When we were first asked to come up with ideas , My inital thought was to make a showreel, as most ppl who id emailed over the summer advised me that was best.
however if I could come up with a small skit which had a varity of movements in which showed force,anticipation,weight ect, then I wanted to try and incorprate that into a skit, rather than a showreel, as I thought a skit would be more fun.
I went through several ideas at first about what I wanted to create.
Idea 1:
Theres a charcter just walking along a road, he hears a scream of camera and goes running after the noise, theres a mountain with a boulder at its base slowly coming to a stop, he looks over and sees a sign that says something like 'push the boulder to recieve enlightenment' he does all this crazy stuff to try and get the boulder up the mountain/hill, takes a run at it and breaks into pieces, trys to levi it with a stick, (kinda like acme style roadrunner stuff) he eventually gets the boulder moving and shoves it up te hill, when hes at the top he sees another sign a bit further away, he runs towards the sign but he falls down a crevase, he screams (so u know where teh begining sound was made) then theres a thump as he hits the floor, and the snow falls of teh 2nd sign and says 'Dont believe everything you read'
Idea 2:
Starts of with a male bird strutting around, he jumps onto a plinth (branch) and scans the crowd for a mate. He spots a girl he likes and drags her to the front of the crowd,shes struggling but he sits her down and jumps on the plinth, he starts doing all of these funny dances, fan over the eyes,puffing up,moonwalking, he keeps checkingher reaction, shes totally not botherd,rolling eyes,sighing,looking at the floor, his face falls, he thinks and takes a massive breath, hugh anticipation, beads of sweat, theres a pause and he puffs up loads.while hes like this a hot sexy bird lady walks in front of the plinth, both the other characters check her out and the lady bird wolf whistles, gets up and follows the sexy lady. the male deflates,shoulders sag and jaw drops, he looks shocked then thinks for a sec..starts nodding and smirking and runs after the 2 other ladys.
I started of having several different versions of each idea, and story boarded the first idea, however when it came to present the storys to the class, I decided to pitch the second story, as I felt that the first one was lacking in chacter acting, having pitched the story I then spoke to Sean about it after the lesson and he advised that the story wasn't as good as I could make It, and that I could come up with better, I also realised that it did'nt leave much scope for action type animation,which is what i was interested in as i would like to go into video games animation. i then emailed sean my two ideas and he suggested that the boulder idea was a much stronger starting point then the bird one, so I ditched the bird one and came up with a diffrent version of the boulder skit.
I decided that I would like to have the main character as a monkey quite early on, Sean talked about how the industry like you to show a biped and quad character, and I thought that by using a monkey I could achieve both with the same creature, as monkeys walk on both there hind legs and on all fours.
My original plan was to have the monkey carry on the same role and just base the whole story around him trying to push this boulder up a hill. It was then that I came up with the idea for the background which was to have a tibetan monistery in the back, I thought it would suite the character as at this time I was still planning on keeping the englightenment concept.
when I got to the studio the next day, I ran my idea by Paul, I asked if a monkey was hard to animate and I told him my story, he said that it was good, but there has to be some reason why this monkey is pushing a boulder up a hill, other wise it doesnt make much sense, and Paul suggested having him trying to crack open a nut.
After that it all started falling into place, I briefly storyboarded my idea, I wanted to keep the animation like the old warner bro's style, because ive read that a lot of 3d work looks rigid because they dont apply the principles.
1st monkey skit idea.
Theres a monkey in a clearing in the jungle.he's hungry,stomach grumbles etc,a nut falls from a tree. monkey walks over to the nut and explores it 'sniffs it etc' takes a bite , realises its to hard and spits it out. He looks annoyed and starts trying to smack it open on a rock, trys several times but doesnt work, monkey gets angry and throws the nut ,It bounces of a boulder and hits him in the face, it dawns on him to use the boulder to smash the nut, he places the nut under the edge of the hill and starts pushing the boulder near the edge,he eventually shoves it over, does a happy dance,but the boulder just crushes he nut into the mud,ends with close up of monkeys angry face.
This was basically my first version of the monkey story,this is the version I storyboarded for the following weeks lesson.
I added in a few more abstract scenes to give at a more cartoony feel to it, and also to add more animation range within my work, I added scenes were hes pulling drills out from behind his back,and welding kits to try and crack open the nut. also I added a thought bubble were he realises he can use the boulder.
however i had 4 different endings i could choose from which are.
1; bird swoops down and takes the monkey just as hes about to get the nut
2;bird swoops down and takes nut just as monkey goes to grab it
3;boulder squashes nut
4;nut breaks when monkey is gone.
It wasnt long before i changed the begining of my story though, to add more range of animation.
nut job, version 2
act 1:
monkey is dozing in the tree tops, his tummy grumbles, he is awoken by a russtle of wind, he see's a nut, wants it, he walks across the branch to get it,wind blows the nut down,monkey scampers down the tree to get the nut,nut bounces along the ground and comes to a stop.
act2:
monkey walks over to the nut,on hind legs holding tail in hands,monkey picks up nut with tail,sniffs it, looks at it,takes a bite but its to hard, spits it out,sees a small rock and trys smashing nut against it, doesnt crack so monkey gets frustrated and slams it harder.still nothing, monkey flips out and pulls drills and welding kits out from behind his back, nothing, he screams and throws nut across the clearing and it hits a boulder and smacks him in the head.
act3:
monkey realises that he can crack open the nut if he uses the boulder.he then struggles to push the boulder up the hill,he finally manages it and does a happy dance, the boulder falls on nut, but after a second the boulder splits in two, monkey is stunned.
(ending is going to be one of the 4 described above) I have chosen to go with ending 4.
with me doing more animation at the begining I think my chosen idea will be the nut cracking at the end, as if i do the other versions, I will have to research,model,rig and animate a bird, which I think will be a bit to much.
This version has been rougly storyboarded also, but once my whole story has been ok's, aswell as my chosen ending, then I will do a more polished version of it with more keyframes in it.
