More fancy pants design work.

A bit of downtime from character work, I've been exploring some textures. I'm now apparently in charge of clouds, so lets start there...

For me, it's between numbers 3 and 5. Number 1, I used in my BA final project, 'Fetch!', so drawing that first just seemed natural.

Next, Billy's wardrobe came into discussion. Now, we're not sure if we're going for a picture on his shirt yet, but I like the idea, so i explored it a bit. Plus it's a great chance to get another visual gag in there... My favourites are Corn, Screw Ball, and (lol) Beaver... The UFO does look cool though...

Finally, wood. I did a texture test for Scotts bench model last night, number 1 right there, but it looked a little too heavy on the model, maybe bump was set too high or something. Anyway, more exploration was needed. Scott has commented on liking number 5, but that looks a tad too boring to me. Perhaps I can find a happy medium somewhere between 5 and 1...

Anyway, more tomorrow, when character work will resume.

Final Animatic! (hopefully!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HmeVtoV9fk&feature=youtu.be

Here it is! Hopefully this'll be th one we work from, rearanged the order a bit on Chris' suggestion, and to SCott and K's re written script. Will find out in class tomorrow how it goes down!

Mega design work update post!

Man am I terrible at keeping this thing up to date. After talking in class, I've been handed the position of doing some Character explorations. Since our leading lad and lady are pre defined rigs, I thought I'd better tackle the kids, Billy and Heather. We're going to be using the Morpheus rig for these two, so there will be some limitations as to what we can produce, but i see no reason in limiting myself on paper, might as well try every avenue, just incase you happen upon a mood or feature that could really work.

First up, Billy. He's a typical 6 year old, loves dirt, ice cream, and just running around. As you can see, i started with some pretty unrealistic shapes, and refined from there. the fella with the finger up his nose is the direction we want to pursue I think.

Then we have Heather. Younger than Billy, but loves play and ice cream just as much. Again, went through a similar process here, but i'm still not sure which direction to go, perhaps the little one with the balloon? I'll see where that takes me.

On a side note, I drew up a title card, just for fun. I think we could use it...

Went through a fair few title variations, but eventually landed on the final one. Yey old school!

The beautiful, and almost forgotten world of title cards.

I love title cards. Those wonderful paintings at the beginning of a film or cartoon, maybe shown for just a few seconds. They can do everything from set the mood of the film you are about to view, offer eye candy whilst production credits roll out, or even mislead the audience entirely, but boy, are they pieces of art! Here just a few of my favourites, sourced from around the internet.

Adventure Time with Finn and Jake - Frederator Studios

Fairlyodd Parents -Frederator Studios

Ren and Stimpy - Spumco/ Games Animation

Ed, Edd, n Eddy - Studio AKA/ Cartoon Network

New animatic and Colour Script

Right, chopped and re did the beginning on peoples suggestions, and also drew up a nifty colour script. I still think the colour script is lacking some what, a bit too, bright, over saturated, lacks depth. I'll tweak it tomorrow. Also, I managed to get hold of all the production music used in cartoons like Ren and Stimpy (which I've been watching way too much of since I acquired the DVD box sets...), and more recently SpongeBob Squarepants, I just had to use it in the animatic...

Looking good! But tomorrows class feedback will ultimately decide where to take it from here...

And the colour script.

Scripts and Animatics.

Last night, we received even more feedback from Ed Hooks, regards our latest script re write.

"Much stronger, Kristian.

Suggestions:

1. On Nicholas's first appearance, we don't need to hear his conversation with his mate. In fact, it will be better if we do not. You can have him saying exactly the same thing he is now, about the girl last night who was all over him, just replace his recorded dialogue with music or something. Everything else is the same. Sees the girl, tells his mate he has to run, gets off the phone.

2. After he gets off the phone, have him go straight for Jen. On the way, he has to step over a small flower garden that runs parallel to the sidewalk. As he steps over, he gets the idea to give her flowers. We don't have to see him pick them. He only has to get the idea, the impulse to pick them. Animate his thoughts.

3. I don't like his first line to Jen. You aren't using it to expose any of Nicholas's personality or values. This is the kind of guy that troops around with rubbers in his pocket, and I think he might go for a grandiose intro. Bowing to the queen, over-acting, hoping to amuse and charm her. But "These are for you" is lame.

