Production schedule — rough

Hi guys — as promised, here's a rough copy of the production schedule. Nothing's concrete in it so far but it should serve to give you an idea of how we should be looking to break down the weeks. Lots of blank spaces as well — once we're a little further into the project I should be able to get an idea as to how things are progressing and make amendments to it as necessary.

You'll notice that I've scribbled in an animatic deadline for next week — don't panic yet — we'll talk about this on Thursday. In the meantime please look over this and make note of anything you want to mention! Hopefully with your input on Thursday I'll be able to make tweaks and adjustments until we've got something we're all happy with.

There are a lot of things I've overlooked with this  — the animatic "deadline," for instance, doesn't take into account the need for layouts for each scene/background. I also think that the timescale for storyboarding might be a bit optimistic, but again, these are all things we can discuss at the meeting. :] We can hopefully look at breaking things down into stages and look at exactly what we're going to need to accomplish in order to complete each stage. I'd like to get a list of all the things we need to make and/or do so that I can get a more accurate idea of how much time we need to allocate to each task.

I'll be working on a chart version of this over the next couple of days that will let us see much more quickly when particular tasks are due. I'll also knock together a separate production timetable for when we come to animating that breaks down the film scene-by-scene so we can accurately track the progress of each shot.

MOVEMENT STORY & STRUCTURE

GROUP 7 – Jazzy, Sam, Jae, Alex

Production Schedule

Date

Week 1 (6^th Feb - 10^th Feb)

Create group blog. Discuss production roles. Begin initial sketches. Individual idea development.

Week 2 (13^th Feb - 17^th Feb)

•  Character design discussion & development. 
•   Finalise script by Friday (17^th)

Homework:

Jae & Sam – For Tuesday 21st: Finalise character designs. Hold independent meeting to discuss ideas and develop scarecrow design.

Alex & Jazzy – Camera blocking & storyboarding for Tuesday.

All – Annotate script so far, consider ending possibilities.

Week 3 (20^th Feb - 24^th Feb)

•   Storyboard completed by Wednesday. 
•    Create first animatic from storyboard images and stock sound effects.
•    Use storyboard animatic to identify key poses and backgrounds.
•    Start moving animatic.

Decide on final character designs and use storyboard animatic to identify key poses/backdrops. Research for background design.

Week 4 (27^th Feb - 2^nd Mar)

        

Tues 28th Feb             Acting for Animation Workshops (B124)

ñ  Animatic production.

ñ  Start building puppets based on animatic.

ñ  Source animation references?

Build list of necessary puppets/backgrounds/sounds. Start sourcing references and building puppets over the week.

Week 5 (5^th Mar - 9^th Mar)           

Mon 5th Mar                Acting for Animation Workshop. (B124)

• Complete animatic
• Produce tests and finish backgrounds
• Divide and allocate scenes for production

Week 6 (12^th Mar - 16^th Mar)       

Mon 12th Mar               Sound Technical Workshops (G23)

• Have list of sounds ready for workshops. Record sounds by end of this week? 
• Start animating!

Work in pairs to help aid puppet creation/After Effects/problem solving.

Week 7 (19^th Mar - 23^rd Mar) 

Week 8 (26^th Mar - 30^th Mar) 

EASTER BREAK – 31st March – 15th April 

Keep working everyone!

Week 9 (16^th Apr - 20^th Apr) 

Week 10 (23^rd Apr - 27^th Apr) 

Final tweaks, post-production and sound editing.

Week 11 (30^th Apr - 4^th May) 

Complete post-production stage. Meet to discuss portfolio preparation and hand-in requirements.

Week 12 (7^th May - 11^th May) 

Portfolio preparation.

Mon 14th May          ASSESSMENT. HAND IN B124 10.30am

See you all tomorrow!

Alex

Alex's scarecrow designs

Again, I started just by looking very generally at some scarecrows. I really liked the one in the lower right corner; a great example of a simple but pretty refreshing take on the conventional scarecrow!

I toyed with the idea that maybe the scarecrow could look as if he was trying to be scary, perhaps by giving him long, thin and pointed fingers — perhaps they could even be made out of sticks?

Jazzy specified that the scarecrow should be tall and very thin to emphasize his clumsy nature — maybe we could give him big hands and feet to further suggest this? 

I was looking at some other tall, spindly characters as a point of reference —Jack Skellington in particular, as though he's a little different to what we're going for in terms of design his exaggeratedly thin limbs and a rather large, circular head are quite nice features for a scarecrow. I really liked how the eyes and mouth looked on Jack so I tried to incorporate something similar into some of the sketches.

I was mostly just experimenting with body language and more head designs here; I wondered how a naive and slightly nervous character might hold himself, I thought perhaps with his feet turned inwards, but he just ended up looking really timid and anxious. 

A stocky design for the crow might work quite nicely with a scrawny scarecrow — the combination of tall/thin and short/stocky characters is quite prevalent in a lot of children's animation. Many notable cartoon duos have massively contrasting body structures:

Radically different body structures in visual media where two or more main characters dominate the screen helps to create visual distinction and interest — strong silhouettes so that the characters remain recognisable in any given situation (at a distance, in the shadows, even in different costumes)

I thought this might be a nice idea to play around with and so experimented a little more with the idea of a short, fat crow:

I started trying to think more about character interaction at this stage — how the scarecrow might physically respond to the crow whenever it comes near him. Should it be outright terror, or is it more subtle? Is he merely uncomfortable around crows, or physically repulsed?

Was thinking about what sort of clothes he might wear and was slightly amused with the thought that, being a scarecrow, he just wore whatever leftover tat the owners had lying around — an outsized sweater, a lonely oven glove?

I'm going to focus more on actual scenarios and character interaction now, to try and really get to grips with the relationship and personalities of the two characters. Hopefully this will help me bring out more character in these drawings!