Thursday, December 12, 2013

PoePoe gets a treat!

Another test I did for our lil' pup. He may not be the brightest, but at least he's got charm.


Sunday, December 1, 2013

run test

just threw these together over the holiday, going to push even more for the next tests

(theyre slower than I imagine them actually being animated)




Tuesday, November 26, 2013

PoePoe Test Cycles

Just some test cycles for poepoe, trying to get used to him. I'll definitely push it more in the next tests.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Inspiration

This isn't necessarily related to our story but maybe it can provide some inspiration and ideas. This is a video of what people are creating now, which may play a part in future technology of "holograms" or 3d displays.

Full Turn ECAL/Benjamin Muzzin from ECAL on Vimeo.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Some Reference

Here is some of the reference I was using. The UPA characters and BGs have a nice whimsical feel, but we can ground it a bit more in reality similar to 101 Dalmations and Hirschfeld. 



Paints from meeting last night






Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Paintover



Here is the paintover I did over Meghan's model. Gill, you said you wanted to use this as a guide?

This was done before the story changes, I think it is looking too present day. I am working on some new drawings/ paintings that support our new idea.




Notes from Monday Night Meeting: Nov 04

Key Points: 

I) THIS IS ESSENTIALLY AN ADD FOR A RE-D PRINTER
    • The “Re-D” printer combines technologies of recycling and 3d printing into one unique technology. Inspiring with patented “Molecule Reconfiguration Technology.”
    • The copy for this add will be “Reprint your life, Reprint the World.” 


II) THE FOCUS OF THIS SHORT IS THE “DESOLATION OF THE WORLD”
    • As adobe put it, this is about “Environment degradation and sustainability.” 
    • Global warming and climate change, though valid, is difficult to convey visually, and our short needs one clear idea, not two competing ideas.

III) We will be keeping the “office space,” it appeals to adobe and does not require us to redesign absolutely everything.
    • “A Cluttered Desk is a cluttered mind”
    • The old office must be: Cluttered, musty, desaturated, and inefficient.
    • The new officer must be: professional, efficient, vibrant, and modern. 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The future office is:
PROFESSIONAL, EFFICIENT AND MODERN

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



IV) Our ending must involve a twist or reveal which shows the EPIC and DEVASTATING scale of world pollution. 
    • Our hero must show an attitude change which shows his intention to take this technology, which has helped him restore his office to working order, and to use it to clean up his world. 
    • He cleans his own environment first, then sets an intention to clean his world. 

V) WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE?
    • What does a future without sustainability look like?
    • There have been advances in technology... BUT they have not been used sustainably. >>>>[[[AVOID OLD OUTDATED TECHNOLOGIES LIKE OLD COMPUTERS, ADOBE SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED THIS]]<<<<
    • Compromise between technology and mess is Star Wars. Outdated view of technology. In his future this technology is old and weathered. 
Blade Runner
Fifth Element



Shots/Gags:

Establishing shot:  a box slides into place. RE-D printer! Quick cuts. A box cutter sliding across tape, the device being set on the desk.

First GAG:  Our hero pushes the packaging of the box into the device and out pops a pencil. He is excited, he gets and idea.

Second GAG: Quick cuts of aluminum and rubber being flying into the device. Out comes a futuristic bike. 

Third GAG: Our hero pushes, pulls and shoves every last bit of remaining garbage into his re-de printer, comically cramming more material than can possibly fit, to the point that the printer physically swells with the amount of material. We should feel like we are afraid its going to break. The magic is “Mary Poppins” style at this point, way more material is going in than should ever be able to fit. Everything will burst out at once in one epic explosion of creation. From out of shot above the camera the new items will begin to fall, first a chair which our hero will sit in, then the rest of the office which will comically and unbelievably fall perfectly into place in one impact that shakes our hero in his chair. The icing on this gag will be a coffee cup which lands on his desk and fills with coffee. 

Conclusion/twist: In the final scene our hero, reclining in his chair with his hands folded above his head, spins in his chair to face a large window which we have not looked through before. We imagine the final shot being his face looking out over the desolation of the world, with a subtle change of expression in which we see his change of attitude and intention. Gil had the idea of a shot in which we are on the outside looking in, and we see his face in the window and the messy world reflected in the glass (imagine diesel powered flying cars and futuristic skyscrapers covered in garbage). 



Other possible gags:
Desk out of Garbage
Finds lost cat in clutter
Light fixture jets out and flies into ceiling
****Old chair into designer chair “ergonomic”
Paper into compost into pots into plants, tomatoes or flowers or wheat grass for his smoothie
****Coffee pot, coffee maker, mug
Shoot out sunglasses and a suit and better style
Dives in himself and become Don Draper
Walls caving in, trash pouring in, pouring out of overhead vents
Old style metal fan > Circle fan dysen
Diesel flying cars
Floor lamp or Space heater > Solar panel
****Bioluminescent plants
Tosses in paper, fertilizer, and a lightbulb




WHAT ART DO WE NEED? 

WE NEED: The office before, the office after, & the last scene

Full set of CLEAR boards

An animatic by Friday





Some other random notes: 

Compost > making things “less”
Can composting or recycling things make things “better”








Sunday, November 3, 2013

Hello!

