Icecream and logo/design exploration

Most of the design work is done and I think it looks quite promising for our little film. All the work we do we post on the groups facebook-page so we can get instant feedback on it, which has been VERY useful to us. I have been doing the last bits of drawing/design work now and will most likely move on to modelling. It will be interestng to see how that works ous since I have been using 3dsMax for the last four years. I have only been using Maya for the past two months - and not done any modelling in it at all so this means a bunch of tutorials and a lot of "newbie questions" to Scott, who so far have been tackling all the 3D stuff. Scott asked me to do another reference image for the icecream - since we decided to go for separate models for the various stages of the icecream instead of one with blend shapes. (The result was not as good as we hoped. and the ice-cream won't actually be melting as it is shown in the shots either so it wasn't really needed. Here is how that looks:

As mentioned in a previous post the design is now sorted and we have gone for a swirl top and a waffle-cone for the icecream. The last bit of design work I've been working on has been the condom packaging. Firstly we needed to sort out the colour:

We landed on pink and blue and I started working on a logo - We thought this would be a great opportunity for us to try and work in another gag, by being a bit clever with the logo on the condom pack.

After a chat with the group the two favourite ones where the rocket and bone®, so I went back to the drawing board to make some decent versions of them:

After a second round of feedback and a quick re-design we landed on this version:

It's a very innocent joke in my opinion, and you would have to be of a certain age to even get the point of the joke. And hopefully we'll get a laugh out of it. I must admit I had a laugh working on these!

Scene design

These are images to show how our scene will look. I did a front 3/4 perspective that shows the hilltop that Nick will be come running down and in front of the image the bench where they are meeting. The staging will probably be changed according to what we find most efficient when we start working - usually you have to modify it a bit to make it work in 3D, especially when it comes to making room for animation. (This has already been done for the bench for instance; The model needed to be stretched in order to make room for the characters and the planned animation). The front-view is also our main stage - where the audience will be looking in most of the shots so the focus in that is the bench. The last image is the hilltop where Nick will be in the opening shot - How much of it we actually will see is yet to be decided, but we need it for reference for the modelling non the less.

More assets: Icecreams, bushes and trees

As the headline says, I've been doing more asset-design. I have done several different designs to give us more too chose from when we start modelling the assets for the film. The more we have to chose from the better, and if I didn't hit it spot on with these there is always an option to "steal" a bit from one and merging with another. This has already been suggested for the icecream:

As it is now we are thinking the top from 2 and the cone from 5. So will need to do a final version of this for model-reference. I have also done designs for different bushes & trees.

My personal favourites at the moment is 8-9-10 of the bushes, but the last two might be a bit hard to model so time will show what we end up with. For the trees I like 5, mostly because of the texture/colour on the bark and have already gotten positive comments on that design from the group so hopefully we'll be able to recreate a similar look in 3D.

Assets: Flowers & Bench

Been drawing the assets this weekend. Did a really rough design for the flowers just to get the "go ahead" on the look.

I then started working on "roughing" them up a bit. So here are some variations of how they might look:

The initial idea was to go for the yellow flowers, but after a look at these designs we seem to have landed on the white ones. We want the bouquet to look really pathetic and show that Nick didn't pay much attention to it:

The design I tried to do for the bench is inspired by a style you see in cartoons such as "The Flintstones" & "The Ricky Gervais Show". It's a very simple and clean style, but with some bent, crooked and exaggerated parts so that it looks a bit more stylized. I made a model-sheet that Scott could use for reference:

And here is the 3D model:

(Image taken from Scott - posted in our group's facebook-page)

Character profiles

Me and Scott met up at uni on Friday to figure out the character profiles for the characters in the short. Em had already done a rough outline of them so we used that as the foundation and started "building" from that. The biggest change was that we decided to change the characters from American to English, because of previous experience with the voice-actors. James (the voice actor) did a pretty good American accent for our mime-animation, but it put some restrictions on the actual performance non the less, I guess the fact that he needed to keep the accent consistent took it's toll on the delivery of the lines. So we'd rather have a good performance, since the location doesn't matter to the story itself. After Scott and I had done notes on each character I went home an did the in-depth profiles for our main characters and two simpler ones for the kids. (Figure we only need to know how the main characters behave in the different situations since the kids are more "supporting acts" and only needs a brief description). Here are the profiles for our characters:

