Animatic Draft 2 Feedback

Better late than never I suppose! I've just been busy working on my dissertation these last few days so I haven't touched the internet (didn't want any distractions!)

But yeah, last Thursday we showed our second animatic to Helen and Derek. We had made quite a few changes from the first draft, including completely making a new beginning (all of this is mentioned in a post below, I think)

Feedback was fairly good, but also unexpected. They both felt it just needed to be more crazy. More weird. The marshmallows need to be vulgar, disgusting, twisted little blighters! We were being quite timid with our marshmallow characters beforehand, only hinting at what they actually are, for 2 reasons really. 1.) I think we were just unsure about how we wanted these marshmallows to be. 2.) I don't think we wanted to go over the top with them, because we were not sure if we could get away with them being so disgusting haha.  But after the feedback, we've agreed to go mental with them. At the end of the day, they're marshmallows! We could get away with so much, and looking back I really don't think we took advantage of the huge potential they give us for weird and crazy things. So expect a different film in tone from anything I've mentioned before...and, just as a teaser, look out for the marshmallow 'lovin' in the hot chocolate tub!

We also needed to go over-the-top with the setting and the backgrounds, which I immediately agreed with once they gave their reasons. In a world with living marshmallows, again I think we were playing it safe with the backgrounds. We want to stick to the same sort of design and layouts, but again just go over-the-top with them - mainly just with the colour. They needed to look nommy, as if you want to eat them. But we didn't want any of the backgrounds or background objects to be sweets, as that would completely screw-up our story (as otherwise Ande and Mozbie could just eat the trees or the sand!). So we are still having a normal volcano, albeit a living one, with normal trees, normal sea, etc - it's just the colours we're going wacky with. Jayce showed them a concept he did a while ago where he used textures for the sea and sky (this was different to what we were originally planning to do), and Helen and Derek loved it. So we decided to go down that route instead, and here is an example of one of the background test shots Jayce made recently:

I think it looks really great, especially the sky - it looks tasty haha, and much more than just a simple background now. Originally we didn't want the backgrounds to overpower the animation and the characters, we just wanted them to simply be, well, backgrounds. But now they're so much more I think. I'm so glad we decided to change the backgrounds, as at the end of the day the island in itself is a character - the title of our film is 'Candy Island'! So it would have been wrong to have simple backgrounds. Derek actually came up with a really great idea that the Island could be like a Birthday cake, with all the layers (Sponge, Jam, Cream, Etc.) visible on the outside. And there could be a river running down to the sea, just to add something else to the island. But I'm not sure if we are doing this yet though.

Other feedback was that it needed a little tightening up, which again I agree with. As much as we now want this to be weird and vulgar, story is key and that should always come first. So the story is still the same, but we're just evaluating every scene and seeing if it helps towards the story. At the moment the shot of the marshmallow peeing down the drain pipe is being considered to be thrown away, if we really don't think it's necessary.

On Tuesday we have to hand in our final animatics, so they can be put together in a showreel to show Luis Cook who will decide which ones should go through to be made. He will not have seen any of our pre-production work, literally the first he will see of our work is the animatic - which is a very scary thought, as he has to understand the story and know what happens just from our animatic. I suppose this is fair though, as a good animatic has to get the story across and show exactly what happens.

My Job Roles/Our Progress So Far

 My Job Roles

I am the Producer and Assistant Director of Candy Island, so it is my job to manage people and time. I need to make sure that everyone in the team knows exactly what they are doing, and they stick to any deadlines I give them. I will be the line of communication between everyone, and will have full overview and responsibility for the project from a creative and scheduling perspective.

I will also be an Animator for Candy Island,  as well as the 3D Background Artist (if we do go ahead with that idea, I need to have a meeting with Jayce). In the post stages I have the roles of Compositor (regarding 3D backgrounds) and Editor.


Progress

We've just finished the second draft of the animatic, it's looking so much better now. Our main criticisms from the first (not enough going on in the backgrounds, village needing to be populated more, more structure needed and the sense that the marshmallows are preparing to kill Ande and Mzbie) have been fixed. There is definitely more of a story now, but we've still kept the whackiness and weirdness from before. We still want to stick by our guns and make something unique and strange, not sticking too much to the guidelines of a typical slapstick animation, but felt that some changes were definitely needed.

