Wednesday 24 October 2007


Personal Concept Artwork - Stone Stairs to the Artefact (in the Temple)

Personal Concept Artwork - Tree/Root Detail in Temple

Personal Concept Art -Main Jungle Establishing Shot Development

Personal Concept Art - Development of Spike Traps

Personal Concept Art - Temple Entrance

Main Temple Map - Completed


The temple environment map that i created from previous sketch.

Rough Temple Map - Created by Me, Giles and Rob
Sketched by Rob.

Production Schedule

The Production Schedule - created by me and giles.

The past weeks and a bit!

Hey!

Firstly...

A detailed weekly production schedule for this term was produced by me and giles. Then together we went forward in creating a weekly schedule for the whole film production. This was given to my team in the next meeting.

After reading the story breakdown first draft, i made notes on the areas that i thought needed changing, then presented these ideas to the group for disscussion. Most of the changes were supported, and i considered their ideas/views too and then changed the scenes/shots accordingly. Some of the additions/changes included: the bridge shot leading to the temple was taken out of scene one, the idea of seeing the whole outside of the temple was scrapped, the first explorer now comes back near the end of the film for comedy aspect (hit by another trap before trying to stop second explorer). The very start of the tansformation/artefact magic is now seen before the shot of the shocked animals in scene five. The explorer that is turned into an animal is seen tugging the artefact out of the temple entrance after the ending credits.

The group suggested the idea to take down the character count, after reviewing the production schedule i thought it would be wise to do so; as the size of the project was already big enough, this would make modelling and animation easier, by having more time to focus on the other characters actions and timing. Hopefully producing a more professiobal result. It also meant that the story flowed alittle nicer, especially when the motives of the animal charcters have changed; they are now watching over the artefact, and protect it by operating the deadly traps below.

The second draft of the story was completed by me, rob and giles. The story is getting stronger, but i think that its getting longer! Going to organise a meeting with Dan our lecturer to review our story, to rip it apart a bit and give us feedback.

While working on the screen writing section, I have also undertaken an environmental concept artist role and organised the part-time concept artists, most of them produced nice work, though some didnt meet the deadlines that i set, which put me back behind schedule slightly. This meant that i couldnt assess the character designs all together and make decisions for development go-aheads.

My main character concept artists were working on their initail sketches at the time. The next main meeting came and the amount and level of work produced worried me alot. Some of the team seemed deflated and unethusiastic, it was hard because i didnt want them to think that i was pressuring them for work or being harsh, but if this film is to reach the professional standard i want and generally keep up with the schedule i needed to take real control of my project; and so set deadlines, gave each member of the group detailed information on what work is expected and when it has to be done for. After talking with the group as a whole, asking if their were any problems and informing individual artists that their work areas needed to be changed, styles/ideas developed and the amount they produce to increase, i felt alot less panicy about the amount of work we have to undertake.

The following meeting was excellant! The work, styles and ideas produced reassured me that we can get this film made! The character concept art from Ben was great, with possibley three of the four characters ready to be developed for production. The group really liked my environmental concept art! Im going to continue to develop and design the inside of the temple.

After hours of discussion and sketching the rough temple map was produced by me, rob and giles. At this point in the project i feel we are still slightly behind, i have informed the team that we are to carry on concept art and story development and start thumbnailing the storyboard on monday. We have a formative on tuesday!

Friday 12 October 2007





My environment reference images detailing jungle areas and aztec buildings. These also include details of possible styles, colours and background landscapes.




Work Completed:

Story Oultine - List Scenes, established the motivaions, conflict and message, established begining, middle and end, list scene details, briefly described scene, established overall plot, what is setting the scene, central events of the scene. Completed this within group meetings, all notes are typed up.

Screenplay - Ordered scenes, written basic descriptions of each scene and the shot breakdowns, this was discussed/determined within the group meetings in detail, rob and giles typed up, added to and presented it in word format, i then read the document and added and amended small areas of the story.

Character Design - My concept artists (jenny, ben, rachael, luke) have started to produce rough sketches/ideas, rob and I have produced character backgrounds, indicating height and biuld details, motivations, career and life details, key characteristics and I have emailed this document to the whole group.

Reference images have been collected by all memebers of the group including myself, and I wish to produce environmental concept designs for the all areas of the story. The more ideas and drawings that are produced the better the concept development. This should mean that we achieve a higher quality apperance and originality.

The dialogue will be discussed and started sunday evening. Can't wait to get really into this project, its going well so far, alittle slow because we're drafting the story alot, but the development is key to its success.

Initial Film Pitch - "Aztec Escape"

Film Synopsis - Short story comedy piece, set in a beautiful jungle environment and historic Aztec ruins. Three animals set the stage for two human explorers' attempts at stealing the Aztec treasure.

Hey!

Just got around to starting my personal blog for this project! So just going to recap the past week and a bit...


The initail pitch went really well, had to make sure i cut it down and simplify the synopsis/story so that the main points were covered only, and that i didnt waffle on during the presentation! Tutors didnt ask many questions so i took that as a good sign, in that i told them everything they needed to know. Had a great interest from the class once pitched and the orchestral music composed by Alistair Primrose strengthend the overal feel/atmosphere of the film. The only thing that was lacking from the pitch was that i didnt have any concept work.

On the friday of last week the 'green lighted' films were annouced... and mine was chosen! feels really good to know my film has the potential as a BA project. Now it was time to get together my team... which was a difficult prosess to undertake, i had to tell people that i didnt need them and thought i had definates but groups seemed to be swaping and changing constantly! Finally i got together a definate strong team and the main roles appointed (see list below):

Jenny Morgan - Concept Artist
Ben Griffin - Concept Artist

Jonathan Pryce - Modelling and Texturing Artist
Robert Sidney - Modelling and Texturing Artist

Giles Pease - Modelling and Rigging

Dan - Lead Animator

Film Composer - Alistair Primrose

This week has been mainly about story drafting, creating concreate character backgrounds, motivations, scene descriptions, shot breakdowns, rough character design and collecting environmental/style/colour reference images. The story has changed considerably and im happy because the new ideas and cuts have seemed to strength it.