Again another design sheet showing stone stairs and alter concepts/ideas.

Another design sheet for the main chamber assets and corridoors. The wall sketch is going to be used as a base design for the general look of the walls.

My following design sheets show concept ideas and developments for the main chamber and general interior temple areas, some of the designs have been ticked to say that they are to be used for the final film. Really liking how the concepts for the whole film are coming together, the past two weeks have been all about experimenting with ideas, finalising concepts and starting the animatic.

This is my quick sketch used for a corridoor concept design, and is also used in the final animatic.

This is my detailed plan of the main action scene, includes shaded establishing shots and action arrows detailing the animated surroundings, this is the FINAL design.

The next main scene to be designed is the main chamber, this page lists the assests needed to be designed and a possible plan/establishing shot sketch.

Designing the Corridoor and main action scene/sequence,
including entrance sketches and trap placements.

The following drwaings are some of my initial Corridoor Planning and Concept pages, i wanted to get a good idea of how the inside temple would look before drawing concept detailed, these all include the scaled units of measurement stated previously in my blog.

This shot was drawn by myself to concept a spike trap idea i had, the spikes would shoot up from the floor from the square patches detailed. The vegetation, rocks and my aztec design monuments would stop the explorer from going around the traps. This establishing shot consists of 3 of my drawings and were compiled in photoshop.

I drew this vegetation detail sketch so that when compiling establishing shots in photoshop i could quickly place areas of vegetation to save time. And so that i could start thinking about leaf and rock styles.



Just a quick rough sketch of the type of style that could be nice for the exterior temple shot. This also includes a unit of measurement for modelling and visualisation, our character is 6ft and so this will be 1 modelling unit --------1UNIT = 6ft---------

This montage was adapted from one of my previous shots, but it didnt go well, really dont like the setup of the shot, not going to develop any further with this one.

Increased the contrast of this shot, makes the scene more golden, sunlight stands out, really do like this colour choice, think im gunna stick with this, exaggerate everything for the film.

Decided to try a day time mood, this is quite standard for the jungle, would like to improve on this lighting colour.

Changed the lighting/colour balance to create a night/moon lit shot. Really like the atmosphere created in this shot.

Another montage shot created by myself, this one only used 2 reference images, i added the extra rocks in the foreground and in the corridoor, i painted on the roots and vines in the whole shot and also re-shaded areas of the walls/structures to show weathering, dirt and emphasise the shadows already present. Changed the colour balance and lighting to create this cold/desolate mood.

Changed lighting colour slightly, mysterious mist colour used, prefer this one to the last, this could be during the day type lighting

Removed the extra temple. Adjusted colour balance to create a night shot, wanna create a refreshing stlye for the film, so i am open to all colour variations, really like this colour. But story states that the jungle is in a late afternoon time, perhaps more a sunset colour change? it is in a dream now so colours can now be as crazy as we like.

Added the extra temple design, dont really like it that much, the group thought it could be used to place our temple there?

Again my montage but added extra mountains into the background.
Really like the way its developing.

Another montage that i blended in photoshop, using 5 reference images, this was created to help design the main environment pan sequence in the film, again colour/mood experiments will be carried out, this was difficult to produce, especially when blending the clouds, sky and mountain. I added mist/fog into the middle/foreground and haze into the horizon.
Really like how it turned out.

My shot montage that i created from some of the reference images i collected, going to experiment with colours and effects, the picture is made up of five images that i blended in photoshop to create a possible camera view in the actual film.

A week until the re-pitch of AZTEC ESCAPE

Hey, i was meant to put all my work ive done for the past 4 weeks on here last time, but again everything else got in the way, animatic prep, chasing team members for work, finalising assests and environments with the concept artists, plus our essays and presentations. So the following work shown is all my personal work to bring me up to date for the finalisation of the pre-production... CANT WAIT TO START MODELLING!!

Its been awhile....aahhh!

Well the weeks are going quicker and quicker, and its getting closer to the time for re-pitching! the project has been going great! extremely busy but thats a good thing, so far the team and myself are on schedule, pitching is 9 days away and ive made lists and time tables for each individual member of the team, so no one has the excuse of 'what was i meant to be doing?'. Everyone knows how much work they have to do, the deadlines set, when they have to produce the work and when il be reviewing it so that changes are made and ideas added.

Soooo.... to recap the past 2 weeks...

i finished off a couple more 'mood' / colour montages for the inside of the temple and exterior jungle, finished off the shot scene breakdown for the new story with rob and giles, had our ideas checked by more tutors who all seemed to like the work, started producing more concept art for the inside of the temple, schedule everyone and plan meeting times! the storyboard was started end of last week and animatic starts 2moro! together with more concept art from myself on the interior of the temple and planning out the main action scenes with environmental designs/details, as well as creating a unit system with rob so that all the model sheets for the assets are to the correct scale, and the rest of the team are drafting up the final designs for the house (interior/exterior) with asset design model sheets. This week will be primarily carrying on with this work and starting to plan our presentation.

