Faculty Review Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the faculty review! I've been preparing all week for it, trying to get as many revisions in as possible. I got 11 shots revised this week, but as I reviewed the film myself, I now have a few more to work on for the winter break. I plan on being finished with the rough animation stage by next week, December 17th.

Over winter break, my plan is to the finish rough animation stage and work on all the toy shelf assets, painted backgrounds, and UV texture maps. I also plan on setting up Toon Boom models so when I come back to school I am all ready to jump into clean up, color and compositing!

woohoooo

One more to go!

This week I finished two of the last three shots. One more to go! Currently working on it right now, it's one of the hardest shots of the film with a 360 degree camera move. I fear for when I have to composite this stuff together. After I finish this last shot, I'll work on the revisions. For winter break I have these things planned:

1) Paint Toy Shelf Assets
2) Paint/Design Outside BGs (2)
3) Create Toon Boom Models for Cleanup/Color
4) Finish all Background Textures

3 more shots of rough animation!!!!!

finished sequence 6 today.
three more shots of animation left (fight scene)
approximately 11 revisions
GOAL: finish rough animation stage by Faculty Thesis Review.

Next Semester: Clean up, Color, Compositing, Object Animation.


hoooray

Anticlimactic?

So this week I was supposed to do the animation for the climax of the film where the monsters actually fight for like....two seconds. I have been kind of iffy with it though. I am nervous about it being too short and also David Fain said that the blocking does make sense. I've considered changing it, where the green monster jumps into a windmill, causing books to kind of fly around him. On the one hand, I think this shot could be really cool. On the other hand, it might look really corny. And the books flying will be really hard to do in 3D....?

In fact, I'm starting to think my whole film is kind of corny and contrived. I'm definitely not going to change it, but I think if I'm not careful with how the sound design and music develop its going to be definitely corny.

bleh.

I ended up not doing the climax scene, and instead worked on 4 of the ending shots. They are a lot easier, so to make up for the difficulty of the climax scene I just piled a bunch of easier shots together from the ending sequence of the fight scene (where Ray gets scanned). Well, they were kind of easier. There were a lot of problems with my boards that I had to fix on the spot as I was animating, but I think I've got that sequence down now.

I emailed my animator friend Lennie for a little critique on how my animation is going. He said that it was over all very good, but said that I should incorporate more construction into my animation because some of it is not articulated well enough. Also, it looks like I have problems with slight movements such as the turning of the head or hips that make the animation look more natural.

I want to go back and revise all of my animations and make them better, but I know there is not enough time for that. I left time for revisions, so hopefully I can fix some things then. I will have to accept that a lot of this is a learning process and its not going to be perfect.

I sound depressing in this post, haha.

11/08/11 Revised Animatic

wooooOOOOOOOoooooHOOOOOOoooooOOOOOoooo 8D

http://vimeo.com/31826241

More animation and revisions

This week, I worked more on the ending sequence scenes and revised some shots based on David Fain's advice. I'm really happy that he came in to critique our work because he answered a lot of questions about pacing that I had.

Still on pretty much on schedule to finish rough animation by the end of the semester, leaving me room to do some final revisions during winter break. I'll be set to start cleanup by the beginning of next semester.

Meeting with Sound Designer and more animation

This week I continued work on Sequence 5, getting into one of my most difficult shots in the film: the green monster transformation. Its not done, but I took a picture of my progress so you can see it. I'm doing the majority of it on ones because it works better with a moving camera. Both transformation shots are really challenging for me because I am trying to mimic the kind of transformations in the blockhead music video. It's hard to manage all the swirly things and make it look like they are actually moving. I think I'm starting to get it a little bit. My plan tonight is to finish as much of that shot and pull together an animatic for tomorrow's presentation.

 I was surprised that the other shots took very little time to do, like 2-4 hours. I still remember some of the simplest shots in the beginning took me the whole day when I was starting out. I'm really happy I'm doing this project because now I can confidently say that I can do hand drawn animation.

I also met with a sound designer recently. Her name is Jean Tsai. We plan to start working on sound design early next semester.

same old, same old

Worked on more animation this week, getting into sequence 5, which is the hardest sequence because it is the most actiony. I think my most difficult problem right now is rendering stuff/uploading stuff, which is why I don't post much of my animation. It seems that vimeo and youtube don't take swfs?

Anyways, you can check out my most current animatic below. I have a bunch more animation and revisions not included, but you will have a sense of where I am at.

I met with Darren Kiner again today, and we figured out how to get the animation into the 3D scene! yayyyy.

newest animatic

http://vimeo.com/30766615

First time working in Toonboom!

The workshop this weekend was really helpful, I got a lot of notes and now I'm super pumped to do my cleanup and color in toonboom animate pro. I'm currently working on a simple shot that I can use in to test the comping in maya.

http://vimeo.com/30707133

this is a shot from sequence 2, where the toy shelf is first revealed
I also finished Sequence 4! The last two scenes were particularly difficult because they were of Ray transforming into a monster. I had no idea how I was going to do it, and ended up trying to be a little experimental. I wanted to based the transformation off of the animation in this music video.

I'll try to render and post it later tonight.

Finally got my animatic rendered!

After much hassle, I realized with the help of Matt Sheehan that I had been using the wrong pixel aspect ratio for everything in my film. I also figured out how to render my film without coming into a memory problem. I divided my large Aftereffects file into 5 different aftereffects files based on sequence number. I created a master aftereffects file to compile all of the mov files of the different sequences.