We have to show the animatic tomorrow, so at the moment we can't really do a great deal until we get feedback. I'm very pleased with the animatic, although I think that we need more chocolate on the floor in the end shots.

Things to do by next Friday as it's the sweatbox hand-in (the things in bold orange are what I need to do):

- Add more chocolate in the last few shots of the animatic
- Make any other changes in the animatic (if necessary)
- Edit the script and make it final (once we've settled on the animatic)
- Animation tests of shots we are using (I will be animating Mozbie's walk soon)
- Concept drawing of the plane
- Character Turnarounds
- Finalize the sound so we know exactly what we're using for music and effects
- Any other final designs to add to the sweatbox (if necessary)

(These don't need to be done for next week but we can start on them)

- Tests of the 3D backgrounds (if we do decide on this)
- Possibly a final render of a small shot with completed animation and backgrounds (just so we can see the exact look we're going for)

Meeting with Andy/New thoughts and ideas

I just had a chat with Andy about what my plans are for the future and what goals I have, both then and during my remaining time at University. It really made me see clearly what I should be doing. As it is 3D which I want to go in, I should probably use 3D within my project Candy Island. His idea was that we should have 3D backgrounds, but not in the normal sense. Rather to use the plane effect, by building the backgrounds in Maya and using the paintings of them over the top. So it will still look 2D in the finished product, but have that sense of depth from the 3D.

Very similar to the backgrounds for this game, which Andy showed me. Very beautiful and very pleasing to the eye, it's much more interesting to look at than just a simple 2D background - or even a standard 3D one:

This is the sort of look that I think we should go for. I think it would make the backgrounds much more interesting, and it also gives me the chance to create some 3D for my project. Me and Andy both agreed that games are having to change their aesthetic look and feel to remain interesting. The likes of an indie game such as Tengami or a big budget console game like Borderlands 2 are changing the ways games look, and are making the games of old with their 'realistic' graphics looking rather boring.

I need to fully know what I want to do once I finish Uni. At the moment I'm a little confused as exactly what path I want to go down, as I've literally done a bit of everything on my course and haven't really focussed on one particular skill. 3D is what I've always wanted to do, to model characters and landscapes, and possibly learn to rig as well. I still want to do this now, and whilst I haven't really done much of it so far, now is my chance to really get going.

We had to write a statement of intent a few weeks ago to give to our lecturers so they can get a better understanding of what we want to do. One of the questions was "What is your career aim". I wrote that my main aim is to be a 3D modeller, but I also said that I enjoy animating in 2D and feel that I'm quite capable of doing so and would consider doing more in the future. Furthermore I stated script-writing and storyboarding were two things I felt I was strong in, as well as editing. As you can see, there is quite a bit of variety in all of those things and I do really need to settle one just one or two of them, and put myself out there in the future as a 'modeller' or '2D animator', as two examples.

Marshmallow Skip Test

This will be one of the marshmallows in the background, in one of the shots when we're in the village. It's a little rough, as it's only for the animatic. I think it's actually only the second time I've ever animated a skip, the first being when we had to make one in the first few weeks of the first year! In the final film there will be 4 or 5 extra frames in there, just to make it a little smoother and free-flowing. Overall though I think it looks okay.

Better 3D model of the Marshmallow Village

I re-made the village in maya using Jayce's plan below, so we can get a good sense of where everything is. This will also help for us to plan our shots and angles, as we would like some diverse shots in our film (but not too many as to differentiate from the typical slapstick and its rather simple shots).

Also I just wanted to do something in Maya, as I plan to get into modelling once I graduate uni. I just didn't think my skills are quite up to scratch just yet to make anything major in 3D.

So here's the rough plan:

And these are quick renders of the village (just thought I'd add some simple lighting and shading to jazz it up a little haha) They're still quite rough, so there isn't much detail at all in the village. It's literally just to know where everything is:

Rough 3D Island

Just to help us with the angles of shots. It isn't finished yet. (note: the hovering houses haha)

Crew Sheet and Time Table

These need updating but just wanted to show the basis of how we're working with timetables.

What I need to do by 21st November

- Create the 2 tables (done)
- Mozbie walk test animation (in progress)
- Concept design of the plane (in progress)
- Update the script
- Watch slapstick animations to research camera angles
- Finalize camera angles

I'm also Script Editor for another project called Hook, Line and Stinker which I will need to do within this time, and I might be working on another project's script and possibly more.

Job roles and what needs doing

So we've now got Jack working with us on our film now. He's currently designing the layouts and will also be an inbetween animator. I think we also have Sam on board, who will be animating inbetweens as well. We've asked Kirsty to design the backgrounds using Jack's layouts and our animatic, so hopefully they will be done soon as backgrounds are our main concern right now!

We've also got someone lined up to do the colouring and shading for later in the production stages, but we need to develop a colour pallette for them to work off, and we'd like a concept painter to create the final shot at the end in a very detailed, grotesque manner - similar to the close up shots found in Spongebob Squarepants.

So here are the roles so far (not necessarily finalized)

Director: Me or Jayce                              -
Assistant Director: Me or Jayce              - (these 3 will be finalized asap)
Producer: Me or Jayce                             -
Designer: Jayce
Art Director: Jayce
Layout Artists: Me and Jack
Colour Stylist: TBC
Background Designer/Painter: Kirsty and possibly someone else
Script Writer: Me
Storyboard Artist: Jayce
Storyboard Assistant: Me
Key Animator: Jayce (and possibly me)
Animator: Me
Key clean up Artist: Me
Inbetweeners: Jack and Sam (I need to confirm this)
Editor: Me

And this is what needs to be done

- Create 2 tables, one of the team explaining peoples roles and what they need to do as well as contact details. The other will show deadlines for work each week, with anyone able to edit it showing if they have done it, haven't done it or in the process of doing it using a red, amber, green system (I am doing this now)
- Second draft of the animatic (adding in all the changes I've listed in the post below - this is Jayce's job)
- Test Shots (I'm doing a test shot of Mozbie's walk, trying to get that finalized)
- Concept design of the plane (which I will be doing)
- Update the script (I will do this)
- Complete the layouts (Jack's job)
- Finalize camera angles (my job as well)
- Background designs need to be completed (these haven't been started yet)
- Finalize the colour palette (yet to be done)
- Finalize the music and sound effects (in progress)

Animatic feedback and new ideas

We managed to finish the animatic for today, which we showed to our class and Helen. Got some good feedback but also quite a lot of changes which are needed. After watching it myself I immediately saw some flaws and scenes and shots which need to be edited or added in, so I did agree that it wasn't perfect. Plus no one gets the animatic right first time - there always ends up being many many drafts.

So basically the main criticism was that it needs more structure, and that the audience needs to know early on that the marshmallows plan to eat our main characters Ande and Mozbie. I absolutely agreed with this straight away, as after seeing the animatic a few times myself it was something that stood out to me that it was quite sudden when the marshmallows suddenly attack. So we plan to have glimpses where a marshmallow tries to eat one of the pilots or we see at the beginning the marshmallows are up to something. There were also a few other shots which needed slowing down or edited as well, which was of our own thoughts.

What was also questioned was that the village isn't that well populated, yet there is a full army which appears later on in the film. This is something which we couldn't yet show in the animatic though because we haven't settled on backgrounds designs yet, which I will come back to later.

So at moment we plan to add the changes given to us by Helen, as well as the feedback from other course mates and our own ideas, which are listed below:

- When Ande and Mozbie are sliding down the roof, rather than having them revealed that they're fat at the end, we will gradually make them get bigger as they slide and then bounce off the floor.

- The plane crash scene needs to be clearer (we had a thought that we see the plane actually crash through a telescope or binoculars, which is being held from a marshmallow. But we don't see them, only a snigger/laughter to highlight that someone is watching them)

- We need to colour the cola bottle to make it clearer it's a sweet and not a drink

- Colour Ande and Mozbie in their colours so it's much easier to differentiate between the two


Our own ideas which we need to add into the animatic

- Speed up the beginning scenes so there's less time to wait for the first gag (when we are establishing the characters and their hungry situation we going to make it faster , and gradually ease into the gags to give them that much more punch)

- More chocolate needs to land on the marshmallows when the volcano erupts

- The shot of Ande and Mozbie fat needs to be held for longer (after they bounce off the floor)