Final draft of the script

Finally, after all that feedback from Ed and the class we have our final script. We had a brief chat within the group and with the notes from the last feedback session I went home to do write the final draft. I got the opportunity to do some changes on the dialogue since that was one of the changes so I really enjoyed that bit. The funniest bit I worked on was Nick's excuse for coming late, not sure if this is how it will be in the end, since we all want to give the voice-actors the freedom to do some improvisation on that bit - that worked well for the previous animation we did. Other than that I tried to work in some more action descriptions in the script, mostly on character behaviour. Such as talking while they sit down etc, just to try and make it seem more real. Not sure if that's the way to go, since I'm not a script-writer, but it seemed to make sense to me. Anyway, here is the script:

Feedback from class & tutors

Today we had another session where we showed work in progress - And we had a finished animatic to show today, it was based on the 3rd rewrite of the script so not up to speed to the script I posted last. But what do you know, they seemed to like it - and quite a bit too! Got a lot of laughs, and laughs in the right places as well. Chris said we where pretty much "there" now, just a few tweaks on the beginning to tighten it up (basically getting rid of the flowerstall and showing Jen on the bench and Nick running late so he picks flowers on the way. Basically just show him giving her a bunch of flowers that he has ripped from the ground on his way to the date. So to be clear, the feedback Ed have given us has made us shorten and tighten up a lot of the actions, but the idea of getting rid of the second half (which honestly we as a group disagreed with) is now behind us. We are keeping the script as it was with a date - and we will be polishing a final version of the script shortly. Ed has been a great resource and helped a lot, but his last feedback kind of made our idea of a fun cartoon with slapstick gags and humour and made it a lot more serious and closer to a drama.. And with a deadline approaching we haven't really got time to start all over again either. Not saying we're settling with this because of time pressure, but the fact that an audience laughed at it today really made us believe we might be on the right track anyway.

Park concepts

So in-between the script writing I have worked on concepts for our scene for the film. I have done research on parks, mostly New York or other cities since we quite like the idea of an "urban background". Here is the reference image:

I then started work on small thumbnails to get a better idea of staging an point of view:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The final concepts are various styles, even though the scenery is the same the mood differs in the images:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I personally prefer the mood and style in the two first images.

The Script after feedback

Here is our script that Scott and I wrote after we got feedback from Ed Hooks:

I sent this to Ed and he replied with another set of suggestions to how we could improve it: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Much stronger, Kristian. Suggestions: 1. On Nicholas's first appearance, we don't need to hear his conversation with his mate. In fact, it will be better if we do not. You can have him saying exactly the same thing he is now, about the girl last night who was all over him, just replace his recorded dialogue with music or something. Everything else is the same. Sees the girl, tells his mate he has to run, gets off the phone. 2. After he gets off the phone, have him go straight for Jen. On the way, he has to step over a small flower garden that runs parallel to the sidewalk. As he steps over, he gets the idea to give her flowers. We don't have to see him pick them. He only has to get the idea, the impulse to pick them. Animate his thoughts. 3. I don't like his first line to Jen. You aren't using it to expose any of Nicholas's personality or values. This is the kind of guy that troops around with rubbers in his pocket, and I think he might go for a grandiose intro. Bowing to the queen, over-acting, hoping to amuse and charm her. But "These are for you" is lame. 4. Jen's reaction to him is too ambivalent. Does she think he's funny? Hot looking? A pushy jerk? With "ehhh….thanks…I guess", you are again wasting an opportunity to expose values and personality. This is, in general, something you guys need to work on, using every single moment of action and dialogue to expose new information about the characters and story. Time restriction is part of the discipline of telling stories on film. Make everything count. The audience will presume that 100 percent of what they see on screen is important, even the tiniest thing. 5. As you have it now, Jen does not react favorably to Nicholas at all. After she discovers that he made the balloon thing for the kid, she briefly reconsiders her reaction, but that does not change anything. What is HER objective? Why is she sitting on the bench in the first place? Give her something to do. How about if she is an artist and is sketching park scenes on a pad? It could be funny if she is sketching the flowers when Nicholas picks them, ruining her sketch. Once he presents the flowers to her and sits down, she still needs an objective. Using the artist thing, maybe she is working on a project and has a deadline. She is amused and charmed by Nicholas, but she has work to do. Something like that. Anything, really. Just don't have her sort of sitting there doing nothing except reacting to him. 6. After Nicholas says the corny line about Tennessee, you have her sliding down the bench. That is not strong enough. If she really wanted to get away from him, she would get up and leave. Unless she has some other reason for sitting there. And, once again, I would prefer to see her amused by his corny joke, even while trying not to let him see her amusement. 7. The boy, his sister, the ice cream and the balloon have no reason for being in this story other than to set up the joke about the condom. If I were you, I would get rid of the kids because they are not advancing the story enough to keep them there. If you absolutely, positively must have Jen see a condom or condom wrapper, then let him maybe reach in his pocket to get something -- chewing gum, change for ice cream, a picture of his dog, his driver's license -- and as he does that, the condom falls out onto the ground. Unopened. Part of the problem you have is that the audience is having to deal with the rubber and the wrapper it came in. Plus, you have Nicholas being a litterer, which is a turn-off for Jen. Imagine if Charlie Chaplin accidentally dropped a condom in front of somebody he was trying to impress…. What would he do? I will bet he would try to quickly hide it, putting his shoe on top of it or trying to kick it under the bench, all the while trying to straighten up the flowers on the bench. 8. And, finally, I personally would prefer to see him succeed a little at the end. Once she sees the condom, she makes a hasty exit. Maybe she looks back over her shoulder and sees that he is embarrassed. So she turns around and goes back to the bench. Or something. I am talking out of my ass here. This is not a concrete suggestion. All I'm saying is that the condom joke is taking too long to set up, involves too many characters and is going to put your audience in an awkward position. Ed" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After a group-meeting on skype we have decided to go back and work on the ending. As we understand it our idea and first half is working, just needs improving here and there. We also see the point that the kids are mostly there to build up a joke and doesn't really do much for the story. We will have to have a talk with the tutors to discuss this tomorrow, since we have a few ideas on how to rewrite it, but the fact is that there are certain expectations to a Masters-project, and especially one from a group of three, so we need to make sure we don't make it too short or "easy" for us.

