book version did not have snow globes on it, only the Other Mother's house had a mantel with one single snow globe on it. By having many snow globes in the movie, it makes it less clear how Coraline would have been able to guess so easily where her parents were. And therefore, it adds to the difficulty for her to defeat the Other Mother on her own.

There's so much the movie got wrong, that it's really hard to include all of it in one single blog post. One significant detail that was changed, was the way in which Coraline's parents left the snow globe, which I think fundamentally changes the gothic feel of the story. In the book Coraline's parents suddenly reappear when she is asleep, there wasn't any snow on them and Coraline wakes up and begins to believe she had been dreaming. This leads the reader to suspect for a minute that Coraline's adventure could have all been a dream...but the Other Mother's hand showing up later in the book reveals that it was not. In the movie, her parents leave the snow globe immediately when Coraline is still awake, and she tells them there is still snow on them, which they don't seem to notice. This seemingly small plot change removes the mystery from the book.

My final comment on the movie's flaws, is about the ending "scene." It just didn't quite make sense. I thought at first the image was of the mice (aka rats) putting the Other Mother's hand back together implying that the directors would make a sequel or that the Other Mother was not fully defeated. As a reader of the book, who enjoyed the satisfying ending, that would make you feel rather depressed. But I wasn't really sure what the movie's intent was? Instead, I think it would have been nice to see the real mouse circus (that was in the book) as opposed to an ending scene that didn't make sense.

Things I liked: 

One thing I liked was the soundtrack it was really beautifully eerie. I had listened to it before I watched the movie, which had made my expectations for it rather high. I was hoping that the movie story would match up with the soundtrack...but unfortunately it didn't.

I liked the animation. I was looking forward to watching it, but unfortunately they didn't use it to convey an eerie feeling of the book or the soundtrack.

I especially liked the animation and characteristics of the dogs. I wished they had focused on the dog characters (both the other world and real world dogs) more, without the whole "is the dog going to die?" portion of the movie that they made even more stressful than it was in the book. I wish they had made Miss Spink and Miss Forcible walk their dogs like they had in the book, and had Coraline talk to the dogs in the theatre in the other world more, as she did in the book. But I did like that the dog kept the angel costume in the end and was alright, it was kind of cute!

Another thing I liked was that there were a few Shakespearian elements to the movie, such as Miss Spink's and Miss Forcible's posters on their walls of the past plays they had done. There were also posters and other references to the local Shakespeare festival in Coraline's town. Even the boy in the uniform store shouted "...my kingdom for a horse!" (Quoted from a scene from Richard the Third.)

I actually liked the scene where reviewers warned there was nudity. I know there have been complaints about this scene. (I researched a little before watching the movie, you see.) But the  reason I liked it was because they were mimicking two paintings the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and Ulysses and the Sirens by Herbert James Draper. The scenery they created for that scene reminded me a little of an opera in a way. However, I understand parents' concerns, since some parents don't want their children to see nude paintings or nude people.

I also liked the other world's garden scene actually. I felt that the animation in it was pretty cool (but perhaps a little too light hearted for the other world) and the fact that a portrait of Coraline showed up in the garden was pretty neat. And the real garden scene, where Coraline and her neighbors are planting flowers felt nice. It showed that her relationship changed with her parents and her neighbors. Coraline befriending her neighbors in the book happened in a more subtle way, but the movie's version was a good change.

And despite all the huge changes to the story, I felt as if the cat remained the same. Though some of the cat's lines were cut for some reason probably for time, I liked the cat's character.

*End of spoilers* 
I rate it: 

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Have you read the book Coraline, if so did you like the movie as well as the book? Do you think it portrayed the story well or not? 

-Quinley

P.S. Despite the fact that the fact that they didn't do Coraline accurately. There is one Neil Gaiman book that a different director did well:

(Screen shot taken from Rotten Tomatoes, https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/good_omens/s01)