“The Journey”

 

As a group we realised that we needed to give the story book a name, and Julie suggested “The Journey” and straight away we all thought it was great.

A journey can be so many things, it can be physical, like getting to and from university each day, or it can be mental, like dealing with an illness, or a family member. I think that is the perfect way to describe not just our book within the film, but the film itself.

Beginning this project feels like so long ago, and ‘a journey’ is the perfect way to describe it.

We put together two version of the story book, one with narration and one with text, here they are below…

THE JOURNEY

 

Children’s Story Book

A main part of our story is going to be told through a children’s illustrated story book. The book is based around two fairies who go on a journey looking for wealth and fortune. The book was originally going to be a ‘pop up’ storybook, but this was later changed to a normal and traditional book.

In the end after one goes on a hard journey and one goes on an easy journey,  they  both find each other at the end of their paths. The moral being that family and friendship is worth so much more than any wealth.

In the beginning it was just Julie who was working on this part of the film, but after it being viewed by the tutors, it was decided it needed to change. I came on board and this point and we decided that it would be best for me to work on the backgrounds/environments and for Julie to work on the fairy characters and all of their poses and actions.

I took most of my inspiration from the old storybooks such as A.A Milnes ‘Winnie the Pooh’, Beatrix Potter’s ‘Peter Rabbit’ and Jill Barklems ‘Brambley Hedge’.

 

Unwrapping & Texturing A Boston Taxi

When fixing our story, we realised that we needed a vehicle for the father to leave in, we decided it would make most sense for him to leave in a taxi.

Julie modelled a lovely taxi, and sent to me and i began UV unwrapping it, I unwrapped it in a day or so, i then began the task of texturing it.

Texturing the car was not difficult, what was difficult was deciding on the colour scheme, how to make it resemble a taxi and how to make it clear that it was a ‘Boston’ taxi.

I enjoyed texturing this as it was fun to decide the small details such as the number plate as we called our team ‘V for Pinata’ so i put the number plate down as ‘0V4P 01’ . It was also nice to add details such as scratches, bumps and mud, i the end i thought the taxi looked quite well.

Crann na nOg

Once upon a time…

• Oisin stumbles upon the fairy ring of Tuatha De Danann, whilst seeking fire wood.
• He notices ‘The Tree of Youth’ (Crann na nOg)
• Lurking in the woods, Niamh watches the intruder from afar, questioning his motives (inspiration from 2015’s Maleficent)
• Oisin takes a golden apple from the tree, the tree withers
• Niamh walks towards Oisin, looks unpleased
• She holds out her hand, Oisin questions in but decides to take it
• They walk off together into Tir na nOg. (is this inside a tree? behind a bolder? deep in the woods? a gate?
• Time Lapse- time passes by weather changing,
• Oisin returns, looking the same as he had done before, no older etc but is panicked.
• We see Niamhs shape/silhouette in the background. Sinister.
• Oisin notices the changes and that time has passed, but still spots the tree still standing
• As he walks towards it, Niamh can be seen approaching in the background
• He takes another golden apple, and the tree in revitalised, looking fresh and young
• Oisin realises he has made a mistake, and sadly meets him demise (not decided how yet)
• Niamh smirks, and returns to Tir na nOg

…The End 

Shot Break Down

Futuristic Setting. City scene. set in  the year 3064.

shot 1

Lonely Street.

Establishing Shot. Buildings, Parked Car, Street.

Dog enters scene from left hand side of shot

Shot 2

High angle Long shot of the street. Robo-dog sprints out onto the street and through a door of a building.

Shot 3

Robot flys/hovers and lands suddenly/abruptly on a futuristic car.

Shot 4

Front Close up of his legs and feet as he lands and crumbles the car.Front Close up of him standing up his feet and legs in shot.

Shot 5

Close up of his face and shoulders in frame/shot.

Shot 6

Jumps off car, causing damage.

Shot 7

Character then runs through the building door after the robo-dog.

Storyboards

For our project we came with a story of a robot dog walker, we presented it yesterday and had to make some serious alterations, but here it is to show anyway…

as you can probably tell it didn’t read as well as we had hoped, and there was too much going on in the background rather than just telling the story or getting the idea across

Get a Horse!

This is a Disney short that i suppose is a little old now, but when i first saw it in the cinema before Frozen played, i was so impressed, It took an old animated short from the late 1920’s and added on extra story, it had 2d animation, black and white, colour and of course CG animation all in one 6  minute film.

It even broke the 4th wall of film and had characters rip open the cinema screen and walk right out onto the stage as if they were in the room with us, simply astounding.

Project Put on Hold!

So our 15 second film project has been put on hold for two weeks :(…but it’s okay because we have been given an awesome opportunity!

We are now doing a project that will last two weeks (starting yesterday evening). A film company contacted the university and wants our idea’s and creative minds so that they can then create something awesome from it, in return they will give us the assets used so that we can learn and play with them! and whats going round the rumour mill is that said animation company could be Double Negative!

Double Negative! As in the guys who made Iron man, Hercules, Godzilla (2014),  Les Miserables, Man of Steel, Thor, Skyfall and so much more, the excitement within me is just erupting! 😀

i mean, just check out their show reel!

http://www.dneg.com/home/showreel/

Anyway, what we have to do is come up with an idea based in a city/town/street setting, and that’s all the information we have really been given, we don’t know long it is to last or anything like that, all we know is we are story boarding (possibly making an animatic)  and possibly experimenting in making some assets, in two weeks we will present, the company will choose the best one and the project will end. I am working in the same group as i was for the last project, (Mark, Julie, Niamh & Blaine) So let’s get crackin’! 🙂

Animatic!

Our Newest Storyboard

After we changed our story we also had to change our storyboard and animatic. This time instead of me doing it, Pete made it. it looks really and nice tells the story clearly. Here it is…