Minor Project - Idea Outline and Stylisation

For my minor project I will be completing pre production for an animation about a young boy who is set a list of chores. He has had enough of doing chores so he uses his imagination to turn these boring jobs into something enjoyable for him.

I am currently writing a poem to be the voice over of the animation, almost in a Dr Seuss style. I have been discussing this with Phil and will be developing it more over the next few weeks. The aim of the poem is to supply a narrative for the animation. It will take us into the main characters imagination and allow us to see the world from their perspective. I feel as if it will help create impact throughout the animation and also appeal towards children, which will be the target audience, as it is something more memorable then simple dialog within the animation.

The main point of the animation is to look into perspective. How a child's mind and imagination allows them to enter a completely different world from their perspective. I find this a very interesting topic as it allows endless possibilities and has very few limits when coming to the creativity I can put into the environments and the narrative. I feel as if the use of the imagination will make the style of the animation very a creative way.

For the style of the animation I am hoping to use simple 3D objects for foreground scenery and will use 2D matte paintings for the background environments. I feel as if this will help create depth within the scene easily but still allow me to create these environments, that take place in the character imagination, in fairly simple, less time consuming method. For the main character I have been working on sketches of him but will develop this more and when I feel it is complete, take it into maya to be built in 3D. I plan on giving the main character a full body and facial rig. I am still trying to decide if that character should change clothes within these different environments. I feel as if this is a very important issue as it would be a lot more time consuming, but will help us be more emerged in what the main character is imagining.

Environment Visual Reference

Character Visual Reference

Year 3 - Initial Ideas

For my first idea I have been thinking about creating an animation short of 'play time' with a younger child. I got this idea from watching my little cousin running around and playing with objects that aren't intended to play with. What I like about this was trying to see these objects through the child's perspective and this is what I would like to do with the animation. I would like to have shots showing the child in their own world, for example when climbing up the stairs from their perspective they're climbing up the side of a mountain. I would try to think of several different situations in which a child plays in their own world and cut back from the perspective of what is really happening, and what is happening in the child's mind. I feel as if I could work in different aspects of comedy throughout this animation as there can be so many different possibilities of situations from both real life examples and just using my imagination like a child would. 

For the style of this animation I would like to use a combination of different styles for the different perspectives throughout. 

Example 1 - The Boss Baby

The other idea that I am fond of is creating an animation about a group of animals going to university, but this animation would be solely based around the student house. I would have 4 main character, all different types of animals that can be used to fit into stereotypes, or be used in opposite for comedic effect. For example having a pig character that has OCD and needs to keep everything clean. Having a hyper tortoise, or having a skunk that smells for not so obvious reasons. For the house I was thinking of having different rooms as different habitats to meet the animals needs that live in that room, such as the different towns in "Zootopia". I feel as if this could work really well using different style techniques to create a house that will fit the animals needs. The main aim of this will be comedy, having the characters also fitting common student stereotypes hopefully making it relatable to students.

For the character design I was thinking of keeping the animals fairly simple so I have more time to create the world that will be within the house. 

Character design reference