The Witness

The Witness project for my Concept Development class involved your character to witness something. I came up with this idea that it'd be funny if a vampire turned to ash and was then vacuumed up. This is what that turned into:

Point A to Point B

So in concept class our second animatic we had to do was called Point A to Point B where we have a character, wait, get this............ go from point A...... to point B.

I was busy focusing on CA so I really didn't have many good ideas and decided to do a piece on a mouse in a maze. Here's my final story:

The Door

In Concept Development class this semester we're going to be doing a series of short, about 30 seconds long, animatics. The first one we did was called "The Door," in which we have a character find a door and interact with it. The purpose of this wasn't so much about the door, but rather the emotion and the action points.

In fact, Ringling has a connection with FST (Florida Studio Theathre) in Sarasota. Once for every Concept project we do our entire class drives down there and we act out our stories. If it's possible, sometimes professional actors will act them out too.

Here's a link to a collage of the reference video I got at FST for my story: Door Reference

Make sure the sound is on, it makes the story even more awesome!




My story is about a young mermaid, Cindy, so stumbles upon a door while out exploring one day. When she gets to it, she's in complete awe and tries to open it, but the handle won't budge. A bit frustrated, she shoulder rams it, it swooshes open, and she falls through.... landing with a slap and a splash on hard ground. We see that she has fallen in a butcher shop, just in time to see a fish murdered. When she looks up she sees Dave, and he's dreeeeamy. They make goo-goo eyes and she bats her lashes to lure him to her, at which she pulls out her own cleaver.

Editing Techniques

So in concept class we were split into groups to develop stories for our animatics. My group came up with the story of this old guy named Hank who lives in the desert all alone with only his cacti. There's been a drought for a long time, but then one day a giant container falls from the clouds and smashes most of his cacti crop. Inside the container was water, and so he brings his last cactus with him when he decides to trek across the desert to the mountains to climb into the clouds and find where that source of water came from. When he does make it up there he discovers there are these "cloud suckers" that have been harvesting all of the rain water from the clouds and collecting it, which has caused the drought.

We then learned film editing techniques and had to use them to make short animatics about a section of the stories we made. The first is contrast, which I used to show that there's been a drought -- Contrast Animatic

My motif animatic has a bit to be desired but it's okay. I wanted to use repetition of the feet to kind of show Hank getting ready for his, but I don't think I showed the feet enough -- Motif Animatic

Simultaneity is basically two events or scenes taking place at the same time, that eventually converge. In this case I did Hank climbing the mountain and the cloud sucker -- Simultaneity Animatic

Last, there's symbolism. I tried to come up with something to symbolize Hank and the cloud sucker's eventual encounter and chose a mouse and a scorpion. The only thing I wish I would have done was have the mouse trying to take food from the scorpion so that it's more of a survival thing -- Symbolism Animatic

Ravens

Here is the third section of my concept assignment where the goal is the create depth and use dynamic staging in our animatic. Here is the raven assignment where a raven hits a flower pot off of a ledge, which hits a man walking down the street:

FIRST PASS

SECOND PASS
I was told that my shots were good and there was plenty of depth, but my story wasn't as clear, so I did this idea, but it's not as dynamic as before

Lots of Homwork

My latest Concept homework:

We've been doing projects that deal with creating depth and using dynamic staging. The first project was a story involving frogs; one is playing a banjo poorly, someone throws a tomato at him, and he jumps and dodges it. There are all these rules yada yada yada about only having 5 shots (so only 4 cuts), etc.

Here are my FROGS

The second assignment I just turned in today and it has two parts. The story involved rats playing pool, where one chalks his cue stick loudly causing the other to miss his shot. The first part of the project was to do an animatic using photographs you take.

Here is my PHOTO ANIMATIC

The second part was then to take those photos and use them as reference for drawing your own rat animatic of the same story.

Here are my RODENTS

Enjoy!!

Animatic In Progress

So here's my ALMOST finished animatic for Concept Development class. I still need to work on the audio, add some background music to set the mood, and do another pass on the drawing to add more entertainment.

Watch Video Here

Here's the revised version when I added a couple more drawings and sound
Watch Video Here

Animatic

We are to make animatics of our storyboards using Photoshop and Premiere Pro, and this is my third pass, which is just about complete. Over the weekend I need to completely finish the drawings, then add sound to it.



We went into the sound room last class period and had most of the class read the lines in the story so we have some material to work with. I was one of the people who got recorded, and I found out that I sound like Meg from Family Guy when recorded.... kind of funny lol

Concept Development

My Concept Development class is pretty intense, but a lot of fun. Right now we're learning about film language and storyboarding for animation. We're using a story from Steve Martin's novel Cruel Shoes called "The Gift of the Magi Indian Giver."

Here's the story:
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Carolyn wanted so much to give Roger something nice for Christmas, but they didn't have much money, and they had to spend every last cent on candy for the baby. She walked down the icy streets and peered into shop windows. "Roger is so proud of his shinebones. If only I could find some way to get money to buy shinebone polish."

Just then, a sign caught her eye. "Cuticles bought and sold." Many people had told Carolyn of her beautiful cuticles, and Roger was especially proud of them, but she though, "This is the way I could buy Roger the shinebone polish!" And she rushed into the store.

Later at home, she waited anxiously as Roger came up the steps of their flat. He opened the door and wobbled over to the fireplace, suspiciously holding one arm behind his back.

"Merry Christmas!" they both said, almost simultaneously.

Roger spoke. "Hey, Nutsy, I got you a little something for Christmas." "Me too," said Carolyn, and they exchanged packages.

Carolyn hurriedly opened her package staring in disbelief. "Cuticle frames?!" But Roger, I sold my cuticles so I could afford to buy you some shinebone polish!"

"Shinebone polish!" said Roger, "I sold my shinebones to buy you the cuticle frames!" Roger wobbled over to her.

"Well, I'll be hog-tied," said Carolyn.

"You will? Oh, boy!" said Roger.

And it turned out to be a great Christmas after all.

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Here's my set design












The part of the story we're working on starts when Roger comes home and they both say "Merry Christmas!" until the end. Our first assignment for this story was to draw the iconic moment when Roger shows Carolyn his missing shinebones, so here that is: