End Of Term

Well finally, end of term and our film has been re-pitched! Overall the pitch went very well we all thought and the animatic that we slaved over for so many hours went down fantastic with many people coming upto us and saying how good it was. This past week has been manic with all the other end of term things as well such as the essays and presentations! The past two nights ive been up until 3 am working and slaving away and im in serious need of some good sleep. Its all been worth it though. As far as what ive actually been doing, well having finished the draft animatic i then helped to an extent with the final one by sourcing sound effects for the film and generally having input at certain areas and unfortunately i got stuck with the job of scanning every image in, which took ages to say the least. Aside from that Jonno also asked me to prepare presentation slides for our re-pitch of the film, which took a while to collaborate together. Heres the final animatic version!

Animatic

Over the past week myself and Jenny and to an extent Dan have been working on putting our animatic together. The drawings done by Ben have been scanned by myself and then put into photoshop and after affects by jen; obviously restrictions have been in that we can only really do it on one computer that being jens. Together we went through the storyboards putting the shots together with myself and dan suggesting camera shots and timing and jen implementing them into after affects. We now have the whole animatic timed out but are waiting on ben to finish the last scene and some inbetweens. We have now given the animatic to Jonno and Ron to touch up and add the soundtrack.

Final House Design

Final House design using a combination of both jens and my designs to create the picture, the house design is jens design, which was decided as most appropriate, then we combined elements from areas of the two designs i had done.

Exterior street light designs

Exterior asset designs for bins

Second "Warped house" design; im undecided on which i prefer really as their are aspects from both i like but ultimately the decision is Jonno's

Warped House designs

Exterior house design in the "warped style" as asked by Jonno

Initial pencil crayon sketch

Here is the new script and scene/shot breakdown that myself, Rob and Jonno worked on after having our previous story ripped apart by a lecturer. We worked through the night to create this and have had it approved by a number of different teachers.

Having decided that we were having a modern day house within the film i was asked by Jonno to work on the external house designs and assets. Here are a series of images showing the development of the style and colour. As you can see the style became somewhat warped and bold in colour, which was unique and something that appealed to the members of the group. Along with Jen and Dan we generated a style for the house both exterior and interior and then finalised it and developed images using this style.

Final Scene & Shot Breakdown

Graphics Tablet

Having recently received my new graphics tablet i thought it was time for me to expand on my montage work and start adding colour to some of my work and begin to follow a specific style for the film. I am very happy with the outcome of the images i have created and they have been well received by the group.

Corridor concept using the montages

Montages

Again with the statue trying to add character to the scene

To add to the effect of the jungle i have added the statue and fallen log, which is actually a shot we intend to have in the film

Here i wanted to create a scene from the inside of the temple

Here i have really tried to create depth in the image with the old rope bridge leading to the temple, i like how the vines and trees all immerse into it too.

Again but i tried to give the effect that the light was very dark within the jungle

Jungle pathway leading past a waterfall to the temple

Developed to create a more moody feel set around late afternoon/early evening

This is the first image i created using a collage of images i have referenced over the past few days. I felt this image was perhaps too green although i did like the dark thick jungle it created, which gave a dimmer light effect to it.

Having now changed the story quite drastically and received the approval from four tutors we have now gone ahead with the new idea. As it was developed along with the scene and shot breakdown by myself, jonno and Rob we still had to inform the other three members of the story change. We made the decision to inform as soon as possible so as to not lose productivity in what they were developing towards the project. We decided yesterday now that we had the story confirmed to start thumb nailing; this would be left to Ron while myself and Jonno decided upon a style we wanted for the film. Having picked out a number of different images that we liked we have now both began collaging different images together. These give us an idea of how we like the film to look in terms of the style, colours and time of day. We will later be deciding on a final style for the film, which we can develop from the montages we have created.

Story Finalised

This week has seen even more developments, the new story has now been fully backed by four tutors and the idea is now set in stone. As the new story and scene/shot breakdown was written by myself, jonno and Rob we had trouble deciding when to inform the rest of the group of the new changes as we didnt want to lose productivity

More reference imaging looking at specifically the foliage; i like the idea of large "rubbery" looking leaves and plants and the style of trees in the ratchet and clank concept image are really appealing

I feel that Disney really have something to show in these strong images; they have alot of depth to them and show great colour and richness in the backgrounds. Alot of the distant backgrounds are also faded slightly to draw attention to the foreground images.

Here i have found that the "Iron Giant" has prooves to be of quite large significance, i feel the colours and silhouette style could be used in our fiilm.

