Further Developments.

So, under closer inspection, my design of Noel is somewhat flat and uninteresting. So I'm jumping back to the drawing board for a few days in order to give the little dude a little more life. Here's where we're at.

Still got miles to go before I'll get some sleep but I'm making progress and getting better at drawing as I go along. 

Ben Sheet

No Little Brothers Allowed Concept Still

Noel Sheets.

The Story Of My Story.

If you've been following my blog posts (and if you have, thank you), you'll notice that the film I am now making is a little different from the one I spoke of at the very beginning. That's simply something that happens in this game, the treatment that I had written a month ago was what I pitched to my tutors and classmates about two weeks after I returned to college and started generating film ideas, it was always set to evolve into something more coherent.

It was a story about a scrawny teenager named Kevin who, in an effort to make himself more attractive to girls, decides to attempt weight training in his bedroom. Things go wrong, hilarity ensues. At the time of the pitch that was about all I had by way of story. I knew it was going to be made in Adobe Flash, I knew it was going to be short and I was damn sure I was going to keep it as simple as I possibly could. All I really had was a couple of character sheets and a very rough script. The pitch itself went really well and I got pretty positive feedback, but one thing was said to me by my tutor (Mr. Dave Quin) that ended up changing the whole story:

"He looks too tall and adult, make him more juvenile".

So with that advice and a little more from my classmates, I went back to the drawing board with my character designs and got to work on making the character less adult (and slightly more cartoonish). Over the course of about a week and a half, I did more drawing that I had done in years, redrafting again and again how this guy was meant to look. I experimented with heads, bodies, clothes, hairstyles and so on. I'd keep turning to my friends and asking them their thoughts on how the character looked. Slowly but surely I teased out how Kevin was going to look. Just before I took him to the finish line though, one more thing made me totally rethink how the story would play out. During one of the many conversations I had with my friend Niall, he drafted a quick little doodle to illustrate a point he was making about staging a shot. This little guy here:

While I watched Niall sketch out this little guy, I had a total light bulb moment. "It'll be about a little kid messing around in his brother's room!" I enthusiastically stated. This immediately made my character design turn a corner in a big way. Gone was the tall dude and in came a far younger, more interesting looking guy. 

So with my newly designed character I turned once more to nailing down story. The weights, while one of the original parts of  the story, no longer made sense to me. Now I had a kid in his big brother's room, what could happen? How much could go wrong? With those questions in mind I turned to my friend Joe who was able to blurt out inspiration like an emo kid produces dodgy poetry. With his valuable input, I crafted a story I'm pretty proud of. I'm now making a film about a young boy named Noel (Niall + Joe) who wanders into his big brother's room in search of toys and ends up doing much more than that. 

So there you have it. Naturally I'm going to keep the finer points of the story under wraps. I'll keep posting updates as production continues so please keep coming back. Your comments are always very much appreciated. 

So, That Thing I've Been Working On.

So that film I've been mentioning before, the one for college, I've been working incredibly hard on it. Thankfully my pre-production is done, many things are more or less locked down and I'm able to post about it. The idea that I told you before has evolved into something quite different but far more promising. So, where do we start?

It's called No Little Brothers Allowed and it's a short narrative comedy about a kid called Noel who wanders into his big brother's room looking for stuff to play with and ends up doing something much more than just nicking toys. The whole film is going to be made in Adobe Flash with touch ups being done either in Photoshop or After Effects. I'm capping this one about ninety seconds (short and sweet) and I intend to have the whole thing done and dusted by mid May. Everything in it has been given the go ahead so changes from here on in will be minimal.

Getting pre production done on time took an awful lot out of me. This was the first time that I've ever really had to organise so much about a film in time for a deadline without actually getting to animate. It was a very interesting and educational experience and I enjoyed it, in retrospect. I have all but my layouts essentially locked down so the next few weeks are going to be story reels and test animations. So, please. come back often. I'll be updating this blog quite regularly from here on in with little bits from the production that could be kinda cool. Until then, keep an eye out.

Debate With A Fine Artist. Sigh.