This week, I worked on shots 6, 7, and 8 of sequence 4 and 9, 5 of sequence 6. I was going to do 9 and 10 of sequence 4, but those are especially difficult scenes so I'm working on them separately next week.

I'm really afraid I'm going to come into a lot of problems in the comping stage, so I think next week I will be cleaning up and coloring one character for a shot moving 3D space as a test.

I'm still working on the shots, so I'm going to finish that up and post my animatic in this post then.

EDIT: apparently my animatic is too large to handle. So you will have to see it tomorrow.

Finished Sequence 3!

DUE TOMORROW:
Seq6 Layouts
Animation:
Seq3: 10, and 21
Seq4: 1, 12, 3, 4
Revise Seq3_sc8

I'm having rendering issues in aftereffects right now, so I won't be able to post a new animatic. I DID post one last week though, so hopefully that is enough? This week, I finished the last two shots of Sequence 3 animation! I need to go back and make some revisions on a couple of the shots that don't make any sense, namely the one with the shadow and the one after it.

I talked to my composer today, and I think its official that he will be joining me on this project. His name is Harrison Lee, a student of SMPTV. He does really awesome synth work, and has his own electronica duo back in Canada. He's excited by the project as much as I am! Here is a link to his SMPTV page and his soundlcoud:

http://soundcloud.com/secretsquares
http://www.smptv.net/student.php?id=77

As for the backgrounds, I've been meeting with Dom once a week on Sundays so that he can work on it at my cubicle. This week he worked on lighting the scene. It's coming together rather nicely, but we both think the store looks rather neat. We tried pushing polygons around to make the lines of the shelves not so straight, and it actually looks a lot better, more organic. It still definitely needs work. I'm glad we started the bgs way ahead of time.

next week the plan is to finish Sequence 4. This includes everything from the part where Ray grabs Helen to the part where Ray turns into a monster. The last two scenes are definitely going to be tricky because I want to make the transformation really cool. We'll see how it goes.

Need to start thinking about sound design....

DUE NEXT WEEK:
Sequence 4 Animation: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

moving along...

DUE TOMORROW:
Seq3: 7, 3, 23, 8, 9
Layouts: Sequence 5
Revised Animatic

DUE NEXT WEEK:
Seq3: 10, 16
Seq4: 1, 12, 3, 4
Layouts: Sequence 6

scatterbrained....

Due tomorrow:
Layouts: Sequence 3 and 4
Assets: Outside BG
Roughs: Seq2_sc00, Seq3_sc1, Seq3_sc24, Seq3_sc15

So I made some changes to my schedule this week in terms of animation. I moved 3 shots over to next week and switched it with the sequence 4 layouts because I felt that it would be better to wait on those shots for next week so I can get a better sense of their continuity with another shot I am doing next week. I DID, however, get the sequence 3 layouts done and the outside BG.

I am a little scatterbrained right now, and have been for the past week. I can't tell if I am working too hard to working too little.

At the moment I am writing this, I am in the midst of redoing the climax of my film.  I cut out the whole part where Ray monster picks up Jin monster and gets ready to finish him off. Instead, Helen trips Ray before he can even get to Jin. I don't know if I am making any sense at all because like I said before, I am feeling quite scatterbrained. I will show it tomorrow to see what people think.

PS: I changed Helen's design a while ago, but I haven't given her a model sheet yet.

The 3D background is also coming along nicely. Here are some images of it:

The following is a test I did with Darren Kiner to figure out how to put the 2d character in 3d space. I really want to be able to do this in some of the shots in my film. It'll be a good challenge.

Lastly, here is the lineart of the bg image.

Get ready to see my animation tomorrow! :)

Due Next week:

Layouts: Sequence 5

Rough Animation: Seq3_sc7, Seq3_sc3, Seq3_sc23, Seq3_sc9, Seq3_sc21

Sequence 2 almost completed!

DUE TOMORROW:
Roughs: Seq2_sc4, Seq2_sc11, Seq2_sc13, Seq2_sc16
Layouts: Sequence 2, Toy Shelf

This week I completed the rest of Sequence 2, including all of the layouts except for the exterior design in Seq2_sc00, which I will be doing next week. I talked to Bethany for the first time and we talked about sound design, which is probably one of the more daunting tasks I need to face. I will need to adjust my schedule to account for sound design/music because right now I don't really have anything.

While doing the layouts, I came across an issue with comping the 2D characters on the 3D bgs that were zooming in and out. I talked to Mike Fink and he said that I should put the 2D characters on a plate in 3D space so that the character will move with the bg. I'm meeting with Darren Kiner to help me work on that tonight.

Next week I'll be continuing Sequence 3 and making revisions on Sequence 2 animation. I'll also be drawing/designing the shot that shows the outside of the store.

DUE NEXT WEEK:
Assets: Outside BG image
roughs: Seq2_sc00, Seq3_sc1, Seq3_sc3, Seq3_sc23, Seq3_sc21, Seq3_sc15
Layouts: Sequence 3
Revisions: Seq2_sc7, Seq2_sc17
BG: create textures for floors and walls

This might be too much, but I'm going to try!

Progress...

DUE Tomorrow:
roughs: Seq2_sc3, Seq2_sc8, Seq2_sc14, seq3_sc20, seq3_sc12, seq3_sc13

I've been working on animation all week this week. I wanted to see if I could get 6 scenes out of the way, and it wasn't so bad. Then again, I'm still doing the easy scenes. I still have one more scene left to go which I need to work on today. My goal for my schedule is to create certain due dates for scenes and act as if they are hard deadlines. This way I can push my way forward without getting stuck on one scene. I am a little nervous, however, because there is not much room to do any editing/fixes on the animation. I really wanted to talk to some mentors on how to improve my work, but now I am scared to because if I do, I will want to make those changes and perhaps get behind on my production schedule. Not sure how to deal with this issue.

