Research - Reading the book

To help me decide which part of the story "alices adventures in wonderland" I was going to animate I decided to read through the book and select a chapter. I decided on the chapter where alice meets the caterpillar. In the book this is the end of chapter 4 and chapter 5 "Advice from a caterpillar".

I had already used this chapter in the past for my book illustration project. I read through the chapter and highlighted all of the important information such as text that explained important information about the characters and the scene as I felt this would would help me design the characters and the scenery for my animation.
It felt that the chapter would also help me to animate the characters and do the voice acting because it stated how the characters moved and the way in which they spoke.

 Here is the actual screenshots from the parts of the book I read and found helpful, I read it online at www.gutenberg.org  and the research I conducted is underneath.

I read the end of chapter 4 because it had vital scene information and chapter five which mainly had information about character dialogue and actions.
Here are my own notes from my research on the book.

Response to research

From the research that I conducted I found this important information.

• The scene included a mushroom, flowers and blades of grass.
• the caterpillar was contemptuos, irritable , sat on top of the mushroom and smoked a hookah.
• Alice was shy,polite and about the same height as the mushroom.
• the characters conversation.

This information  has led me to be able to make accurate characters, and an accurate scene but more importantly it has enabled me to create an accurate script.

Here is the text that I looked at from the book, All the relevant parts have been made bold.

"The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it."

"She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else."

The part of the text above helped me to decide on the sizes of the characters and props in the scene. And the movements of alice in the first part of the animation.

The next part of text is from chapter five and is mainly dialogue, I felt it would help me too pick the parts of the dialogue I wanted to include in my animation and also decide how they would say it, again i have made all the info i found helpful bold.

"The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice."

`Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'

`What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. `Explain yourself!'

`I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because I'm not myself, you see.'

`I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.

`I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, `for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

`It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.

`Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; `but when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you?'

`Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.

`Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; `all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.'

`You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. `Who are you?'

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, `I think, you ought to tell me who you are, first.'

`Why?' said the Caterpillar.

Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.

`Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her. `I've something important to say!'

This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again.

`Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar.