Minor - Submission Post

Making of

Character Turnarounds

Animatic

Original Premise Submission

https://tdbucaanimation.blogspot.com/2020/05/premise-final-submission.html

Premise - Reflective Statement

I walked into this project and the entire year of 2020 with confidence and my head held high, only for the year the metaphorically punch me in the stomach.

I was originally quite excited for the premise project as the opportunity to create my own story was one of the main reasons I came to the course, however I feel like this wasn't something I was fully able to achieve . I understand my difficulty in explaining my ideas fully, but I cannot ignore how frustrated I got when I didn't even have a foundation for my project in the first term of working on it. It was also about this time my mental health went back down the drain.

I don't want to use my depression as an excuse for the lack of work, but I will say it was a main point in my lack of motivation. Even once I finally had a beginning of a story, I failed to find the motivation to keep it going, which is why I took so long between updates.

That being said, I don't hate the work I have produced. I have quite enjoyed trying to learn the UPA style and I will continue to experiment with it over summer. The project I have finally got off of the ground here, in my opinion, is basic but can work and I'm more than happy to continue with it.

I'm just slightly annoyed that I had such high hopes for this project, only for it to crumble due to my mental health. And that's not even addressing the global pandemic sized elephant in the room.

The quarantine has ruined my work ethic. I struggle to focus at home, which is why I preferred to go into uni to work daily. Obviously this is no longer possible and my focus went out the window. Paired with my battle with mental health, this is why updates seemed to be less frequent than necessary at the end of the project.

I know in my OGR, Alan suggested I get then story planned out quickly so I have enough time to make improvements, unfortunately this was severely affected by previously mentioned issues.

Had there not been a pandemic or my mental health plummet, I would have liked to get at least another draft of the script created, I wanted to complete the animatic and I also wanted to at least started on some form of Pre-Vis. Unfortunately time was not a friend of mine this year.

Once again my biggest issue of the year was time management. I will be mentioning this in greater detail on my Toolkit 2 reflective statement.


In summary: I went into this project with high hopes, but my mental health and a planet wide pandemic kicked me down. Despite this, I still ended up with some work that I can say is at least decent, in my incredibly negative opinion.

I don't really have an excuse for my lack of stuff in terms of the careers pack outside of these same issues.

Premise - Final Submission

Art of

Script

Animatic

Maya Tests

Maya Toon Shader Tests: https://tdbucaanimation.blogspot.com/2020/05/premise-toon-shaders.html

Careers Pack

Is up on Basecamp. (I will not be uploading here for privacy)

Premise - Art of "The Adventures of Epic Man"

Premise - Toon Shaders

After he suggested it, Alan taught me how to do Toon Shading on Maya, using Maya Software instead of Arnold Renderer.

I modeled three props that are part of my story: The bank vault, a stick of dynamite and a stack of gold bars.

The final compositions outlines are offset to try and achieve the UPA style with a 3D model.

Vault Door Model

Vault Door with a Two Tone Shader

Vault Door with a Black Standard Surface and a white Toon Outline

Final Composition

Dynamite Model

Dynamite with a Toon Texture

Dynamite Outline

Dynamite Composition

Stack of what looks like clay

Toon textured Gold Bars 

Bar outlines

Final Gold Bar Composition

Premise - Script V2

With an updated story, I needed an updated script.

If any one notices anything that needs to be change or anywhere they think I can improve, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Premise - Story Rework

After my tutorial with Alan, he suggested that I make a sticky note storyboard; a physical storyboard compiled of mostly sticky notes detailing the plot and putting most focus on specific elements, in my case gags and sketches. However our situation, I find myself lacking the space and resources to do it properly, so I came up with an alternative.

I took the story back a bit a decided to see how I could fit my story into the typical 3 act structure. My logic is that if I can work the story into segments, I can then work in jokes around those segments, this has lead to the creation of a new story plan and storyboard. (New Script coming in my next post)

Story Plan & Storyboard

Beginning

• Intro Sequence
• (This sequence would be a parody of classic superhero intros, like 60's Spider-Man or Roger Ramjet. This of course requires a theme song which the visuals would match. Aside the issue of having to write a song, my plans for this sequence is to have the titular character performing various heroic feats, however as the intro progresses the feats become more and more ridiculous)

• Epic Man looking over the city
• The narrator introduces the audience to Epic Man
• An explosion is seen and heard by the bank
• Epic Man thinks on his next course of action and flies toward the building

Inciting Incident

• Robert Banks and his crew arrive at the bank through a hole they made
• Banks begins monologuing; mid monologue he throws out a stick of dynamite
• One of the henchmen catches the dynamite, then throws it to one of the other henchmen (This starts a running joke of the henchmen pretty much playing hot potato with the dynamite)

• The dynamite finally explodes in the hands of one of the henchmen as Banks finishes his monologue. He then berates them for slacking

• The villains then begin looking for valuables.
• One of them stumbles across the bank's vault

Climax of Act One

• Epic Man arrives
• He arrives by crashing through the wall

• He quips, enraging Banks, the two quickly begin arguing
• "This is not a drill"
• (I had this silly idea of a joke, involving the characters needing a drill to crack the vault and the idea that they had prepared to encounter Epic Man.)

