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!

The pro - 11 second club

Well, here's what I managed to get done. I'm not at all happy with it. It started out well enough, but I think some parts are overworked, others not polished enough, and that passing of the helmet, ew. I think I took the piece into spline way too early. I only spent a day or so in linear mode, to try and speed production, but looking back, that was a bad idea, resulting in some pretty floaty animation, especially from the pro character. I think she wobbles about too much whilst sorting her various effects, what looked fine in real time looks rather off putting when rendered out. As for the Mrs. Crawley character, I prefer how she turned out. It's not perfect, but I feel she reacts suitably to the Pro, but without stealing too much attention. I had real trouble with setting up constraints. I don't know if I must had a mental block, or was stuck in my Softimage frame of mind, but it too, way longer than it should have to get them sorted, resulting in that really ugly, passing of the helmet, and the Pro consequently putting on the helmet. The helmet just slides and wobbles all over the place, I found it really hard to pin it down, even with constraints. The passing of the broach doesn't look so bad, but I think it's small size hides a multitude of sins. From the initial blocking, I thought the ending where the pro skates off, followed by the camera, was too jarring, so I decided to for go it, but now, the entire piece, just looks empty, and boring. Especially with the lack of a proper set. All in all, I'd call the piece unfinished, and to be honest, i'd rather scrap it and start over, but it's time to move on to the next module. This piece isn't one I'd like to include on a showreel, and it's a shame, it started out with such promise. Over the course of the Acting for Animators module, I've learnt an awful lot, not just animation, but about myself. It's been a trying few months, and I've fallen into a lot of traps regards work, lifestyle, and in my own well being. Thankfully, having talked to lecturers, friends, even a doctor, I'm hopefully I can get my mind back in the game for the upcoming final project. I think the best thing to do is to just pick myself up, take what i've learnt, and move on.

Life drawing dump

Thought I'd better upload some of the life drawing I've done over the course of this module.


3 min poses, graphite and white pencil.


3 min poses, graphite and white pencil


1 min studies, graphite and white pencil


1 min studies, graphite and white pencil


20 min figure study, 10 minute hand study, white pencil and ink


20 min figure study, white pencil and ink. Starting to really enjoy life drawing, I really, and I know I say this every time, should go more often.

11 second update

Been beavering away for the last few days at this one. I think I'm getting there, but there are definitely issues that need addressing. There are a few timing blips, mainly with Mrs. Crawley, and of course I still need to get to grips with the prop constraints. Hopefully, another day or so working at it will fix it up nice.