Concept Proposal

Well the time has come, time to reveal what 3 months of thinking, deliberating and conceptualizing brings to the table.

From day one, i knew i wanted to do a animated sort film, somewhere in between 3-5 minutes, it had to be funny, able to be enjoyed by more than one age group, and by more than one culture. Drawing on inspiration off many of modern day 3D animated films, (where id one day like to end up) i looked closely at how these companies (dreamworks, pixar, aardman) translated/ conveyed their messages to the audience. Pixars "Walle'" was a great inspiration as it is from pure sound and movement that the story is told, little words are used but the method is still very effective. Also Pixars "UP" art style was extremely beautiful, and i loved that the story line moved everyone in the cinema, whether they be 6 or 60, everyone was moved by moments of the film.
Ultimately this is what id like to achieve, of course it is no easy task, but to achieve one must think big.

THE IDEA: After lots of deliberating, i decided to steer clear of little robots, they have been done to death in more recent times, i decided not to do anything too controversial, and decided to postpone my study ingot song and dance in animation. INSTEAD! i went all the back to grade 9, science class to be exact, where me and 2 of my old buddies were sitting up back mucking around, these two freinds are those very funny types, lots of great and stupid ideas, one day we came up with a very funny idea, a little story, one that has stuck with me till today.

CONCEPT: "Splitting the Atom" aka e=mc2

-- A old scientist, living seculeded in the middle of the desert, inhabiting a tiny wooden shack, falling apart, and well worn. you can tell he doesn't want company by the dilapidated signs outside his shack. you travel through his house, slowly drinking in the atmosphere, all the old furniture, the dust (at this point you dont know that he is a scientist). books of all sorts in piles, a combination of still shots, and slow animated shot make up this sequence, it lets you get to know the character before you meet him. You see a windows, dusty, slowly banging in the breeze, and then it catches some light in the glass and you can see dozens of complex maths equations drawn into the dust on the windows, at that point you start to see more and more scientific influenced objects, untill your views rests on the little hunch old man, dressed as a stereo typical scientist, eh is staring at his blackboard, crammed full of equations, on it you can see e=mc8, with the 8 crossed out, then e=mc7 with the seven crossed out, and so on and so forth. till he is now up to e-mc2. he seems to be pondering the board. muttering in a slightly Russian accent, you cannot make out what he is saying. suddenly he cries out with exclamation! starts scribbling on the board then rushes over to a little cage and bangs on it, waking the tiny hamster inside (so he does have some sort of company) which starts to run about on the wheel powering up some very old and unreliable lights, he goes crashing around his tool bench and finds a jar amongst the beakers and other apparatus. He undoes the lid carefully, and uses tweezers to slowly take out a single atom that glows green, he attaches a magnifying piece to his glasses (a very exaggerated magnifying piece) and we can now see the atom close up. he puts the atom into a clamp on his bench (you can only tell its there due to the glow) and reaches down to a drawer to and takes out... a hammer and chisel... with these he carefully strikes the atom twice and on teh third you hear a tiny crack and the world zooms out until all you see is his little shack go up in a mushroom cloud.

and that is my story... well my version of it.. the original concept me and my friends came up iwht all those years ago was of a little man in a shack in the middle of know where tries to litterally split the atom.. and ends with the classic zoomed out mushroom cloud shot. as you can see ive put a lot of thought and work into building up the character and making his more interesting, letting the viewer see into his life, become him for a small moment in time.

AUDIENCE: well i want my peice to be enjoyed by everyone, though especially kids, it is a comic piece, but still has a tension at the beginning, a slightly sinister approach which develops into harmless craziness and humor.

ART STYLE: mirco patterns, my aim to to get a very aged look, have very little shine, even the glass is opaque. to achieve this i will look to pattern, for example, instead of the glass being clear, it will be made up of tiny cirlces of the palest blue, still transparent, but the pattern will take away the excess shine, it will be so minute that you cannot actually see it. i plan to experiment with these all throughout the animation, different patterns and shapes can easily give different effects.

PROGRESS: character concepts and currently in production! obviously amongst other assignments i have to do abit of juggling, however i have a clear and firm picture of what i want the main character to look like! as well as his hamster, all i need is to be able to draw him like i want. (have a couple of basic sketches)

TIME FRAME: all the storyboards and the characters board will be done before they are due for submission... for the 3D modeling and texturing, i aim to have it doesnt over the middle holidays ready for animation and rendering and sound in semester 2.

PROBLEMS: the only major stumbling block that i can see is the mushroom cloud, which i will be looking into shortly on maya particle effects.

PERMISSIONS: i have sought permission from my 2 mates for use of the idea, as it was a joint idea, both have agreed and are looking forward to seeing it.