4. Jen's reaction to him is too ambivalent. Does she think he's funny? Hot looking? A pushy jerk? With "ehhh….thanks…I guess", you are again wasting an opportunity to expose values and personality. This is, in general, something you guys need to work on, using every single moment of action and dialogue to expose new information about the characters and story. Time restriction is part of the discipline of telling stories on film. Make everything count. The audience will presume that 100 percent of what they see on screen is important, even the tiniest thing.

5. As you have it now, Jen does not react favorably to Nicholas at all. After she discovers that he made the balloon thing for the kid, she briefly reconsiders her reaction, but that does not change anything. What is HER objective? Why is she sitting on the bench in the first place? Give her something to do. How about if she is an artist and is sketching park scenes on a pad? It could be funny if she is sketching the flowers when Nicholas picks them, ruining her sketch. <g> Once he presents the flowers to her and sits down, she still needs an objective. Using the artist thing, maybe she is working on a project and has a deadline. She is amused and charmed by Nicholas, but she has work to do. Something like that. Anything, really. Just don't have her sort of sitting there doing nothing except reacting to him.

6. After Nicholas says the corny line about Tennessee, you have her sliding down the bench. That is not strong enough. If she really wanted to get away from him, she would get up and leave. Unless she has some other reason for sitting there. And, once again, I would prefer to see her amused by his corny joke, even while trying not to let him see her amusement.

7. The boy, his sister, the ice cream and the balloon have no reason for being in this story other than to set up the joke about the condom. If I were you, I would get rid of the kids because they are not advancing the story enough to keep them there. If you absolutely, positively must have Jen see a condom or condom wrapper, then let him maybe reach in his pocket to get something -- chewing gum, change for ice cream, a picture of his dog, his driver's license -- and as he does that, the condom falls out onto the ground. Unopened. Part of the problem you have is that the audience is having to deal with the rubber and the wrapper it came in. Plus, you have Nicholas being a litterer, which is a turn-off for Jen. Imagine if Charlie Chaplin accidentally dropped a condom in front of somebody he was trying to impress…. What would he do? I will bet he would try to quickly hide it, putting his shoe on top of it or trying to kick it under the bench, all the while trying to straighten up the flowers on the bench.

8. And, finally, I personally would prefer to see him succeed a little at the end. Once she sees the condom, she makes a hasty exit. Maybe she looks back over her shoulder and sees that he is embarrassed. So she turns around and goes back to the bench. Or something. I am talking out of my ass here. This is not a concrete suggestion. All I'm saying is that the condom joke is taking too long to set up, involves too many characters and is going to put your audience in an awkward position. 

Ed"


A lot of stuff to think on. But I think consensus within the group, and with tutors, is to keep the current ending. It seems to work in animatic form. PLus, in fairness, we could edit, and edit, and edit, all year, but time is short. Best add a few little tweaks and move on.


Here's the above mentioned animatic, still awaiting sound.

Feedback in class was good! Laughs were had in the right places, and the ending was liked by all. We discussed changing the beginning, basically chopping out the flower stall and wallet parts, as they added no real value to the story, only took up time. So, off I go to chop!

Research and Developement.

Some more working updates.





Back when we were still entertaining the idea of having our couple meet at Jen's apartment, we decided we wanted a more homely feel, rather than the generic, new York apartment designs I posted last time. More of a large townhouse. I took a face design for an apartment, and built it up into a house. Something not too dissimilar to Stewart Little's town house, from the film of the same name.


However, since our last script re write, we've omitted the apartment scene. Been cracking on with research in other areas too, collected some sample images for park ideas, just for something to base some background art for the Animatic at the moment, Kristian is heading the park designs as I write this.


I'll be moving on to a colour script once I finish the Animatic, and the varying light qualities shown in the above selection of images will surely help. Another, somewhat less savoury port of call for research was for the star of the film, the condom balloon.


Honestly? I envisioned a longer result, maybe I need to try some different varieties? Anyway, a longer ballon will defiantly create more comedy on screen, at least in my eyes... As I'm putting our Animatic together, I'm really exploring the Nick characters facial expressions. Now, we'll be using the old Malcolm rig, that I used for the first 2 modules of this course, and that rig has an amazingly expressive face, so I'm going to try my damnedest to push it.


Hopefully I'll have an Animatic for you all tomorrow.

Ed Hooks Script Feedback.