Hey Group! I'm sorry I've been MIA for this first week, it was a pretty hectic week for me! I am excited to be a part of this group, and I think we can do something really great. I'll be at the next meeting, whenever that will be!

Kristy



Sunday, October 27, 2013

Assignment List - Week of October 27, 2013

[ Group 1 : Assignment List ]Week of: October 27, 2013

Vis Dev

  • * Light Bulb Ideations
  • * Re-D Printer (Recycle Printer)
  • * Character Ideations
  • Title Screen (?)
  • Office Ideations
*Work posted by Tuesday

Story
  • Boards

 Modeling

  • Toon Shader Pass 

Animation

  •  Character Explorations

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Tues

Stills from Surviving Progress, a documentary (on Netflix) on human "progress" since the industrial age may lead to our collapse.



How one studio simply handled the ending we discussed, with the lights illuminating in peoples heads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0#t=1360

More Inspiration!!!!

Style reference!




And less relevant but still pretty cool:


Monday, October 21, 2013

Katie Sketches Round 1:

The spark:

TITLE/TITLE SEQUENCE HERE


 If we have "time" we could elaborate on CO2's journey between beats...


...as in he could destroy things along the way (forests, ice caps)
I am still working on some sketches for the end sequence.

Animation Inspiration

The Three Brothers

Jeff Sengali mentioned this short during the game project. What I love about this style is the clarity of its values and shapes and the neutral black, brown, and warm yellow-y palette that reminds me of old films. Also there are some very cool, very clear images that aren't explicitly what is exactly happening but still clearly tell the story. I also like the illuminated and paper-y texture to it. I like the idea of giving our animation a feeling of traditional materials (whether it be charcoal, like Gil suggested) or perhaps ink or watercolor, and keeping the palette simple.

Runaway

By contrast, although this cartoon is a lot sillier than what we are looking for, I like the energy of it and how playful they are with animation of certain events (like now the train is rushing so fast it flies off the tracks several times). I also like the attitudes of the people on board.  

PS: I have sketches which I will post soon.

Saturday Meeting Summary

Saturday Afternoon Meeting Summary:

Deciding to look past our original pitch, which was mostly comedic and involving the pine beetle, we decided to take some of Bunny and Courtney's critique and dig a little deeper into the emotional core of our story: the disastrous impact of global warming. We also talked about what is standing in the way of society being able to effectively doing something about it considering that we already have many of the technologies we need: Not believing its real, not being able to see its effects in a concrete way, and not caring. We want to create an emotional connection to the subject that will make people care, much like the short "Rise Above Plastics." 


(ALSO: A link to the short ABC news report on climate change):

We discussed Beasts of the Southern Wild as one inspiration. We liked that it was an allegorical story for a very real problem, told with images of things that weren't necessarily real. I found this image of the Orox frozen in the ice very striking. We discussed the possibility of our personification of climate change emerging from the ice, but Gil had a very cool idea of starting at the industrial revolution, essentially the beginning of some very cool technologies but also the beginning of our planets C02 problem.


The idea is to create a film which begins with small SPARK or CHANGE, which rapidly ESCALATES into a WORLD THREATENING PROBLEM. The solution is the same as the problem. A small SPARK or CHANGE of perception which will ESCALATE into a WORLD CHANGING SOLUTION.

We will follow the personification of CLIMATE CHANGE (or likewise you could see it as the personification of C02) as it evolves through three main beats: being "born" from a steam engine, growing rapidly through a jet engine, and ultimately growing enormously and dangerously through a factory smoke stack.  The idea is for this change to happen RAPIDLY and SEAMLESSLY, perhaps even in one "uncut" take. 




For the end, we discussed never EXPLICITLY showing the solutions (aka "Green Ninja" style of people turning off their sprinklers and recycling a bottle something. We know our film is for very intelligent adults and we want to give them some opportunities to draw their own conclusions).

The idea is just to show the SPARK, the very fist initial change in attitude. We discussed the idea of showing this by always having people in silhouette throughout the film, and having them "illuminate" when they are able to physically see the monstrous personification of climate change. 

Emotionally we like the feeling of this Wookid song "Run Boy Run." (There is a great instrumental version on spotify but I can't find it online). 



WHAT WE ARE WORKING ON:
- Sketches of what we envision these moments looking like
- Finding story "beats"
- Finding inspiration for art style and animation style
- Showing your ideas in a concrete visual way

NEXT MEETING:
Tuesday, October 22, 9:30pm, Room 243


Friday, October 18, 2013

Crit Fri 10/18

Here's what I extracted from the crits today. Let me know if I've misinterpreted anything.

 Be Smarter/More Intelligent.
 -Up the intelligence of jokes
 -Have sophisticated ideas and ways to treat them
 -Make the movie references great!
 -Don't let gags become stupid.

We have a huge concept and need to narrow it down to brass tacks.
Forest devastation is a huge deal and we need the audience to care; this can still presented in a comedic way

General notes:

Think of your target audience:
 -Who would care? Who are we selling to?
 -Is the problem/conflict international?

-Try to narrow down story to 30 seconds, think of it in terms of a T.V ad
-Have character go through a change
-Make us care!
-Real Emotion, we don't care about the privileged girl or rampant hobos but instead those who've experienced real tragedy or natural disasters that left them homeless.