Ideas

This huge roll of paper is full of ideas we had regarding possible stories. The main tac we seemed to be taking was quite abstract concerning a character or two in an abstract environment. This would allow us to animate an unusual creature in an unusual environment and therefore demonstrate unusual and different movement.

We had many ideas which were outlined on the roll, but off course to photograph the role would be unfeasible so as part of Nats group work hours, she has typed the ideas into script format. These can be seen below and also on Nats blog - www.natsanimationpage.blogspot.com

Whilst we had no idea what this character would look like we decided a good approach might be to draw animals, plants and limbs which already have potential and interesting movement which could be combined into hybrid creatures.

Below are some of these initial sketches:

The story we initially began to develop as our main project was the “Jungle” idea. (See Jungle script on Nats blog)

Briefly outlined, it involved two characters in a baron environment until one was suddenly sucked away through a rogue portal to another dimension. This new environment was full of peril and would involve the character having to bound from surface to surface, performing extreme motion to escape the dangers when just as suddenly he is sucked back through the portal, back to the serenity of his home world. Whilst lacking slightly in storytelling elements the main appeal behind this idea was the chance to show off animation skill. 

We were very confident about this idea and so began creating storyboards/animatics straight away. Despite not having a character design pinned down we thought if we got the obstacles lined out the actual character look could be tailored to fit - in hindsight, we jumped the gun a little. 

To improve efficiency and workflow speed, we thought it best to storyboard directly into photoshop via wacom tablet. As our piece was to be very movement based, we felt there had to be enough storyboard frames to show the movement - in effect doubling up as the animatic. 

Below is the developmental first pass at the animatic:

Whilst in the process of doing the animatic, we did some tests for some of the environment obstacles which the character would face whilst in this strange environment - of which were huge giant "snapping" plants. Below is a test for how such plants would have looked/moved:

              

     

However, about a month into the production of this project we began to feel that whilst we were trying to concentrate on the animation side of things, the lack of story was taking its toll on the appeal, which we were still trying to keep. Therefore halfway through the animatic making process, we cut our losses and scrapped the idea.

Here is where the animatic got up to before we discontinued it:

It was back to the drawingboard. We weren't starting totally from scratch at this point as there were plenty of ideas we could go back to try and develop down a different path yet still we will be honest in saying we were at a low ebb here as November loomed and we had no story...