Next week I'm planning on finishing the layouts of sequence 2, and then the rough animation of sequence 2 (except for sc.00). This includes working on layout of the toy shelf, and getting a clear outline of what it should look like.

DUE next week:
Assets: Create the toy shelf layout
Roughs: Roughs Due: Seq2_sc9, Seq2_sc11, Seq2_sc13, Seq2_sc16
Layouts: finish layouts for Seq2

I talked to Trixy the other day, and she gave me some tips on things that are a little unclear. Most of it is because my storyboards are really rough, so I think once I get in the layouts I should be fine. I plan on finishing all the layouts by October 16th, as well as the rough animation of both seq2 and seq3.

Any thoughts?

Current Animatic

I have two versions of the film. Let me know which one you think is better/clearer.

In Progress...

So while interning at DUCK Studios I had the chance to get a critique on my animatic from some of the animators working there. Basically, they found that the story was not bad, but it needed a lot of reworking because some of the concepts I tried to show were too vague. The viewer got lost in the film rather than intrigued. The fat dude was unnecessary, too.

I wasn't surprised by the critique, because I'd been having doubts about the story myself. For a while, I kept convincing myself that I don't care about the story--that all I really care about is producing a good-looking film. But a good-looking film is nothing without the story. The production manager at DUCK told me to focus the most on the story, and make sure that its good, because it's really the backbone of your whole film. I've come to the conclusion this summer that I can't skirt the story. It needed to be fixed.

I was initially stressed out, because i had planned on getting a head start on production this summer. A fellow animator at DUCK, however, offered to help me rework my story. We got together for happy hour at Chan Dara and started reboarding, tying together the loose strings.

Fast forward to three weeks later, I have a brand new story. Same characters, same setting, new boards. The fat guy isn't there anymore, and there are no more guns. Rather, Ray turns into a monster himself. I have a new animatic, which I come to learn is actually called a story reel (times out the boards, with no animation). I also flipped the layout of the store.

I'm a lot happier with this story. I feel that it is much more reasonable and makes much more sense. The old story did have a charm of its own, which slightly saddens me that I've decided to drop it. Still, I think this new story is much stronger. I feel much more confident in it.

As for the background, its coming along slowly. Dom is in Singapore right now, so the production of it is sort of at a stand still. He's been modeling and I've been creating the textures. The store still has a very realistic look, so I'm going to check out toonshading. I started taking shots from the model to put in my animatic for layouts. I wonder if I made the store too large and spacious, but it seems to fit the boards...I dunno.

As for my goals this summer....since I had to retrace my steps for a few weeks, I don't think I'll be able to accomplish most of them, or any of them. Even the background is a little slow in production. Regardless, I just need to keep going.

Updated Character Designs

I showed these at my presentation, but I hadn't gotten around to posting them. I updated Joseph's design, as well as Helen's. I also created a turnaround for the monster.

someone assumed that she had two-colored hair, but its actually a hood. I'll probably put it down in the actual film since that was the case....

working on the background and thinking forward

I met with Tom Sito the other day to talk about how to start doing the animation in terms of organizing my shots. Being at Duck also has really helped me get a feel for how to organize all of my shots. My initial plan was to get all of the rough animation done by the end of the summer, however, I'm not sure if that's possible.

After Tom, I met Dominic to talk about plans for creating the 3D background. I sent him a floor plan, schematic, and my visual development piece. He said that we could probably finish the entire background by the end of the summer, which would be fantastic because then I don't have to worry about it as much. I'm providing all of the textures and he is putting it together.

I definitely want to finish the background by the end of the summer, so I guess my plans for finishing the rough animation by the end of the summer is out. Besides, it will be easier to layout shots once I have the background setup. I would like to get in a little bit of animation however, because I'm itching to start it. I want to at least do the easy closeup shots.

Goals for the Summer
1. Finish the 3D background and work with Dom
2. Rough animation of close up shots
3. Edit animatic (There are some parts i still want to change)

Here's the schematic I sent to Dominic

I tried making the store more like art books/toy store. Kind of like Giant Robot and Neotype (in Chinatown), or Stuart Ng. It makes more sense since I'm putting my own artwork on all of the books. It looks more complicated than it actually is, because most of it are books. This drawing isn't perfect, but it reads well enough for now.

I drew a few sketches of my characters that I'll post one fine day when I am not lazy. I updated my character designs too, so I can post those later.

I think one of the hardest parts about this process for me is communication. I have both a bg designer and a composer (currently unknown) to communicate what i want.

Thesis Treatment Draft 10

Untitled

Joseph, an awkward, reserved-looking 21 year old college student, enters a small comic book store. He passes Kevin, the store owner, who is too engrossed in a television news show to notice that Joseph has entered. The news reports of traces of a strange creature, thought to be lurking about the city. Joseph peruses the isles of comic/art books in the new releases section, picking up one of interest to him. As he reads the back cover, he secretly observes the other people around him.

In the back corner of the store, Ray, a wannabe rocker dude, obnoxiously plays his guitar, in attempt to serenade Helen, a tomboyish girl who works at the store. Helen looks unconvinced, but amused. She unpacks books as she watches Ray, loudly chewing gum.

Joseph watches Helen, until all of a sudden, Helen turns to Joseph and they make eye contact. Joseph is taken aback, and tries to cover for himself by pretending to be reading. Joseph scratches the back of his neck, and we notice an odd design on the hood of his sweatshirt.

All of a sudden, Ray tries to kiss Helen. Helen, slightly taken aback, spits her gum into Ray’s hair. Ray pauses for a moment, not quite sure what had just happened. He reaches up to touch the piece of gum on top of his head, and starts to scream in horror. Gradually, the scream turns into a hysterical laugh. Ray is extremely loud, but Joseph is the only one who seems to notice. He protectively puts his hood over his head. Kevin seems completely unfazed.

Ray’s guitar transforms into a gun. He points it at Helen, who seems barely shocked. Joseph seems to be oddly concerned with zipping up his jacket, but gives up. He impulsively runs and grabs Ray, jerking him backwards. He punches him as hard as he can, causing Ray to merely stumble a bit. Joseph gets a little gum on his hands, which he tries to peel off. He makes eye contact with Helen again, but it is quickly broken.

Ray turns his attention to Joseph. He smiles, wiping the blood off his mouth. Ray starts shooting like a madman as Joseph runs for cover, doing a little “dance” as he dodges the bullets. He darts behind some shelves in attempt to take cover, and starts to zip up his jacket. His jacket zips up all the way, revealing the face of a creature. Joseph reappears on the other side of the shelf as his transformed self, a monster.

Ray is initially taken aback by Joseph’s transformation, but then gets excited. Joseph snarls at Ray and attacks. Ray dodges and shoots, jumping on book shelves. They begin to fight.

Helen watches the battle apathetically. Finally she reaches under the cabinet and pulls out a ridiculously large bazooka-type gun. On TV, the news station reports on an explosion at a comic book store. The bazooka lights up…

Cut back to reality. Ray finishes off his bad love song. Joseph places a book and his credit card on the counter in front of Kevin. Kevin smiles, and proceeds to run the cashier. On TV, the news interviews an intellectual who describes a theory on multiple realities. Joseph looks over at Helen, and again, they make eye contact. Joseph freezes. Helen smiles. Joseph, relieved, smiles back.  Kevin reaches for the remote control, and turns off the TV.

Animatic 1st draft

still working on what I want to do for sound...

I'll have to discuss with my composer soon.

cleaned up version of visdev

layout/visdev/workbook/I don't know what this is called?

After drawing Ray with his gun I had the urge to add a background. Here's a really sketchy version of it.

I was thinking for the un-actiony scenes, the bg would be normal, and then for the actiony scenes I could play around with distortion and fish eye. I didn't pull this angle from one of my boards, but I think it might be cool to add in. The only problem is that he's pointing his gun the wrong way....

Again, to what level should I be refining vis-dev work? I plan on doing some color tests on this rough version of the bg with my copics/prismas.

Ray's Gun - more development

I worked on the gun design the other day. I wanted to keep it relatively simple and bulky, not sexy looking. Cuz, well, I'm not really interested in killing myself in maya. But we'll see. perhaps I should try some other designs? I'll keep doodling. For now, I just played around with some basic color tests on the design i have now. the colors aren't official, they're just to help me get an idea of what I want.

Basic Grey

futuristic/colorful/urban 

 reminds me of darth vader

basic w/glowing lights

 futuristic/color/urban/i don't know

Playful/kid-like

Here's a more completed image to REALLY see what the gun looks like more clearly.

Finished thumbnailing my new storyboard. I'll be fixing it up and posting it later.

QUESTION: How polished are visdev/designs supposed to be? are these sketches not polished enough? What is considered presentable in the pre-production world? I want my work to look good, but I want to work fast and efficiently, so I don't want to waste time on refining every little thing. In the actual film, I would probably clean up my lines more, but here I've just scribbled. Should I be cleaning them up?

Floor Plan, Choreography, Prop Design

Floor Plan

Choreography (That probably I only understand HAHA)

Perhaps I should explain this next class. This is a first draft of the choreo, but I'm condensing it.

Arm-Gun Design Draft (Ignore the 1st/top drawing)

Chasing Perfection

"We are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it because in the process we will catch excellence."   - Vince Lombardi

IF ONLY (tentative title) - DRAFT SIX

Joseph, a nervous and rigid-looking 21 year old college student, enters a small comic book store. He passes Kevin, the store owner, who is busy picking at his belly button. He peruses the isles of comic books, picking one up of interest to him. As he reads the comics, he looks up from the book, secretly observing the other people around him. Nearby, Ralph, tall awkward-looking policeman, stands, enthralled in a comic called “SUPERZOMBIES!”.

Joseph’s eyes snap to a Helen, a dorky-looking, sarcastic-seeming girl who is unpacking boxes while talking to Ray-ray, a rocker-looking guy. They make eye contact, which is quickly broken by Ray-ray who seems to be flirting with her. Helen is smirking at Ray-Ray while chewing gum, clearing entertained by Ray-ray’s ridiculous actions. Joseph turns the page of his comic book, pretending to read as he watches them.

All of a sudden, Ray-ray tries to kiss Helen. Helen, slightly taken aback (but more apathetic than anything else), spits her gum into Ray-ray’s hair. Ray-ray pauses for a moment, not quite sure what had just happened. He reaches up to touch the piece of gum on top of his head. He starts to scream is horror. Gradually, the scream turns into a hysterical laugh. Ray-ray is extremely loud but Joseph is the only one who seems to take notice. Ralph and Kevin seem completely oblivious.