More reference concepts

Reference compilations

Concept art reference images and inspiration; i was trying to look for a night time feel in the first two images as i like the style of the houses and the vastness of colours in the top left image, which i feel would convey well for the outdoor of our house.

Huge Changes

This week has shown some HUGE changes to the whole production in general; having had our formative assessment we then proceeded to get our story looked at by a separate tutor. He looked through our story and general breakdown and basically said that it was quite poor and had no real resolve or purpose. He also suggested a few new ideas that inspired us. Myself, Rob and Jonno then went off that night and developed almost an entirely new story, although some areas do remain. We spent the next 16 hours developing this and creating a story synopsis as well as a script or shot breakdown. Feeling alot more enthusiastic and pleased with our new story we then had it looked at by two separate tutors including the same one who had previously destroyed our old one. Both of them said that the new one was alot better and had so much more promise.

Due to the changes in story my role upon the project has subsequently changed; i am now classed as an "Artist" and am doing "Modeling and Rigging" as we now only have one character as opposed to five, which means i have alot less rigging and can focus more on the modeling to help it develop into a more visual based film. Overall i feel more comfortable in this role and am alot happier within the group. I have informed the tutors of this change and it has all been agreed that the change is fine.

After the formative it was decided that we must get more reference imaging and decide upon a style, it was my job over the last 36 hours to get as much reference as possible. I have therefore compiled a number of image slides showing the different influences and references for the project.

Initial concept for first explorer

Initial explorer concept

First Explorer concepts

Interior temple entrance

Ruined interior concept of the temple

Over the past week i have focussed on really getting some nice detailed concept images of the temple interior, which i spent a large amount of time on each piece. I have also sketched out a few ideas for the explorer and what they may look like. As well as this we as a group have also done the thumb nailing for the storyboard; i myself sketched out scenes 1 and 6. The story still feels like it nice a slight bit of work; but having got the drafts for the storyboard finished we are happy with our progress.

Final Production timetable

Production timetable for the year created by myself and Jonno

Final Environment map for the inside of the temple, drawn out by Jonno

Temple Entrance

A basic map plan for the environment; a contribution from Rob, Jonno and myself as we all collaborated to design how the interior of the temple will be laid out.

Artifact designs

Temple Doorway

Waterfall

Initial sketches for the temple entrance and totem pole that may stand at the entrance

Initial sketch of the temple exterior

Concept

At the beginning of this week we had a tutorial or small review of how our story was developing; having received some constructive criticism about our idea we decided to alter some aspects of the story; along with Rob & Jonno we spent a large part of the day reading over our scene and shot breakdown and making alterations when necessary. Even though we spent such a large amount of time developing the story making changes to both the center section and the ending we feel it developed to such a degree that we are very satisfied with how it currently stands.

Along with Jonno i also helped to create a production timetable for the project from now until when we finish; although this is quite long term and vague in areas it does help us to foresee what we need to be doing and when. We feel that it will give the group and project some direction and therefore we can manage our time more effectively. We do also intend to do a weekly production timetable at the start of each week so that each member knows precisely what they have to do and when it needs to be finalized by.

Now that we feel the story has developed to a degree that we are satisfied i am now able to move onto concept, which a few members had already began regarding the characters. The whole team is now involved in creating both character and environment concept for the film and we intend to finalize our characters for further development in the next upcoming week.

Now that concept for the project is fully underway we have decided that we need to create a map for both the external environment of the jungle, which will be very basic as there are limited shots of the jungle as well as a map for the interior of the temple. We have decided between us that the temple needs to be quite vast and open, however due to the traps we need to create a narrow path for the explorer to follow; meaning he has to go through the traps as opposed to simply walking round them. Although we intend to create an intended path we still need to give the impression of a vast temple. To do this we have decided that bits of crumbled wall and vegetation along with large tree roots that have grown into the temple will help to determine a specific path that the explorer must follow while retaining the image of a vast open room.

Along with an environment map we have also looked at the traps themselves and which ones we may use in the temple, after some discussion we have decided that the traps are as follows; Poisoned Darts, knives/blades and then a swinging hammer/pillar. To illustrate this we have began designing a few initial sketches for these contraptions.

Production timetable and story

Having done a large part of the story, which we feel is almost complete we decided it would be best to do a production timetable for the term up until Christmas; lasting eight weeks. Along with Jonno we created a simple table with our main goals for each week; from this we can assign certain bits to each member and it gives everyone a clear outline of what they shuld be doing towards the project.

Concept art from games that has a unique style that i feel inspires me