PERSONAL LEARNING PLAN

I think that my personal learning plan is pretty much similar to what I had at the beginning of the semester because I was hoping to work on my own and that is what I’m doing although I’m getting some work done by Anton. The career learning objectives that I want to gain are essentially to be able to complete a whole production, from concept to output, so as to offer various services in the future as a freelance animator. That is why my WIL project is also based on me producing the whole movie.

I feel that pre-production was fun, especially storyboarding and script development. I don’t think that I really pushed myself in concept design for my film but I guess that’s the drawback to working alone in what is a relatively short period to make a movie. Nonetheless, I think that I made some good effort in the composition of my shots as well as the colors that will be used. I believe I have lots to offer in concept drawing and I do intend to develop these skills more with the use of Photoshop, Illustrator and possibly other software in the future (ZBrush, Painter, Poser).

For the next stages of my film, I must concentrate on animating and writing music. The animating I’m not worried about as I am confident in my skills. However writing music will be new to me but I feel it’s long overdue. I also intend to learn much more about rendering and also texturing as I will be taking the CGI Environments course next semester. Although the texturing part of it may not be that helpful for this film (as it will be mainly concerned with vector rendering), it is a skill that I want to develop.

You can also view my updated Production Schedule on Learning@griffith in my thread Plastic City, in the BLOGS forum.

It's Been a While

Well yes it has, the semester is over. Time to have a brief pause and reflect where I'm at. The story has changed more and more. I think I finally have the right angle if not the final concept. I'n thinking in terms of Plan A Plan B. The scenes will pretty much stay the same but depending how much time i have I may leave out the dialogued Scene 1 and replace it by a short narration intro. Although people commented well on my voice acting I'm not entirely convinced that dialogue is the way to go. Maybe a silent film more concentrated on music and a little bit of narration might be better. Anyway, it won't change the animation that much (just less lip-sync!) so I can just get on with it. i have decided to go for it and make the music myself. I've now music writing and mixing software and I have already started coming up with ideas.

About Music

Oh yes, music... The lecture last week was very helpful. The main thing that stuck out was: if I'm putting in hundreds of hours of work on this project, I don't want the sound to let it down.

My ambition was to create the music for this film myself. However, I'm not so sure that I could pull it off and match the quality of the visuals. I have 10 years of classical training in piano and some music arranging knowledge but I haven't actually composed anything before. Maybe it's not the best time to start for this film...

Having said that, I do want quite a bit of influence on the music. What I'll do is to add commercial music to my finished animatic so as to get an idea of what music works well with the film. That way, I know what kind of style I'm looking for. When that's done I will contact the Music Faculty students for SUPPORT in composing the soundtrack. Maybe I can come up with the main musical themes and the music student can come up with the arranging of the piece as well as the conducting of the musicians.

At this point I am thinking a blend of electronic and acoustic instruments to emphasize the conflict between nature and man-made garbage.

Week 6 Update

I am now onto Draft 7 of my script. I did rough storyboards for Draft 5 and a clean storyboard and rough animatic for Draft 6. Draft 7 should be my last one, depending on feedback but I think I have narrowed the story down to the necessary parts.

The main difference between Drafts 6 & 7 are the following. Instead of all the plastic objects being on top of the rubbish bin, they start the film inside the garbage. That way it gives more of a sense of them being prisoners. The design of the garbage bin has been made to give the appearance of a prison.

Also, I have written the speech that the "leader" is giving with all the secondary characters answering back in unison. I'm hoping this gives a sense of motivating the characters while informing the viewer as to what's going on without having to get into lengthy conversations to spell everything out. By doing it in a motivational speech, I think it adds ambience to the beginning of the film.

I have also decided to delete the sequence with the garbage truck, rather the viewer will know it's coming through sound only. From looking at my animatic I found this necessary for the pacing of the film. Two slow paced sequences right at the beginning would have lost the audience interest so instead the first sequence builds in intensity and is followed by a fast paced sequence.

Concept Design

I am quite happy with the style that I am developing for the film. As I am working mainly by myself, it is important to set achievable goals. Therefore, I want to stay away from realistic design. I personally believe that unless you have very talented texturing and lighting, 3d animation ends up giving disappointing results. Therefore, my animation will be done in Maya but it will be Vector Rendered with very minimal shading. My main characters may have a little bit more shading than the others so they stand out more. By giving this film a more cartoony look, I am hoping that people get captivated more easily as opposed to just trying to pick out the visual flaws.

CHARACTERS & PROPS: As this film is seen from the point of view of the plastic objects they are in a sense the "good guys". Therefore, their design is more rounded to make them look appealing and cute. On the other hand, the garbage pickers and seagulls will have more sharp and angular edges.

Ok, I'm not sure what's going on but this website isn't uploading my character with the proper colors but this gives you an idea.

LOCATIONS

I have done 8 illustrations of the main locations and the colors that apply to them. Here's an example of location and charcters designs. Once again the colors are coming up completely wrong but it gives you an idea of the vectorized look. The image on the left is supposed to be gold with blueish shadows and the image on the right should be mostly black and khaki green.

I will be showing all my characters and locations this week in class. I now want to do a more finished animatic with very precise timing, limited animation, and some color. I will be recording a scratch sound in the next week and a half.

As Anton will be helping me with the modeling, I will give him some assets to model this week and get production going.

i'm getting pretty excited as I feel this film is taking good shape, both the visual and the storytelling aspects.

Explanation of Changes

Due to the short length of the film, I can't waste too much time on dialogue, the images must speak for themselves. Therefore, I found it necessary to get rid of most characters and concentrate on the journey of Coco. I decided on him as a plastic bottle is a simple object that often gets thrown. Also, everybody loves a story about the simple guy. Very action driven piece, the plastic objects come upon three great dangers: the machine (garbage truck), humans (garbage cleaners), and nature (the seagulls.) The dialogue I previously had was quite funny but as Andi mentioned, that would be more suited to a saturday morning cartoon tyupe of piece. I've referenced Finding Nemo for facial concept as well as composition, and Saving Private Ryan for the action based beach scenes.
It's almost a war movie in the style I'm producing which is quite adequate as the pollution of the oceans is basically a war we humans are losing.

4 Week Update

Proposal: The rubbish truck is coming... A group of plastic objects escapes from the garbage bin, intending on reaching Plastic City, a wonderful place in the ocean where plastics go to live happily ever after. They must cross the beach and overcome a bunch of nature-loving humans, and a flock of hungry seagulls. We follow the journey of Coco the Bottle, as he overcomes his doubts and fears to reach his promised land.

Proposal

This proposal is for Plastic City, A Non-Biodegradable Comedy.

Facing a lifetime in a landfill, four plastic friends set out to reach Plastic City, a magical place in the ocean where plastics go to live happily ever after.

Coco (bottle), Mac (coffee cup), Sparky (lighter), and Fluffy (hairbrush) escape from the garbage bin, on the pathway beside the beach. They immediately start running towards the sea. Mac has convinced them to seek out Plastic City. Coco is hesitant but finally commits to the plan. Meeting Cuddly the nappy along the way, the four friends must overcome a determined beach cleaner to reach the place of their dreams. Will they make it?