Day one! The blog begins.....

So this is the start. Studying a postgraduate diploma in character animation at Central Saint Martins in London, I have reached my final project. I need to make a one minute animation based on/inspired by a painting in the National Gallery's permanent collection.

I've chosen Goya's portrait of Dona Isabel do Porcel. I was really drawn to her facial expression. She has a real "good time girl" look, like she'd be great fun to have a few pints with on a Friday night. I thought it was weird that she was totally dressed in black lace - I assumed this meant she was a widow. However, I found out that this was the height of fashion for young, extremely wealthy women in Madrid at the time. So, she was a very rich, young woman who didn't need to work, was really into fashion and looks like she enjoyed a party or two...........Paris Hilton anyone?

So I've decided to base my animation on this "It Girl" idea. My initial ideas are to maybe have her narrating a day in her life (in the style of a diary entry) and animating all the things she gets up to, eg. shopping, partying, sunbathing, falling out of nightclubs. My concern is that there isn't much of a story to this. The animation can't be more than one minute, so I will need to try and fit some sort of a narrative structure into this short amount of time.

If I'm going to have my character talking I also need to come up with a script. Unfortunately my usual hilarious wit (hmmm) seems to have abandoned me. I've been researching Paris Hilton and found some great interviews with some classically stupid/egotistical comments from the self titled "American Princess" herself, so I'll take some inspiration from those. I may need to go and buy copies of Heat, Closer, Now etc - purely for research you understand.