Ed Hooks' thoughts on the script

So I sent an e-mail to Ed Hooks, hoping he would have time to read through the script. This always seems like a long-shot since he is a very busy man.. But was I proven wrong (again..) Within an hour or so of sending him the script I got a reply with his thoughts: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hey Kristian. It is good to hear from you. Regarding your new script, if you boil the situation down to its essential story, you have a boy and a girl meeting in a public park for a first "date". The boy does a truly stupid thing when he blows up a condom, and so the girl leaves. It reminds me of a girl I approached in New York's Central Park one sunny summer day almost forty years ago. I was being so "cool", walking over and sitting down next to her. She smiled, and I smiled back. Then, casually - just like in a Humphrey Bogart movie - I pulled out a cigarette and lit up with my Bic lighter. The girl's expression changed to disgust as she waved the smoke from the air around her face. Then, with no further conversation, she just got up and walked away, leaving me alone with my cigarette. (I stopped smoking thirty years ago, by the way). Your guy did weird things with a condom, I lit a cigarette, another guy may have just eaten an onion sandwich. It does not matter a lot what the guy does just as long as she is turned off by it. My personal opinion is that the introduction of the condom into the scene is too jarring. Maybe it is not unusual for a guy to have a condom handy for a first date, but I find it hard to believe he would show it to her that way. He would have to be a real idiot to show the condom on a first meeting, even if he is trying to cheer up a child. The girl sees the condom and figures he was planning to have sex with her on the first date and calls the whole thing off. I would be surprised if she stayed around after the condom thing. She has two reasons not to go further with this guy. First, he must not be all that bright if he is blowing up condoms. And the fact that he brought a condom to the first date suggests that he only cares about sex. If I was in her place, I would walk off, too! You have a lot of extraneous stuff going on in order to justify the guy not having money with him. And him being broke doesn't add much to the story anyway. 1) Whose story is this, Kristian? Right now, it looks like you are trying to tell his story and her story at the same time. I suggest you look at the entire sequence of events from only one character's perspective. 2) Maybe it doesn't matter, but I wondered why they are meeting like this for a first date. Were they paired up by an on-line dating service? You might simply want to have the two of them coincidentally sit next to one another, an accidental encounter. My best relationships have started like that. It is not necessary to have her see him searching for money to buy flowers. If he walks up with flowers dangling dirt from the bottom, Jen and the audience will understand that he picked them rather than bought them. Simplify the story, Kristian. "This is a story about a girl named Jen on the day she met ….." Or make it a story about him. I'll stand by in case you revise it. Ed" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So grateful that he took time to read through our script! Will show this to the rest of the group so we can sit down and go over it together.