Ray’s arm forms into a giant gun. He points it at Helen, who seems barely shocked. Joseph impulsively runs and grabs Ray, jerking him backwards. He punches him as hard as he can, causing Ray to merely stumble a bit. Joseph gets a little gum on his hands, which he tries to peel off, disgusted.

Ray turns his attention to Joseph. He smiles, wiping the blood off his mouth. Ray starts shooting like a madman as Joseph runs for cover, doing a little “dance” as he dodges the bullets. He runs for cover under one of the shelves near Ralph. Ray shoots relentlessly, accidentally killing Ralph in the crossfire. Helen watches the battle apathetically, popping another piece of gum into her mouth. She smiles, warmed by Joseph’s efforts.

Joseph grabs Ralph’s gun and starts shooting back at Ray. Ray dodges easily and gracefully, maneuvering through the book stacks as if he were a ballerina. Kevin, the storeowner, seems to be completely oblivious to the whole situation. Bullets fly, but he seems completely unhurt. Joseph runs out of bullets, throws the gun to the side and ducks for cover near dead Ralph. He looks over at Ralph, and notices a shine in his glasses…something is not right.

Bullets in his chest, Ralph arises from the dead as a zombie. He gets on all fours and starts crawling around trying to bite off Joseph’s legs. Joseph runs for his life. Ray starts to shoot, but when he sees the zombie, he stops shooting at Joseph and starts shooting at the zombie. Ray and Joseph join together and run from the zombie, climbing on top of a bookshelf. Helen, in the meantime, is having a smoke in the corner, enjoying the show.

Kevin is still watching his TV, ignoring the whole battle. As Zombie Ralph passes by Kevin, Ray shoots, accidentally shooting Kevin in the head. The bullet, however, merely bounces off his head. Kevin finally turns around, clearly irritated. He gets up and starts to bellow. A large monster begins to form out of his belly button….

Joseph snaps back to reality: Ray is still screaming his head off because of the gum in his hair. Helen tells him to quit being a baby. Helen walks over to the cupboard near Joseph. Joseph watches her, not realizing that he’s staring right at her. She looks at him and bluntly says, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT?” Completely embarrassed, Joseph tries to save face by hiding himself in the book and looking elsewhere. Helen stares at him for a bit. Joseph peaks over his book to see if she’s still looking. She smirks.


----
notes: need to makes some edits on the character designs.
- perhaps rewrite the ending to make it not a dream

Last Week's Critique

Putting up all the storyboards I submitted for class is kind of a hassle, but in summary, these are things that were of mainly of concern, that I remember:

1. Too many close ups
2. need to figure out way to make the female character stronger
3. Some shots could be made stronger, such as a stronger reveal for the girl, etc

Some issues that people talked about during the critique raised some personal concerns about the story as well. They were not necessarily a problem, per se, but I felt uncomfortable with it. This includes:

1. The story is very cliche - just about a guy who dreams that he saves a girl, and then snaps out of the dream.
2. The female character is stereotypical
3. Kevin and Ralph do not have much of a role
4. People interpret Ray as a "jerk" - I didn't want him to come off that way, actually. I wanted people to like him.
5.  Looks like an "anime"

I think it is natural for my work to resemble anime because that's what I was influenced by. However, I want it to look like GOOD anime....not the crappy kind. I did feel uncomfortable with the fact that I had so many close ups, so I will try to be more aware of that.

As for the story, I've been working and reworking the story, and considering a completely NEW story all weekend. It was an extremely painful process!!!!!! The whole time I felt like I was getting nothing done, until it paid off in the end and all my ideas started coming together....

I think I've decided on something I like, but I am a bit apprehensive about the production of it. I wanted to finish my film completely and have time to refine it--which is why I chose to set my film in ONE interior setting.  I wanted to make the film around 3 minutes, the minimum, and focus on making it look good. However, there is so much going on it might stream to 5 or 6 minutes...or, I fear, even more. There is also a lot of difficult animation in it. In addition, I was thinking of adding some 3D elements to it, which brings up more complications. It's not just producing the animation, but also struggling with the programs that I am afraid will take up a lot of time.

I'm going to post my new treatment up (draft SIX.....=_=) in the following post. Sheila, is it doable?

Time to thumbnail like the WIND!

Ray Character Model Sheet and Height Comparison

Probably too detailed, but I'm just putting it all there for now.

Character Descriptions

Joseph

Joseph is a 21-year-old college student majoring in English. He is very introverted and shy, and doesn’t have many friends, aside from a few close, long-term friends. Although he is a nice guy on the inside, his shyness makes him have an aloof presence that many people sense as unfriendliness and cockiness. He can talk about work, but is horrible at making small talk. He is not the type to blab his mouth off. He has a weird habit of standing with one shoulder higher than the other, which is the only indication of his social anxiety upon his calm and aloof exterior. He tends to daydream a lot, causing people to think he is ignoring him. He also doesn’t have a girlfriend and has an easier time talking to boys than girls. He is very bored with life, aside from the occasional visit to the comic book store. He has a crush on Helen, but has never spoken to her in his life. His favorite things to do are reading both books and comics, and writing.


