Talked through the storyboards that each member of the team contributed to.
George drew panels: 1-7, 25-27, 37-38, 54-60
I drew panels: 8-24, 39, 53
Sheng drew panels: 28-36
Kirti drew panels: 40-52
Myself and George arranged the storyboards in a storyboarding program called 'Shotbox', I then added descriptions to all the panels:
I then put the panels together into a roughly timed animatic:
Some ideas that were discussed and generated from the meeting included:
- Do we need the INT. environment? The human could be outside in the garden as well, gardening, hanging out washing, raking leaves. First this would save us time having to model, texture and light another environment, and it might also make the scenes more funny, because the human is also in the garden but is completely oblivious to what is going on.
- During the 'tug-of-war' scene, the humorous situation of this could be heightened by having the small bird pulling the dog along the ground/through the air (Bird appears unusually strong - could show how much it wants the biscuit)
- Zooming out at the end to leave on a similar shot that the storyboard began with at the beginning could round off the film nicely.
I've also typed up the script (yes the girl's name is 'Lily', I did not initiate this decision! :p Decided to differentiate this character from myself by spelling it differently from my own to avoid confusion):
Tug of Biscuit
03/02/2014
Director and Script Writer: Lilly
Durrant
EXT. House and Back-Garden – (DAYTIME – AUTUMN/WINTER)
A young dog, named PIP,
plays in the Garden and runs towards the back door of the house.
INT. Kitchen – (DAYTIME)
A young woman, LILY, is
doing chores in the kitchen. Pip comes in through the door; Lily greets Pip,
1.
LILY
“Biscuit?”
She then throws a BISCUIT
out into the garden for Pip.
EXT. Back-Garden – (DAYTIME)
SFX sounds of kids playing
in neighbour’s garden. Dog approaches biscuit, sniffs it and then opens mouth
to eat it.
SFX loud kick sound! A
BALL flies over the fence and past the dog, immediately grabbing Pip’s
attention. Pip excitedly runs out of shot after the ball.
A BIRD swoops down, picks
up the biscuit, and takes off with it.
Pip happily pads back into
shot with the football in his mouth. He looks down at where the biscuit was and
is shocked and confused to find it is gone! Pip looks around the ground and
then looks up. Pip spots and focuses on something O/S and looks angry.
Camera zooms out to show
the bird sitting on the fence with the biscuit. It then swallows the biscuit,
which upsets the dog, and then flies away. The ball pops and deflates in the
dog’s mouth.
INT. Kitchen – (DAYTIME)
Pip begs Lily
for another biscuit; she throws one outside for him and gets back to work.
EXT. Back-Garden – (DAYTIME)
Dog runs up to
biscuit and looks around suspiciously for the bird. Thinking maybe it’s best to
save and hide the biscuit, Dog begins to dig a hole for it.
Meanwhile the
Bird swoops down and creeps towards the biscuit.
Pip is alerted
to a sound and turns around to see the Bird with his biscuit in its mouth. Bird
then engulfs it whole and takes off, leaving a stunned Dog.
INT. Kitchen – (DAYTIME)
Pip begs Lily
desperately for another biscuit.
2.
LILY
“Last one, ok?”
She throws a
biscuit outside for him and gets back to washing dishes at the window, which
has a view of the garden.
EXT. Back-Garden – (DAYTIME)
Dog runs towards biscuit
and then stops. Camera pans up to reveal the bird standing opposite. The
biscuit lies on the ground, at equal distance between the two. It’s a standoff.
C/U of the dog and bird,
both look angry and determined; each glance between the other and the biscuit.
Both then suddenly race
towards each other and the biscuit. Camera cuts just before they collide.
INT. Kitchen – (DAYTIME)
Lily is busy
washing dishes. The view from the window shows Pip and Bird in a tug of war
with the biscuit. Lily looks nonchalantly up, then back to the dishes, then
double takes back to the chaos outside.
3.
LILY
Exclamation of Surprise!
Lily throws
down what she was washing and runs O/S. Still looking through the window at the
sink, Lily can be seen running towards Pip and the Bird, arms flailing and
shooing.
4.
LILY
(Sound is muffled, as camera/audience still in Kitchen)
“Stoppp! Shoo! Shoo!”
EXT. Back-Garden – (DAYTIME)
As the Bird flies off past
the camera, Lily picks Pip up along with the biscuit. She looks at the biscuit,
and then O/S.
Bird is sitting on the
fence looking very sad; its little stomach wobbles as it grumbles.
Lily looks back at dog and
biscuit, an expression of realization crosses her face. She looks thoughtful
and then has an idea.
SFX of DIY and building
with a montage of C/U’s.
Pip watches
with anticipation as Lily finishes constructing something. Camera dollies out
to reveal a new BIRD HOUSE/FEEDER. Bird flies to it and looks joyous!
Bird happily
munches on the bird feed as the Dog finally munches away on his biscuit.
THE END
The script is currently 2.5 pages long, meaning our film is roughly 2-3 minutes long, so a lot of editing is required. Ideally the animatic needs to be edited to under 2 minutes.
Lastly we went over some Moodboards, these are the ones I put together, wanted to find examples of simple 3D designs, followed by 2D and more illustrative designs:
I've started putting some reference boards together on Pinterest,
There are still designs, styles and colours to finalize. Originally we thought of having a 2D background with 3D characters, the more this project is developing the more inclined we have been to go for a 3D background instead. It will probably be a lot less trouble for us, not having to try and convincingly composite a 3D character into a 2D world.
We also discussed what everyone is working on at the moment and what we should be working on next. I will continue Directing and overseeing the whole project, including the designs, and I will be updating the storyboard and 2D animatic. Sourcing some free 3D rigs to use in the 3D animatic and creating the 3D animatic; this will aid background designs, give an idea of camera moves, and allow me to start animation tests.
For our next Supervisor Meeting in 3 weeks time:
- Have a new updated 2D animatic (fix storyboard)
- A 3D animatic (used with simple models and free rigs, having a 3D animatic will help with what backgrounds we need to help influence those designs)
- Background and character designs - start modelling a character