- Change the ending shots as the camera angle is too simple (possibly a POV shot when they're being thrown onto the fire, and the marshmallows could terrorise them and chew on them)

- More background gags (bouncy castle, ferris wheel, clues as to the marshmallows being meat eaters, etc - we're developing ideas at the moment)

- Develop camera angles

- Backgrounds need to be finished

- Work on timing (fat scene , war line up establishment, fire throwing scene)

As for the music we don't want it to over power the sound effects so we may see if we can use the sound track we had for the animatic, because it does everything we want it to. We recorded the sound effects ourselves, and we're not sure whether to stick with that or go for proper sound effects - but we don't want it to lose that naturalistic effect, if that makes sense. Voices and recorded sounds rather than just sounds downloaded from the internet.

Other ideas: 

Licking lathering marsh when it rains chocolate, marsh walking like a dog over to chocolate sniffing and he licks another's butt shiny and sticking far out, pov shot from chocolate dollop flying towards ground marsh getting ready to eat and it completely covers him in chocolate, toys in the house of bondage, when Mozbie looks at bondage marsh caught in the act back an forth shots, then mozbie continues eating the door because he doesn't care, liqourice house.

Sounds

In order

Sounds

- Ande rising (slide whistle

- Mozbie rising (slide whistle

- Stomach growl (car splutter, dying engine

- Ande squinting (telescope, eagle?

- Ande surprise

- Baby marsh skip [something cuter than squeaky dog, or just a higher pitch? Chipmunk-ish]

- Baby marsh skip noise (high pitch whoosh)

- Baby marsh turning around? (quick whoosh, the noise those watches make with the rotating dial thing on the outside)

- Ande angry (dog growl

- Mozbie confused (phone noise you mentioned

- Ande/Mozbie run (bullet firing, car engine

- Volcano straining

- Volcano fart

- Screeching halt (car braking

- ooooo/aaaaaa sparkly noise [reveal noise when looking at village] (wand sparkle

- Butler jump (another whoosh?

- Gesture noise? [suave]

- Manic run/noise [zombie/crazy noise]

- Ripping off door

- Gulping

- Pop back to normal shape [stretching pop noise]

- Slurp

- Stretch bottle

- Chew

- Burp [animal noise]

- Patting lips

- Whistle

- Slide (finger running on glass,

- Lick

- Shivering

- Excitement (camera shutter,

- Jump [kangeroo 'boing' jump]

- Balloon/bubble noise

- Battle cry/ Screaming noise

- When marshmallow jumps and swears

- Piercing noise

- Balloon burst

- Marshmallow skewer

- Flop noise

- Hot choc splash

- Scraping

- Eruption (flushing toilet,

- Content

- Falling/whooshing noise

- Drop noise

- Rolling/pleasure

- Sigh of relief

- Thrown in fire noise? (sheep, mama

- Scared (whimpering dog, baby mobile (in cots)

- Confused

- Marshmallow walk (squeaky dog toy

- Carrying A/M on poles (ruler flapping,

Other sound effects we could use: Donkey, Elephant, Pig squeel, Smashing glass/crockery, boxing bell ring (just before marshmallows charge?) fart noise, flipping coin

Final Script

This is the script which I have typed up. Obviously it isn't properly formatted as I have just pasted it into here. And it might need a few tweaks and I need to add the SFX, but this is practically the finished thing.

Candy Island

Screenplay by:

Jayce Cowley Liminton and Perry Hall

TITLE

EXT. ISLAND FULL - DAY

A beautiful island sits in the ocean, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, with a huge volcano planted in the centre.

CUT TO

EXT. PLANE WRECKAGE

A crashed plane is dug deep into the sand of the Island's beach, smoke coming out from the engine. Two figures rise from the wreckage one after the other, who are the pilots of the wrecked plane. They are Ande and Mozbie. Ande is blue green in colour, with a purple scarf. He is somewhat the leader of the two, the one with the brains - but can also have incredibly bad luck. Mozbie, on the other hand, is red in colour, with an orange scarf. He is dim-witted, simple minded and oblivious to any situation. The pilots look around to see where they are, and then look at each other in confusion. Ande's stomach growls and he holds his stomach, realising that he is very hungry. Mozbie sees this and does the same, unsure what is going on but thinking he should be holding his stomach as well.