• Banks orders his henchmen to attack Epic Man

Act Two Part One

• Epic Man fights the henchmen
• This fight will be very slapstick focus with Epic Man dispatching the henchmen in comedic ways

• Banks starts to shoot at Epic Man
• Epic Man effortlessly dodges all of the bullets
• Epic Man address how this gun doesn't seem to run out of bullets, but he also mocks Banks by saying that he can dodge all of them
• Banks throws a stick of dynamite at Epic Man
• Epic Man catches it, he turns to the audience to explain the dangers of explosives before throwing it away

• The henchmen are trying to recover from their beat down
• The dynamite is thrown their way, with one of them catching it
• They juggle it a bit until one of them throws the dynamite at the bank vault, blowing it open

Act Two Part Two

• The bank vault has now been broken into
• The henchmen quickly run in and begin looting
• The fight between Epic Man and Banks also enters the vault
• Slapstick featuring all five characters ensues
• While dueling, Banks begins monologuing again
• He then pulls out another stick of dynamite and throws it to Epic Man, who promptly throws it to one of the henchmen
• The dynamite is passed around while the fight continues

Climax of Act Two

• Epic Man trips over his own cape
• While laughing at this and claiming his victory, the dynamite lands in Bank's hand, blowing up
• The explosion leaves cartoonish soot all over Banks as he falls to the ground

Wrap-Up

• Epic Man then turns his attention to the three henchmen, still looting
• He prepares to engage them as one of them hands him a bag of cash
• This stuns Epic Man, which leaves him open for more cash to be handed to him
• After a pause, Epic Man tells the Henchmen to be carefull and bids them adieu
• He leaves through the wall, creating a new hole
• The Narrator wraps up the strange adventure that just happened

Premise - Story, Script and Storyboard

Yes, yes, I know that this is getting late and only now am I starting to work on the story proper. Here is version 01 of my script, if there's anything noticeable that you think needs changing or if there's anything you think I should add, please don't hesitate to let me know. Also here is a very rough WIP storyboard to go along with the script, it's not completely finished so I'll be editing the rest of the pages in here whenever they're all done.

Plot Summary:

A small gang of criminals led by the overly dramatic Robert Banks are robbing a bank. It is up to Epic Man to put a stop to this villainy before they get away with the money.

A very simple plot, but this is heavily inspired by Roger Ramjet, which is also that simple, but what it lacks in plot, it makes up for with jokes, which is what I'm hoping to accomplish.

Script

Storyboard

Page 01

Page 02

Page 03

Page 04

Page 05

Premise - OGR

Premise OGR - Terry Brunt by Terry Brunt on Scribd

Please excuse Scribd's awful quality.

Name of the short is currently a work in progress.
Script & storyboard is currently in the works and I'll upload them as soon as they’re done.

Premise - Character Designs *New*

Since my last set of character designs I have taken on-board a new set of inspirations, most important of which is the UPA art style, which is the aesthetic I'd like to imitate with this project going forward.

With that here are my new character designs:

The hero

Main Inspirations: Roger Ramjet, Superman, The Chin

This design is not too different from my last version of this character. I want to emphasise the heroic elements with his design.

The Villain

Main Inspirations: Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Waluigi, Bowler Hat Guy

A complete overhaul from my previous design. I wanted this villain to look sleazy and crooked, this is so he looks completely opposite site from the hero.

The Henchmen

For the villain's henchmen I wanted to play a bit more with their personalities and incorporate those into their designs.
Blue doesn’t know why they're here.
Red is a bit of a bumbling oaf.
Green can't get the motorcycle helmet off of their head, which results in them being muffled.

Premise - Character Redesigns

With the last tutorial with Alan, we ironed out the story and style a little.

The direction the story and style is simplistic in design and has a heavy emphasis on comedy.

To go with the simplistic design, I completely redesigned the characters.

The Hero

I've redesigned the hero to be overly stereotypical. This is to play with audience expectations towards the end.

EPIC MAN
(A cheesy name for a cheesy character)

Possible colour scheme

The Villain

The villain hasn't changed very much as I think my original idea still works in the updated story.

Goons

If I still go with the video game idea, the hero needs some common enemies to plough through.

I also created some variants that will have some slight personality.

Blue will be incharge of keeping hostages locked away. They don't really want to be there.

Green, the hacker. His job is to keep the security systems down. He is the only goon that will put up a fight.

Red is operating the drill used to crack the vault. He's clumsy and a scardy cat; the first person to run from a fight.

Premise - Ideas Progress

Firstly, sorry I haven’t posted in a while, instead of excuses however, this update provides my current ideas and work.

During my last tutorial with Alan, I presented my bank heist idea, which he told me to run with cautiously. He also gave me two animations to serve as some kind of inspiration. I now have two ideas.