This is my favourite colour test so far, the jungle environment proberly wont be at night, but the colours i chose created a quailty atmosphere!

A colour experiment shot of my montage, i added a dry brush effect, i really like the softness it creates. Im kind of happy with the colours here, quite abstract but too purple.

This is a montage I created in photoshop from a number of environment reference images collected by Giles, the fallen trunk in the centre was drawn and painted in water colour by me in corel painter X, this is a shot that was described in the scene/shot breakdown, im experimenting with composition, style and colour.

"AZTEC ESCAPE" - the new story!

Synopsis:

The story begins with our "average joe" dreaming of an Aztec adventure. The story is set deep within his imagination, where we follow his quest to locate the ancient artefact through dense jungle and Aztec ruins. The combination of his dream and his compulsive sleep walking habits, lead to the dustruction of his apartment. The story concudes when our main character becomes consious and notes his trashed surroundings.

This story gives us so much room for creativity: visual and filmic. The main reason is because the jungle and temple environments are based in a dream world, therefore hyper-realism can be scrapped and a more original, warped and stylistic look/feel can be used. It gives us the opportunity to create exaggerated scenes and actions. The film is shorter, faster in pace and alot stronger. The comedy apects will come from the contrasts of the fast paced, exaggerated dream world, and the slow, subtle movemets within his real life apartment. Here he will unconsiously put himself in danger that will directly lead to the destruction of his home. The question is "why are we doing this film in animation?" and answer we must work to, is that we can create the impossible and stretch the boundaries of our film.

A Crazy Week!

This week has been the busiest and the most crucil for our project! for a couple of weeks now i have not been happy with the final out come of the story, it also showed within the group as alot of the team weren't motivated and enuthisatic. It was getting more difficult for me to boost confidence of the group, especially when ive been having big doubts about the project myself. Even though this was the case, i carried on producing environmental concept art and continued with the development of the temple interior. it was only when me, rob and giles went over the story draft (shot/scene breakdown) for third time, when i knew that it needed urgent direction from our tutors. The day and night before the consultation i organised the team to collectively produce the tumbnails for the storyboard. This was slow and painful! it occured to me that the story was so complex that we were having trouble developing the camera angles (general filmic language) for each scene, there was just so much going on! And the film felt like it was going on forever!

The consultation with Dan...

Me, rob and giles met Dan at 4:00 and were finished by 6:00! the 2hours really opened our minds at the many holes and general flaws in the story, one of the real eye openers of the meeting was when Dan said, "your pitch was good, but you've seemed to have gone backwards with it"... it was then when i thought that the story had to change! He suggested new ideas and angles to view the story, plus also helped me over come the one mistake i made as director; making sure that only 2/3 people work on the story and that i have the final say on it. My mistake was that i wanted the whole group (all 6 of us) to develop the story from the pitch, to make sure the whole team is happy and involved, this can work, but what happened is that a "too many cooks spoil the broth" senario happened, there were too mat ideas and disagreements that the underlying core of the story was lost, i compromised with ideas so much (to keep everyone happy) that it made the whole film a blur of pointless scenes, too many characters and a messed up structure.

So the three of us went home, reviewed the notes i had written, picked at the holes of our story and decided that a complete change in story was needed. 16 hours later we had finished a new story synopsis, timeline and typed a detailed scene/shot breakdown, the camera angles are fully planned and the story seemed refreshing, exciting and stronger! We immediately went into uni and spoke with our main tutor Mike Smith, then Dan, then Jared and finally Jamie. Before going ahead with tumbnails and style development we wanted the story reviewed and 'green lit' by everyone. The feedback was great! The new story was 100 times stronger than the last, it was funnier and gave us endless room for visual and filmic creativity! Every tutor was really positive, i noted all feedback and we made slight changes where needed, but apart from that, the story was finalised instantly! I feel so happy with the new film, the team seems revitalised and very enthusiastic!

i have organised the team into their relavent roles and all know that final say comes from me, we now have a limited number on the story development: rob, giles and me, and all artists can now start development, our lead animator dan and giles will be referencing styles, jungle, temple and apartment environments. Giles and i have been developing styles and experimenting will colours for the different areas/shots of the film, this will carry on for a few more days. I really want this film to have a different, new and exciting look/feel. Rob is working on the thumbnails from our detailed shot/scene breakdown, and i'll be over seeing all areas of the project. Ben will start storyboarding today and by the end of next week we shall start the animatic! Jen is carrying on with concept, but will use the styles that giles and i develop over the next few days.