CUT TO

EXT. BEACH/FOREST EDGE

Ande looks around further, his eyes narrow and sharp. Suddenly they widen as baby marsh, a small marshmallow creature, comes towards him skipping around a flump. It goes right past him and head towards the forest. Just before it reaches the forest edge, baby marsh turns around, blows a raspberry and gives the two fingers v sign to Ande, and then turns around and walks into the tree-line.

BACK TO THE BEACH

Ande is angered by this, whilst Mozbie has no clue what is going on. Mozbie glances at Ande and, after seeing his angry expression, mimics him after deciding he should probably be annoyed as well. Ande runs after baby marsh, with Mozbie in pursuit. Off in the distance, the volcano suddenly farts, its face straining as if trying to hold something in.

CUT TO

EXT. FOREST EDGE/MARSHMALLOW VILLAGE

After having ran through the forest, they come to a screeching halt as they see what lies in front of them - a small village made entirely of candy. There are houses with candy cane roofs, curly wurly drains and wafer biscuit doors, hot tubs filled with hot chocolate, a ferris wheel, see-saws, bouncy castles - and then the denizens themselves, who are marshmallows! One particular marshmallow is standing right in front of Ande and Mozbie, standing on a podium. This is the butler marshmallow, with a sleek moustache and black bow tie, who when jumps down to the floor makes a noticable sound similar to a squeaky dog toy. He gestures for Ande and Mozbie to follow him through the village.

EXT. VILLAGE CENTRE

Walking through the village, Ande's and Mozbie's stomachs get the better of them and they run manically to feast upon all the candy. Mozbie rips a wafer door off a house and shoves it all in his mouth in one gulp, taking the shape of the biscuit. Once he digests it, he picks up a cola bottle from the floor and goes to drink it, but realises it is in fact a sweet after trying to open and slurp from it. He chews it instead, and burps soon after, feeling satisfied. Ande is seen walking away from a house patting his lips with a napkin and whistling casually, having eaten something he probably shouldn't have. He then slides underneath a drain pipe and eagerly waits for the sauce to drip into his mouth, shivering every time it does so. Mozbie then walks past him and climbs up a house onto the roof, which Ande does as well. They both look at each other, excitement in their eyes, and then run, jump and slide down the side of the house with their mouths open wide, taking in huge gulps of everything before them.

We zoom out to reveal that Ande and Mozbie are now huge and round from all the eating, nearly the size of hot air balloons, with their arms and legs barely visible due to the sheer fatness of their bellies. They are surrounded by War Marshmallows, who charge from all sides towards Ande and Mozbie after one of them screams a battle cry. They pierce through the two pilots, who fly off like a released balloon into the sky, but also skewer each other with their spears. Ande falls on top of a post box whilst Mozbie lands in the hot chocolate tub, both as flat as a pancake. More marshmallows then appear around the duo, who go to capture them. This had been their plan all along, they just needed to fatten them up.

CUT TO

EXT. CAMPFIRE

Tied to a stick by their hands and feet, and their bottoms scraping across the floor, Ande and Mozbie are carried by the marshmallows to a campfire. Ande has a very worried look on his face, whilst Mozbie, as always, has no idea what is happening.

CUT TO

EXT. VOLCANO

The volcano, now making a face as if it's in excruciating pain, suddenly erupts chocolate furiously all over the village. It's face soon changes to being very content and pleased.

CUT TO

EXT. BACK TO CAMPFIRE

Chocolate rains down from the skies, landing on the marshmallows. Ande and Mozbie are immediately dropped onto the floor as the marshmallows dance and scream in happiness at what has just occurred. One marshmallow rolls around in the chocolate and lathers itself in it, looking rather pleasured. Ande looks very happy and blows a sigh of relief, thinking that they will be okay. But they are soon picked up again, and thrown onto the fire to be cooked.

CREDITS START

FADE IN FROM BLACK

EXT. TABLE

Ande and Mozbie are now lying cooked on a huge table, with the marshmallows sitting around it prepared to feast on them.