Idea #1 resembles a "beat-em up" video game with a super hero type character stopping a bank heist, with a twist.
Idea #2 is a comedy short starring two incompetent robbers trying to rob a bank, told entirely through security cameras.

Idea #1

This was the idea I presented to Alan.
The story starts with a syndicate style gang robbing a large bank to acquire a gem being stored inside the vault. On a nearby buildings roof, a "superhero" is doing warm ups before launching himself through the bank window. He works his way through the gangsters and down to the lower levels of the bank, where he confronts the gang leader. After a fight, the "hero" wins, but instead of the day being saved he takes the gem from the vault himself and quickly makes his escape.

Presentation

My idea with this short is that it would look like a side-scrolling, beat-em up video game; taking inspiration from things like Mega Man, Street Fighter, or the animation that Alan sent me last time.

(Left: Mega Man X2, Middle: Street Fighter, Right: Darth Vader vs Die Hard)

The short would play from this 2.5D perspective (3D models from a 2D perspective) following the hero as he ploughs his way through goons in comical fashion.
The next element to address is art style. I drew a few alternative blank figures as an idea of what I could do.

Figure 1: Very simplistic. Stick limbs. Inspired by Cyanide and Happiness.
Figure 2: Cartoony. Almost chibi inspired. Fits in with classic 2.5D video games.
Figure 3: Realistic. Full character model, with most likely a lot of detail. Unlikely that this style would work with my current idea of slightly bombastic beat-em up.

Out of these 3, I quite like figure 2. I personally think that it would work best for the video game style approach I want to take with this.
For dialogue, many video games have an image of the character and a dialogue box (and sometimes voice over) take up a portion of the screen; I was thinking of doing something similar, but instead of it being just a png with some text, I would fully animate to the character.

Quick example of how the dialogue would appear. The character would be a large more detailed version of the characters seen in the full shots. The characters name and dialogue would be displayed in the boxes below them. Doing this would allow for characterisation and character interactions with breaking the feel of it being a video game.

Story

The story is what Alan told me needs work. I am honestly not sure what to amend with the story, so any constructive criticism is appreciated. So without changing the story just yet, I decided to try to flesh out the characters, the environment and the mcguffin.

The mcguffin is a large diamond gem. In context of the original story I came up with years ago that this short is taken from, the gem is an extremely powerful energy source which is valuable to both the gang leader and the hero in their various schemes; this can still be the case as long as I explain that properly in the dialogue. There is also the option to just have it be worth an absurd amount of money, and thus worth stealing.

Characters

The Hero

My original story's hero character is less of a classical obvious superhero and is a little more grounded in reality, as in he isn't comically overpowered, he can't fly and he relies on gadgets, like batman.

Gauntlet Thumbnails

This characters name is Gauntlet, named after the two plasma gauntlets he has equipped. This design is obviously nowhere near final, I need to consider what to add to make a character like this appear more heroic. I need to decide between him having full head coverage or just face coverage. I'm leaning towards just face coverage, but this requires me to settle on a hair style. At the moment I'm thinking he would have gelled up, spiky hair as this would fit with the cocky attitude I would like him to have; Which is why I also drew a couple smirks on the right. Under the mouths, however is a face mask, which I decided that he shouldn't have as this seems more like villainous attire. I also need to settle on his goggle design. In his actual body shape, he's definitely quite muscular, with a lot of square design, to really drive home that this is some strong and heroic, making the twist that he is actually also a thief quite funny to me.
Other than being cocky, I imagine him to be the type of character to be making wise cracks while dealing with his enemies, similar to Spider-Man or Deadpool.
Of course if this character concept falls flat, I could always use a more traditional superhero design which may make the twist more impactful as it would truly be subverting expectations.

Gang Leader

Greaves Thumbnails

The head of the gang robbing the bank, Greaves; name inspired by the words grief and grievous. My idea of him he that he is terrifying. He would be primarily very dark colours, has a nasty looking mask, wears a long trenchcoat and carries a grenade launcher for added fear factor. In the story he serves as the primary threat trying the get the gem, whether it be for power or financial gain. Although financial gain doesn't seem like the truest outcome given that, personality wise, the joker is one of my main inspirations.

Environment

The location of this short is an old, but very large bank. It would have about 3 floors, filled to the brim with various props and goons to be smashed around. The style of the building would have an art deco feel to it. When the hero and gang leader fight, the building will start to look more and more destroyed. The vault, however, would look quite modern and very pristine.

Idea #2

This idea came about after watching the second animation Alan suggested to me, Blind Spot (I won't explain the full short here, I'd recommend watching it)
The CCTV element and the idea of a failed robbery sounds quite funny to me and reminded me of a scene in Snatch where two characters try to rob a betting shop, but fail miserably. I like the idea of telling a comedic story told entirely through CCTV.

Very quick sketch of the robbers

The idea is that two bumbling idiots try to rob a small high street bank, the entire robbery fails, the cashier isn't threatened, the weapons aren't even real, they leave the bank with nothing but a half eaten sandwich.


Idea #2 is more of a backup idea if no one likes idea #1, but I can very easily flesh it out more if need be. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.