Ray, aka "Ray-Ray"

Ray-Ray is a 22-year-old wannabe rock star, though he does play a little guitar. He is very forward and outgoing, and not afraid to do anything, even if its stupid. He is a huge flirt and has many female friends he likes to call just to “hang out.” At the same time, he has a childish side to him: he is obsessed with cute animals, especially cats. He is really into manga and likes to base his style off of Japanese pop culture and fashion. He is a nonstop talker and has a tendency to think that everything is funny. It is very difficult to make him him angry, sad, or even scared. In fact, when he was younger, his parents would yell at him and he would just laugh. He doesn’t care what other people think of him, and lives life to the fullest without even trying.


Kevin

Kevin is the 31 year old comic book store owner. He is obsessed with all types of comics, from mainstream Superman comics, to Japanese manga, to independent comics. He is extremely knowledgeable—a real fanboy. He seems to always be very relaxed, calm, and friendly, which causes him to make a lot of friends with his customers. He is a little on the heavy side because he usually spends his time reading and watching cartoons at the shop, rather than caring about his weight. Although he is nice, his hygiene could use some working on. Customers sometimes spot him picking lint out of his bellybutton.


Helen

Helen is a 22-year-old architecture student. She is Kevin’s niece, which is why she got the job at the comic book store. She is very practical, straightforward and blunt. When she talks to people, she makes very solid eye contact, which some people find uncomfortable. She is relatively fashionable and keeps up with the trends, but likes to keep things as simple and practical as possible. She is a bit of a workaholic and hates just sitting around doing nothing—she always needs to be doing something, anything. She has a thing for quirky, indie things, independent bands, and B-rated horror movies.


Ralph

Ralph is a 34-year old Software Engineer at JPL. He is extremely smart, yet very, very quiet. He always seems oblivious to the world around him because he is so tall and has a tendency to tilt his head slightly upward, as if he were ignoring everything. Actually, Ralph is extremely attentive and never truly oblivious to anything. Since he was a kid, Jeff enjoyed reading action hero comics, such as Superman and Dragonball Z. He’s currently unmarried, so he spends most of his free time on weekends to visit the comic book store near his house

JOSEPH model sheets (formerly Tim)

first draft

second draft

third draft

I started working on this character labeled as the “normal, boring guy” that the audience could easily relate to. I wanted someone that did not look dorky, but had a dorky and shy side too him. The first draft was just that: the normal, boring guy who looked a little dorky. That was all. But it didn’t feel right. He was supposed to be the normal guy, but it seemed like he had no character at all. There was absolutely nothing interesting about him.

I started working on the second draft, trying to make him more distinguished by giving him stronger cheekbones and a huge hunch back. While this wasn’t bad, I didn’t like how he looked blatantly awkward, and almost slightly creepy.

I studied some faces of actual people, and then started to do the third draft. My studies didn’t come out as much as I’d hoped (his face shape is still very similar, but I think I wanted it like that so it wouldn’t be too difficult to animate), but I played with the eyes, making him look very bored with life. By accident, I made one shoulder higher than the other so he looked awkwardly unbalanced. At the same time, his standing pose had a sort of “cool” air to it, as if it was intentional. I liked that asymmetry because it created layers within his personality. This is what I have so far.

Therefore, through drawing, I sort of felt out my character’s personality of what exactly I was going for.

IF ONLY - Treatment

Thought of a new idea! What do you think of this, in comparison to the other idea?

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Tim, an average 21 year old college student, enters a small comic book store. He passes the store owner, a friendly, chubby looking Asian guy with plugs in his ears, who greets him. Vincent acknowledges the store owner, and looks around. He peruses the isles of comic books, picking one up of interest to him. As he reads the comics, he looks up from the book, secretly observing the other people around him. Nearby, a tall nerdy looking guy with pens in his pocket holder stands, enthralled in a Superman comic.

Tim’s eyes snap to a pretty girl standing at a counter at the back of the store talking to a rocker-looking guy. They make eye contact, which is quickly broken by the rocker guy who seems to be flirting with her. Tim turns the page of his comic book, pretending to read as he watches them.

All of a sudden, the rocker guy tries to kiss the girl. The girl, disgusted, pushes the rocker guy away from her. He falls to the ground, but instead of looking defeated, a large, evil smile curls around his face. He starts to laugh hysterically, as everyone in the store looks up to see what is wrong, except for the tall nerdy guy, who seems to be completely oblivious to the whole situation.

In the eyes of the rocker guy, a strange glint appears. He suddenly grabs the girl hostage. His arm forms into a giant gun and he starts shooting like a madman. Everyone in the comic book store ducks. The nerdy guy is shot. Seemingly unconscious, he falls onto the stack of comic books right in front of Tim.

As the rocker guy is shooting, Tim quickly maneuvers between the stacks, careful to not be seen. The store owner tries to reason with the rocker dude with cash, but the rocker dude doesn’t want cash. He’s just crazy. He starts shooting again, destroying the entire interior of the store. The store owner’s arm is shot, leaving him wounded. He ducks as the ceiling starts to crumble.

With a sudden streak of courage, Tim grabs a broken shelf piece hurls it at the rocker dude, slamming the gun-arm into the wall and destroying it. Tim runs to the girl, and asks if she is okay. She seems helpless. The rocker guy menacingly gets up, and grabs Tim by the shirt. Before Tim can react, the rocker guy laughs hysterically, and throws Tim across the store, breaking the shelves and framed posters on the wall. Tim grimaces. The store owner shouts to him, throwing a hang gun his way. The rocker guy approaches Tim and tries to kick/punch him, but Tim ducks and rolls, barely missing the blow. He starts shooting at the rocker guy, who quickly dodges. The rocker guy pounces on Tim and knocks his head. As Tim is down, he picks him up by the shirt and hurls him out of the store, breaking the pane glass windows.

