Storyboards - Rough

The Work Based Learning module involves script-writing, story-boarding and delivering a project proposal and treatment based on the characters we worked on developing in September. I didn't get past the early stages of this, unfortunately, because during the lead up to Christmas I was suffering quite frequent illnesses; however I do have the script and rough storyboards to work from.

They are very rough, mind you, so I'm just going to give a brief description of what's happening in each panel so that I have a clear plan in my mind for when I draw up the final versions.

1: PoV shot of rabbit making its way down a forest trail. The camera zooms as it approaches the end and the screen whites out

2: The rabbits eyes open and it focuses on the tree, looking up at the whole thing. Its vision is quite blurry.

3: Scavenger's PoV- it's watching the rabbit stumble closer, and we can see how bloodied and injured it is.

4: Back to rabbit's PoV: it spots Scavenger and then it comes swooping down, growing into a big black shape that fills the screen. Rabbit blacks out.

5: The rabbit's eyes open and blink, the camera zooms out a little to show that it actually collapsed.

6: Rabbit's PoV: Scavenger is now in its weirdly humanoid form. Camera pans up the imposing figure.

7: It bends down and extends a hand to the rabbit, appearing to be assisting it, but the rabbit flinches back.

8: Blinking momentarily, Scavenger moves aside and gestures at the tree.

9: A close-up of the tree. Weird wisp-like things fly around the branches.

10: The rabbit looks between the outstretched hand and the tree, thinking deeply for a moment.

11: It decides to trust Scavenger, and accepts its hand, but-

12: The rabbit is snatched up in the bony arms and embraced tightly. As this happens, something appears to come from the rabbit's open mouth, eyes and nostrils. The camera pans right, until-

13: We see its spirit has forcibly been extracted from the body!

14: Now that its a ghost, the rabbit can see the wisps for what they are- other animals who have been tricked into believing this tree would allow their souls to live forever, when in fact they are simply trapped for eternity with the Scavenger.

15: Scavenger drops the rabbit's lifeless body to the ground. Roots and vines immediately come from the earth and feast on the corpse...

16: ... until only bones are left. Now the rabbit's body and spirit belong the the tree and the Scavenger.

17: Scavenger returns to its bird form and flies back to its post while the ghost of the rabbit is pulled towards the branches, about to join the other tormented animals.

18: The camera zooms back on this scene, ending it where the rabbit first encountered the clearing before fading out.

Quite a dark story, I know. And not even a happy ending! I left it on a mysterious and grim note. There are unanswered questions, because that's the nature of death. The rabbit feared what death would bring, and risked its own soul for the chance to keep existing in a way, and now it has a damned existence.
What can I say? I was in quite a dark sort of place when I came up with this story! But I do think it's a short story that would provoke thought and discussion in an audience, which is what I also love to see in animated pieces.

My next step is to draw up the final storyboards today and tomorrow, and after that's done I'll begin work on the proposal and treatment.

Work Plan: 7/04 - 13/04

I got a little ambitious with my last work plan, but I did manage to hand in the COmpositing unit which is great!

Anyway here are my targets for the next week:

• Finish script, storyboard, proposal and treatment for WBL (work-based learning) module.
• Consider ideas for Young Illustrators Award entry (shall post the details of this competition at some point)
• Look into job prospects and document here
• Document any other inspiration, research and progress here.

Research - Idents/Ads V

Channel 4 Idents cleverly use the positioning of real footage to create a fleeting image of the number 4, which the viewer sometimes has to concentrate to see. It's a smart way of grabbing their attention before a show begins.

The use of blurring really gives a sense of depth and perspective to this clip as the black globs merge together and form this strange spherical shape. Live footage is encapsulated inside and changes into the logo, which gives it a very interesting and sophisticated look.

I love the subtle lighting and shadows used in this ad, and how the tangibility and shape of the smoke shifts so fluidly and subtly.

Research - Idents IV

A useful video about the history and function of Idents in the media.

Final Compositions - comments and evaluation.

Here are two stills of the final result. I really do love how the glass look of the shapes reflects and blends in with the background. It's unfortunate that I was never able to get video footage while I was in these places as it would've been amazing to 'travel' through the 3D forests I've made, but sadly my phone was unable to take decent quality videos (that and there were so many people who just didn't want to get out of the way).

Another unfortunate thing is that I have been unable to actually animate my tree shapes. Since this is a late hand-in I've been very pressed for time and so I've had to simply show that I can composite images, but with more time I definitely would have liked to experiment with making the trees 'grow' from the ground or weave in and out of the water in the second one.

I'll probably end up using one of these stills for the Look Book too, just to add some variation in addition to my usual illustrations.

SWOT:
Strengths- creating 3D shapes, positioning objects appropriately
Weaknesses- remembering how to do everything, forgetting little steps. Must take more specific notes in future
Opportunities- N/A
Threats- Not enough time to actually animate the shapes!

Compositing Progress III

For my other composition I wanted a similar sort of look, except with a more organic look to the shapes. Creating this effect turned out to be quite simple. I used the 'tree' shapes and simply placed them inside HyperNURBS to smooth out the shapes.

You can see how the objects are much smoother than in the other piece I was working on. You can also see how I've set up the planes and used the cameras get the lighting etc. right, and the effect of my sculpting on the planes.

Fianl versions will be coming up in the next post!

Compositing Progress II

Today I continued my work with the compositing module. I'd decided I wanted glass/crystal shapes for my 3D element. To begin with I applied my cube shape to a Banji material and found that I loved how well it blended and reflected the scenery. I tried using a pyramid and extruding all the surfaces but it looked juuust a bit too crazy.

I then went on to build a spiky tree-shaped object by starting with a cube and extruding from there. When I copied the object and applied it to the Banji material in my composition I was again very pleased with the result.

As you can see I copied this shape and played with the shape and size of them a little, rotating and stretching them so that there would be some variation. I think this still works really well as a visual, and I'd like to play around more with the layout of the 'trees' before rendering a final version. 

Perhaps I will use one of these stills as one of my look book entries to give more variation than just illustration.