CREDITS END

What work is being done at the moment

Just a post to say what work is currently being done and what needs doing:

- At the moment me and Jayce are trying to finish the animatic for Thursday.

- I have almost finished the final script, it will be completed by tonight.

- I am also working on the sound and determining what sounds we will need and where they will be going in the film. I am half-way through that and again, it will be finished by tonight.

Then tomorrow I can fully concentrate on the animatic.

What needs to be done

- A final storyboard drawn up neatly. We have the finished one already, but I think it will need to be re-drawn quickly. I don't want too much time spent on this as the animatic is much more important, so I might do it on Friday (but will need to discuss it with Jayce first)

- The backgrounds also need to be sorted soon. We're hoping to get someone on board soon.

Pitch Presentation (and outcome)

I should probably post about this! I guess I've been so busy trying to prepare for the pitch I forgot all about blogging. Must make sure to post more!

So yeah, this Thursday just gone we had to pitch our film projects to 3 judges, who were Erica Darby, Dave Unwin and Jacky Priddle. This was a really great experience, both in general and for any future pitches I might have to make for other people. Now, I'm not going to hide it - I had been dreading that day for 2 years, when I watched the third years pitch their films when I was back in the first year. I get nervous standing in front of people, even my own year! Even though I've known them for 2 years. Oddly enough though, I wasn't at all nervous on Thursday. In fact I was excited, and I really thoroughly enjoyed it. And there must have been around 60-80 people in that room, give or take. I'm an odd one haha.

The pitch itself went really well I think. I presented myself well, spoke well and said/showed enough in the presentation, alongside Jayce of course. We even gave out marshmallows to the judges and our lecturers at the front! The judges seemed to like our idea, and obviously they had a few things to say afterwards. I think it was Jacky who asked why not make it in 3D, but we argued that we want it very slapstick, lots of stretch and squash techniques such as Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy. It just wouldn't fit with what we're going for. And Dave was unsure about the volcano and whether it should be in there at all, as the story didn't seem to need it. But we said that we wanted the audience to think that Ande and Mozbie are going to survive at the end, but they are killed and eaten anyway. It does add to the story. Other than that our pitch received a good reception, and I am very happy with how it went. If I could do it all again, the only thing I would change would be for me to say more of the story and what happens - as perhaps I didn't say enough in that area.

On the Friday we found out if our films were chosen to go through to the animatic stage, by either being green (yes), amber (maybe) and red (no). There were also a few green ambers and red ambers. We got amber, which meant that we needed to do some more work in order to progress to green. So our lecturers told us to make an animatic by next Thursday (this one coming). They said our film has really great potential to be very funny, but they wanted to see how it will be. Which is completely fair, as I don't think we got across in the pitch our ideas for the funny scenes and I don't think any of our lecturers have seen our final storyboard! So at the moment we are making a first draft animatic, and if they like it and think it will be successful then they will greenlight us.

There were 19 film pitches overall, and only 4 of them were greenlit, which I was very surprised about. Most were given amber, including me of course, so there quite a few films which still need work! But I'm really hoping ours will go through, as I'm really passionate about it and I do really think it can be really great. I will just have to see anyway. I've just got to work as best I can and see what happens.

Anyway, here is the pitch presentation that we showed on Thursday. Most of this was made by Jayce, purely because we agreed he would do more pre-production work whilst I am doing all the post-production.

Scarf Test Shot

I thought as well as getting the feel of drawing the main characters, I'd also have a go at animating the scarf. As Ande (who is the character above) has a scarf and Mozbie (the other main character) has a cape, which will both need to be animated throughout the film. So I thought I'd have a go now, as I haven't really animated anything like that before in 2D. I think it looks decent but it will need to be more erratic.

Unfortunately the quality isn't that great,  even though I exported it in 1080p. I'll try to upload it again, maybe in a different format.

Final Update on Third Year Project

I've finally come to a decision on what I will be doing this year. I've decided to completely drop my story idea, as I didn't think it was developed enough and with the little time that is left, it would have been nearly impossible to turn things around. Which is sad because I did really like my idea and thought there was something great there.