Inspirational speech for creative graduates

This speech really got me thinking about my future, I always worry where this path will take me - but this speech encourages and I highly recommend you watch it. - Make good art. Make YOUR Art!

Modified Morpheus-rig example

I found this video showing a blocking-shot of a boy-character. Just thought I'd share this to give an idea of what you can expect our character to look like. (character is a modified Morpheus-rig) (By: "Dmitry" on vimeo. Video taken from: https://vimeo.com/24080973)

Concept for the boy and girl-characters

Have been working on concepts for the girl and boy-characters for our short. I have been researching characters from TV-shows and films (both animation and live-action) and comics and other images for reference for the two characters and made assembled reference images to build the design from: The girl:

As you can see the references is taken from; "Full House", "Family Guy", Despicable me", "My neighbour Totoro" and others. The Boy:

References is taken from; "The Ant Bully", "Little rascals", "Dennis the menace", "Calvin & Hobbes", "Home Alone 3" and others. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I did a hand-drawn sketch for the girl as I did for the boy;

But also decided I wanted to do digital versions of both characters to include some colour and mood into the designs:

Again, just concepts and the final design will depend mostly on what we manage to get out of modifying the free-rigs, I guess that's one of the downsides of using a pre-made rig. Luckily the Morpheus-rig (mentioned in earlier post) is quite good for this, so we should be able to make a character-design that looks appealing. These design are very stylized, but the design is mostly based on their age and showing the difference between the two characters & in the end the main use of these designs will be for inspiration when we start modifying the rigs.

Concept for the flower stall

I've been working on a concept for the flower stall/wagon/stand (uncertain what the best word to describe this thing is..) Anyway, the process started with looking for reference images to get a better idea of how it might look. We discussed it yesterday and came to the conclusion that we pictured something like a hot-dog or icecream stand as you can see in films and tv-series. After some research I found the "NYC-hot dog stand", which according to this page is the most common stand you will see when walking through the streets and parks of New York City.

(Image taken from: http://www.random-good-stuff.com/2008/03/07/real-thing-new-york-hot-dog-vendor-cart/) But after researching flower stalls the result is a quite different design and size than the stand we pictured:

(Not saying we thought a flower stall and a hot dog stand is the same thing.. Heh..) But the good thing about doing creative work and being in charge of our own short film is that we can do "whatever we want", so by looking at the reference images and stealing bits and pieces we can make our own design for the flower stall. Who says it needs to be realistic? It's a cartoon. - So with that in mind I started to work on a concept for the stall and here is what I came up with:

I took the base from the old flower stalls since I liked the big wheels. But this is as I said just a concept so the group needs to have a look at it and give feedback on any changes wanted, the most important thing is that it fits our overall style for the film. Also made a drawing of the flower stall in a park-environment to give an impression of how it might look:

Dividing the work

As well as working out the new script we also divided the different roles for the next steps in the project between us. We decided that Em would have a go at the final storyboard/animatic for our film - and this time it's going to have more detail on the issues we had in the ones I made previous - Meaning focus on the timing and more action-descriptions to better show how we want the animation to look in the final product. This will be a big job for Em so the remaining concept work on assets, characters and the environment + the character-profiles and 3D rig design is now the parts Scott and I will be working on. (We will be deforming and stylizing the morpheus-rig (by: Josh Burton) for the kids and using the male & female Malcolm-rig for our couple (by: AnimSchool):

(Image taken from: http://www.joshburton.com/projects/morpheus.asp) The advantages of using this rig are many, not only have we used it for the two previous animation-tasks, but it is fully adjustable and "morphable". By using sliders and controllers you can scale, rotate, move and shape the rig into a character that resembles our designs. We can change the gender and scale the sizes to hopefully create two characters that fit the concepts for our boy and girl- characters.

(Images taken from: http://www.animschool.com/DownloadOffer.aspx) The reason for choosing the a different rig for our couple is almost purely aesthetic. The Malcolm-rig is just such an appealing character, and the facial expressions you can do with this character is just amazing. It is also slightly exaggerated proportion-wise so the big hands and long feet makes him look kind of "quirky" which suits our main character very well. - Also some of the added cartoon-features that this rig has makes it good for exaggerated animation style when needed.