The rocker guy struts over to Tim, getting ready to make his final move. All of a sudden, the nerdy guy appears with a Dragonball Z outfit, hair and everything. The rocker guy turns instantly amused. He hysterically runs toward the nerdy guy. The nerdy guy blasts a Kamehameha…

"HELLO?". Tim snaps out of his daydream to see the girl staring right at him, carrying a box of comics. He blushes, awkwardly looking around. Her personality seems a lot less girly than he thought, more confrontational and strong. She tells him that he was zoned out for a while, and which freaked her out for a second. She asks if he needs any help finding anything. He shakes his head. She smiles matter-of-factly at him, and walks by. The rocker guy seems to be amusing himself with some vinyl toys, waiting for the girl. The store owner is watching anime on the tiny TV next to him. The nerdy guy is still reading DBZ comics. Everything is as usual.

Treatment, Second Draft

Took Sheila's advice and tried to add some conflict. I'm not sure if I did, but here's a shot at it.
This idea is getting very explosive....

LELAND AND HOGARTH (formerly “Wallflower”)

It’s a Saturday night and a purple house shaped like a cat’s face bobs up and down to techno music playing within. Through its orifice-shaped windows, lights flash and monsters dance, chat, drink, and play games.

Inside, weird monsters jive to the music as they stand around a “beer pong” table, except instead of ping-pong balls, the balls are drunken frogs. Demonstrating the game, one player pokes the frog’s butt, jolting the frog awake and sending him careening off into a giant bucket. SCORE! The crowd cheers. Monsters dance and do the wave.

Leland sits in the corner with a goopy drink that seems to be alive. Leland’s eyes are wide and somewhat shaky. His body is completely still, as a group of monster pass him doing a hip-thrust conga line. He doesn’t notice that his drink is crawling out of his cup in attempt to escape. The drink plops on the floor, but its moment of success ends when another partier steps on it and it fizzles into the carpet.

The monsters bounce the drunk frogs on their heads to impress the female monsters. Meanwhile, Hogarth, a tall, lanky creature, plops next to Leland on the couch. Hogarth is very drunk. He unabashedly breathes down Leland’s neck and stares at him. Leland scooches away from Hogarth, until he notices a guy hip-thrusting in his direction.

The monsters continue to play frog pong. Hogarth continues to breath in Leland’s face. At the game table, the next player, an overly excited little twit thing, hyperventilates and pokes the frog a little too hard. The frog flies over in Leland’s direction and into the wall, nearly splatting on Leland’s face. Fearing for his life, Leland looks over to see the front door exit glimmering in the distance. Hogarth burps in Leland’s face, breaking Leland’s moment of happiness. Hogarth then passes out on Leland’s lap.

Leland tries to push Hogarth off his lap, but Hogarth is very heavy and doesn’t budge. In fact, Hogarth seems to have a firm grip around Leland’s waist. Leland tries to slap him awake, but it is no use. Leland gets up, dragging Hogarth with him.

OJ, a big fluffy teddy-bear looking monster, bursts through the doors with a large smile on his face. His cronies follow behind him, including his girlfriend, Bonita. Hogarth wakes up to the sound of OJ’s entrance. The music is turned up. OJ smooches Bonita, heads to the center of the dance floor, and begins to do a dance.

 Hogarth, pumped up by the music, starts to dance too, pushing his way into the center near OJ. Leland attempts to head for the front door. Bonita, a female monster with a long tongue, gets so excited by OJ that she throws herself at him as he is dancing. Hogarth, however, gets in the way and whacks Bonita, sending her flying into Leland. As Leland and Bonita collect themselves, they make eye contact. Bonita, very drunk, licks his face. OJ sees Bonita and Leland, fuming. Leland, startled, jumps up and tries to run away. He passes Hogarth, who loses his balance and falls over onto Leland, grabbing onto his legs.

Because of Hogarth, Leland falls into a large, fluffy wall. He looks up to see OJ smiling down at him. All of a sudden, OJ’s expression changes into a death glare. OJ picks up Leland, and throws him into the roof.

Leland breaks through the roof, flying out of the house and onto the sidewalk. As he gets up, another monster is thrown out through the roof: Hogarth. Leland timidly looks at Hogarth, who seems to be dead. All of a sudden, Hogarth gets up. He stands awkwardly next to Leland for a minute and then impulsively gives Leland a hug. Hogarth then barfs on Leland.

Treatment, First Draft

LELAND AND HOGARTH (formerly “Wallflower”)

It’s a Saturday night and a purple house shaped like a cat’s face bobs up and down to techno music playing within. Through its orifice-shaped windows, lights flash and monsters dance, chat, drink, and play games.

Inside, weird monsters jive to the music as they stand around a “beer pong” table, except instead of ping-pong balls, the balls are drunken frogs. Demonstrating the game, one player pokes the frog’s butt, jolting the frog awake and sending him careening off into a giant bucket. SCORE! The crowd cheers. Monsters dance and do the wave.

Leland sits in the corner with a goopy drink that seems to be alive. Leland’s eyes are wide and somewhat shaky. His body is completely still, as a group of monster pass him doing a hip-thrust conga line. He doesn’t notice that his drink is crawling out of his cup in attempt to escape. The drink plops on the floor, but its moment of success ends when another partier steps on it and it fizzles into the carpet.