Kristian contacted the great Ed Hooks with our script thus far, just to see what his thoughts on it were. He replied awfully promptly, with the following feedback... "Regarding your new script, if you boil the situation down to its essential story, you have a boy and a girl meeting in a public park for a first "date". The boy does a truly stupid thing when he blows up a condom, and so the girl leaves. It reminds me of a girl I approached in New York's Central Park one sunny summer day almost forty years ago. I was being so "cool", walking over and sitting down next to her. She smiled, and I smiled back. Then, casually - just like in a Humphrey Bogart movie - I pulled out a cigarette and lit up with my Bic lighter. The girl's expression changed to disgust as she waved the smoke from the air around her face. Then, with no further conversation, she just got up and walked away, leaving me alone with my cigarette. (I stopped smoking thirty years ago, by the way). Your guy did weird things with a condom, I lit a cigarette, another guy may have just eaten an onion sandwich. It does not matter a lot what the guy does just as long as she is turned off by it. My personal opinion is that the introduction of the condom into the scene is too jarring. Maybe it is not unusual for a guy to have a condom handy for a first date, but I find it hard to believe he would show it to her that way. He would have to be a real idiot to show the condom on a first meeting, even if he is trying to cheer up a child. The girl sees the condom and figures he was planning to have sex with her on the first date and calls the whole thing off. I would be surprised if she stayed around after the condom thing. She has two reasons not to go further with this guy. First, he must not be all that bright if he is blowing up condoms. And the fact that he brought a condom to the first date suggests that he only cares about sex. If I was in her place, I would walk off, too! You have a lot of extraneous stuff going on in order to justify the guy not having money with him. And him being broke doesn't add much to the story anyway. 1) Whose story is this, Kristian? Right now, it looks like you are trying to tell his story and her story at the same time. I suggest you look at the entire sequence of events from only one character's perspective. 2) Maybe it doesn't matter, but I wondered why they are meeting like this for a first date. Were they paired up by an on-line dating service? You might simply want to have the two of them coincidentally sit next to one another, an accidental encounter. My best relationships have started like that. It is not necessary to have her see him searching for money to buy flowers. If he walks up with flowers dangling dirt from the bottom, Jen and the audience will understand that he picked them rather than bought them. Simplify the story, Kristian. "This is a story about a girl named Jen on the day she met ….." Or make it a story about him. I'll stand by in case you revise it." He brought up a lot of points I, and we as a team overlooked. He's right, the story as is doesn't seem to belong to any set character. Is it Nicks? Or is it Jens? I always thought of it as Nicks story, but in tonights discussion, Scott pointed out, if we made it Jens story, and made Nick into a bit of Jerk, who expected to get his leg over on the first date, then the audience would have a very definite figure to hate, and a figure to cheer for. It's quite a bit to change at this stage, with just over a week of pre prod left, so we're awaiting feedback from Christ Williams, to decide how we should go on. Either way, progress is being made.

Working thumbs

A selection of working thumbs, just my thinking processes whilst I put the Animatic together.

Story Development - Car Ride to Balloon Animals.

A wild update appeared!

The group has been cracking on, trying to get our final story/script nailed down, before we move into full scale visual development. The boys are working on assets and environment designs as I speak, and I'm taking charge of the new storyboard/animatic. But I figured you all need an update as to where we've been so far.

First of all, we had a couple of ideas, both basically about a couple, falling out during a car ride. The idea was to capture those little, awkward moments that bickering couples go through, when confined in a small, unescapable space together. I think every couple can relate, and it was going to be a great exercise in body language and subtle facial animation, but the idea was deemed to little for a group of 3 to tackle. anyway, here's our initial ideas.


A young couple take their first holiday together...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/94128545/Carride-Boards-PDF

A newly married couple leave for their honeymoon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpxZSbQ0uPQ&feature=youtu.be

After ditching the car idea, we still wanted to explore the fallings out of a young couple, so we expanded the idea, and went for a more, comedic version...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/94146033/OLD-BALLOON-ANIMALS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtm_oHpzl3o

Almost there, but it wasn't flowing, so we trimmed the fat as it were.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/94133687/Balloon-Animals-Working-Title

And here we are. Expect a nice shiney animatic up in the next couple of days.

Balloon Animals - apartment studies

Newest post of the module! Going to jump straight in with the first batch of art for our new short, 'Balloon Animals' (working title). I'll post script, and animatics tomorrow, so y'all can get to grips with the idea and story. For now, I've been studying and exploring concepts for a new York apartment building, as one of the shorts scenes happens the stoop.


First off, a mood board, various new York apartments and stoops, with scribbled notes detailing aspects I like, and will use, such as window shape, colour, etc.








From the research, I drew up some stoop and window explorations, and tried fitting them together, arriving at the above, very basic apartment. Still need for some much deeper study, but at least I've dented the surface. Tomorrow, the park!