Anyways, I'm now working with Jayce on his project, Candy Island. Here is his blog to see all the work he has done so far:

http://jaycecowleyliminton.blogspot.co.uk/

When we first pitched our ideas a few weeks ago his idea was actually my favourite one. I felt it was something really unique, and it has that randomness and humour that I like. The fact that it was being made in 2D and in a style which I like made me very interested in working with him, so I let him know early that I might like to work on his film (but was concentrating on my idea still, at the time). 

So basically at the moment I'm helping him with the script and storyboarding, trying to finalize the story. The two main characters are finished, and the Marshmallow people (see his blog) are in the process of having final coloured designs. We haven't properly decided yet, but in the production stages I might be the Key Animator (or we'll share it 50/50, having certain scenes/characters to ourselves to keep continuity with the drawings) which is great as that is exactly what I wanted to do. We've also thought about me possibly being the Director, but that has yet to be decided and we'll need to decide on a later date. But having a role like that would be exciting.

So at the moment Candy Island is my main project, working alongside Jayce, but I also hope to possibly work on one or two other projects, probably 2D films, in smaller roles. But that will be decided when I know which films will go through and see what roles people are looking for for their films.

Completed Boy

Got round to giving him legs. I'm really awful at drawing feet and getting the positioning right, so I've gone for something quite simplified - which is the same with the creature. I'm hoping he looks alright! Haha.

And I've given him a shovel to hold to further get across that he is a farmer, and not in any way a soldier. Plus it helps give him a bit of an action pose, as opposed to just standing there lifeless.

Update on where I'm at at the moment

Today I had a one to one chat with Helen Brunsdon, where I explained the situation I'm in at the moment. I found this very helpful and walked off with a better understanding on what I need to do. Basically she said I should carry on with what I'm doing at the moment, which is to keep on working on my project but also trying to sell myself to other members of the group so if I do decide to drop my idea people will (hopefully) want me to work on their animations.

Now, tomorrow we're having a group brainstorming session tomorrow which I will be attending. This is where we will sit down together and help each other with our animations (such as story ideas, what to do in the storyboards, etc). So I'm going to ask for help on my story and try to get it working. HOPEFULLY by tomorrow evening I will have a definitive descision on what I'm going to do. If I can somehow improve on my story and get an ending then I think I will continue with it, and also work on someone elses animation - but in a minor role. If I can't, then I will stop working on The Boy and the Beast and try to work on 2-3 projects, with one large role and 1-2 minor roles.

Fortunately at the moment there are a few people who are interested in wanting me to work with them. I'm helping Omari with his script, Jayce is interested in wanting my help with his storyboard and script (as well as production stuff such as animation) which I'm very interested in doing, and Lydia is looking for anyone to help her on her animation - so I would work on the 2D animation if I worked on her project. I hope to have a chat tomorrow with people and try and sell myself to them, and see who would be interested in me and try and get projects lined up to work on. But basically I'd like to do animation in Flash or Toonboom, help with scripts, any fairly simple modelling in Maya (such as buildings, interiors) In actual fact I'm very interested in Architecture - designing houses, set designs, stuff like that. My Dad works in the Architect business so that's probably why. But yeah, back to before, any post-production stuff in Premiere Pro or After Effects I'm interested in doing as well. To be honest most things really. Just actual 2D animation is my main goal to do.

Things I need to do for my film:
- Finish the storyboard
- Finish the script
- Finalize characters (turnarounds on boy and creature, draw knights)

Quick Test Shot - Creature killing Knight with tail

This is a very quick test shot of one of the shots that would be in my film, not necessarily looking like this though. This is where the creature attacks an unwary knight from behind, hiding amongst the bushes (it'd be a dark scene, so the tail won't be as visible and the eyes will light up in the undergrowth) As you can see, I haven't animated the knight whatsoever. I did this on purpose as my main aim was to animate the tail. As I haven't animated something like a tail before, I wanted to give it a try as early as possible. Overall, I think it looks alright. Needs improving quite a bit, not quite snake-like enough for me - needs to be a bit smoother. So some extra frames would sort that out I think. And the location of the tail needs tweaking, but then if it's a dark scene that won't matter as much (I'm talking mostly towards the end when you can see more of the tail) Obviously the Knight will react in the finished shot, his body jolting forwards and his head possibly being ripped off his shoulders (I'm not sure whether to include blood - at the moment I don't think I should). All gory stuff haha