The monsters bounce the drunk frogs on their heads to impress the female monsters. Hogarth, a tall, lanky creature, is sitting next to Leland. Hogarth is very drunk. He unabashedly breathes down Leland’s neck and stares at him. Leland scooches away from Hogarth, until he notices a guy hip-thrusting in his direction. Hogarth passes out on Leland’s lap.

The monsters continue to play frog pong. The newest player, an overly excited little twit thing, hyperventilates and pokes the frog a little too hard. The frog flies over in Leland’s direction and into the wall, nearly splatting on Leland’s face. Fearing for his life, Leland looks over to see the front door exit glimmering in the distance. He pushes Hogarth off his lap and proceeds to the door, until…

OJ, a big fluffy teddy-bear looking monster, bursts through the doors with a large smile on his face. His cronies follow behind him, including his girlfriend, Bonita. The music is turned up. OJ smooches Bonita and begins to do a dance. Bonita, a female monster with a long tongue, gets so excited that she throws herself at OJ as he is dancing. OJ, however, doesn’t notice her. As he is doing a weird spin move he whacks Bonita, sending her flying into Leland. As Leland and Bonita collect themselves, they make eye contact. Bonita licks his face. Leland, startled, jumps up and makes a run for it.

Just as he is about to reach the front door, Leland bumps into a large, fluffy wall. He looks up to see OJ smiling down at him. All of a sudden, OJ’s expression changes into a death glare. OJ picks up Leland, and throws him into the roof.

Leland breaks through the roof, flying out of the house and onto the sidewalk. As he gets up, another monster is thrown out through the roof: Hogarth. Leland timidly looks at Hogarth, who seems to be dead. All of a sudden, Hogarth gets up. He stands awkwardly next to Leland for a minute and then impulsively gives Leland a hug. Leland and Hogarth become friends.

Inspiration 2: With Love, Angie.

For this idea, I'm thinking of making 2D animated characters and placing them within a 3D designed interior. The following film, by a animation student in Beijing named DongZhen Li, is an example of what I'm talking about.

The idea (and my interest in amorphous, weird figures in general) spawned off this one scene in Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. I'm too lazy to give a description of the story, but it basically revolves around two characters: Kafka Tamura, a young 15 year old boy, and Nakata, an old man who had lost his mental facilities as a child. In the scene, a strange white amorphous figure emerges out of Nakata's mouth. Hoshino, a truck driver who befriends Nakata, is ordered to kill the amorphous figure. I don't remember the the fight scene between Hoshino and the white figure specifically, but the eerieness sticks with me.

In addition, this past winter break, I drew an illustration of a man with a hole in his chest. I usually do not have an emotional reaction to most of the things I draw, but when I finished the sketch, something welled up inside of me.

Inspiration for Wallflower

I don't have anything really specific in mind for Gut vs. Rationality at the moment, but here are some ideas for Wallflower.

WALLFLOWER

"The TV Show" by Kousuke Sugimoto

I really like how Sugimoto created a story line by repeating the same shots, but gradually added more elements onto them.  For the wallflower, I was thinking of doing something similar, except everything would take place in one house party.

"Nooka Race" by ILoveDust

I just love the character designs in this. Especially the furry pink guy. He looks like a wad of gum hahahha. There's just something whimsical, but gritty about everything in this animation. For Wallflower, I want to go for something whimsical and gritty too, and create characters that are cute/quirky like these dudes.

In both animations, the music is really upbeat and techno-y. I'm not that big of a fan of techno, but I seem to gravitate towards it whenever I want to make a film.

Premises

1) Gut vs. Rationality

Two college-age friends discuss conflict between choosing based on your gut and rationality, and discuss risk. While one believes that going with your gut is the basis of success, the other argues that there must be a sense of rationality to his/her decisions about the future.

Medium: Hand-drawn animation with aftereffects and motion graphics. I want to possibly film the scene first, and then rotoscope over it.

2) Wallflower

We enter a party/some sort of get together where everyone has a weird hat-like creature on his or her head. As the people drink, party and talk, the creatures interact with each other, as if plotting schemes against their hosts. A wallflower stands at the side, watching everyone, with a large, but fairly motherly hat. The party becomes more and more crazy, until finally the wallflower becomes so uncomfortable he leaves.

Medium: 2D animation with aftereffects, an integration of 3D and 2D with maya, or 3D with live action

3) With Love, Angie

A young man wakes up to find a hole in his chest, and a monster form of his girlfriend standing at his bedside. The monster first embraces him, making him feel comfort inside. All of a sudden, the monster changes form and attacks him. He tries to defend himself, but it is futile. At the brink of terror, he wakes up and finds himself alone in the apartment. He sees a note by his bedside from his girlfriend, basically saying she is leaving him. He runs after her.

Medium: 2D animation with 3D background (apartment)

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Right now, I’m leaning towards the "Wallflower". I don’t want to draw anything really “dirty” per se, but rather parody college parties in a light, humoristic way. I’m not sure about the hats yet. I want to create some fun characters with this one.

The second one I am most interested in is "Gut vs. Rationality". I liked the Don Herdtzfelt (sp?) film we watched in class, and thought that it might be interesting to create a dialogue based story. The message is also very personal to me.

In “With Love, Angie” I just wanted to create something inspired by my one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami. It is also inspired by an illustration I did recently. The nice thing about this idea is that the entire film takes place in one area, which would be a loft-style apartment.

You may notice that most of my ideas do not have a very concrete story. This is because I am not so much interested in creating a story, than portraying an idea or thought through visual means.