Evolution of a short

[KenH]

This is a story I have been thinking about for a few days now. I've noticed that some people would be interested in participating in a short team effort. Well, that's the reason I'm posting this at such an early stage in the development....if you like the story and want to make a well animated(hopefully) short, drop me an email. Either way, I'll be making this short and posting updates here whenever I have them.

Another reason is to get an unbiased view of the story. If anyone can think of ways to improve the story, put down your ideas in this thread. I'm willing to entertain anything.

Without further ado here's what I have so far. I've even got storyboards for the first 3 shots (Number 2 has a problem I'm waiting for a reply on):

 

Jimmy Castadrift

 

1) Camera rotates around a small island in the middle of a deserted ocean. As it gets in closer, it shows a man fishing off the island.

 

2) The man shows his fraustration by throwing a stone at the sea. His stomach rumbles in agreement with his fraustration.

 

3) He looks at the stones and picks one up. He throws it up to the top of the tall palm trees to try to knock a coconut down. Eventually he does.

 

4) Cut to him banging the coconut on a rock. Eventually he breaks it.(Thick/crosseyed looking seagull watches him doing this)

 

5) When he opens it, he uses a shell to cut out the insides.

 

6) The shell springs out and flicks away on one cut. He goes over to get it. (He suspiciously eyes the gull)

 

7) When he gets back he shows surprise.*Close up* (Surprise not that the food is gone, but that it's still there and the gull is still sitting there staring at him)

 

8) Jimmy picks up the food and throws a piece to the gull as a reward for not taking the food.

 

9) When the gull realizes how tasty it is, he looks toward the pile of food in Jimmy's arms.

 

10) The gull attacks Jimmy and eats the food.

 

11) Jimmy is left with no food again. Just his rumbling tummy. He lays by his rock.(In the background, the audience can see the rod moving furiously)

 

12) Jimmy soon notices it and runs to rod with joy. He picks it up and starts pulling it in.

 

13) *Close up* Jimmy suddenly gets scared and backs away.

 

14) *Close up* A fin is seen gliding up to the rope and blood oozes up from the end. The food is gone.

 

15) Sharks pops his head up to look at eating Jimmy, but as he sniffs, he rejects him and swims away.

 

16) Jimmy looks at himself, hurt that he's not even considered a decent meal. Then he sighs, agrees and lies by his rock.

 

17) As Jimmy lays there prepared to die, in the distance, the audience can see a plane coming toward the island. Flying low.

 

18) When Jimmy hears the plane, he looks up a waves frantically. He's overjoyed. They found him just in time!

 

19) He runs to get what little he owns.

 

20) With his plile of belongings, Jimmy looks up at the plane. Then he hears the plane parp it's fancy horn and then a "falling sound"

 

21) It begins to rain Pizza boxes and Jimmy trys to dodge them. He eventually gets flattened by a big pile of them (ala alien song

 

22) As the plane flys off into the distance, Jimmy crawls out from under the pile of boxes and starts waving and shaking his fist at the plane.(runs to end of island)

 

23) Bemused and and angry, he comes back to look at the boxes. His attitude changes when he sees they are Pizza boxes. At least it's food he thinks.

 

24)*close up of "Plan-a-Pizza" box* He opens the box to find a brochure with a phone number to ring for a free pizza.

 

25) Jimmy collapses in fraustration.

[modernhorse]

Ken -

Funny story. Have you timed it out? The render you attached is teeny, so I can't really see much detail.

 

My thoughts:

1) When the shark rejects him before he gets depressed at not even being worthy of being a meal, maybe he could sniff his armpit and register disgust on his face.

 

2) An alternative ending (to the pizza box thing) could be... as the plane gets nearer, show one of the pilots waving his hand in front of his face (picking up the guys smell)and then divert away from the island, instead of resuing him.

 

I'd like to help you out in some way, so PM me on this forum and we'll chat about what I could do (ya know being rather inexperienced and all).

 

Doug

[KenH]

Hi Doug. I'll PM you soon.

I've increased the size of the images above.

 

Your ideas on the shark are good. I had originally thought of him rejecting him because he was too thin. But smell is a good one too. Same could go for the gull who keeps his distance.

 

I want to keep the pizza box idea to have a third food disappointment at the end. However, I don't see why the ideas couldn't be combined:

 

 

The plane is a Pizza promotional plane. The pilot beeps his horn. *Cut to pilot* He takes his hands off the wheel to cover his face from the smell.

Plane turns over....dropping all of the boxes on the island.

 

Pilot regains control and keeps on going never to return.

 

Boxes fall as outlined above.

 

 

 

The timing hasn't been worked out yet as I want to add/take away ideas still, so keep them coming!

 

With your idea now, there is another model to build....the pilot. If you want to start on something, you could model him: Typical tallyho pilot with large moustache and goggles. He only needs an upper body too.

[modernhorse]

Ken -

 

The plane is a Pizza promotional plane.

Ah cool, one of those with the sign being pulled behind the plane saying ... Island Pizza , now try the Best !!

 

So are you thinking an older style plane with the open cockpit then?

 

I want to keep the pizza box idea to have a third food disappointment

Just had another thought ... he could open up the boxes and there would only be the coupons and just the dried up crusts of pizzas. He could break his tooth on one. Just a thought.

 

Cya,

Doug

[KenH]

Yes. One of those old double winged propellor planes. I also thought of the sign being pulled by the plane, but I think it would be abit tedious to animate it blowing in the wind. More so when the plane goes into freefall.

 

I like the idea that the pilot could have been munching the pizzas. That would give rise to a problem in that we would have to show him checking every pizza box to see if one hasn't been eaten. Too time consuming.

I also want to get the idea across that in todays society there is so much wasteful/pointless packaging. I mean a whole pizza box to hold a brochure!!

 

BTW if you do make a model for the short, stick a pic of it in this thread. I'd like this to be a transparent documentation for others to learn from.

[modernhorse]

I also thought of the sign being pulled by the plane, but I think it would be abit tedious to animate it blowing in the wind.

true, true.

 

 

That would give rise to a problem in that we would have to show him checking every pizza box to see if one hasn't been eaten. Too time consuming.

I don't see this. Couldn't the pilot just be finishing the last piece and he tosses the last crust over his shoulder casually. No real intention of feeding the island guy.

 

Do you have any concepts for the plane? Or will you be modelling that? I'm not sure which you'd rather have me tackle the plane or the pilot. Or both? Keep in mind that i'm a sllllooooooowwwwww modeler.

 

Cya,

Doug

[KenH]

Just the pilot. I have the plane sorted. Take your time....I'm a bit busy otherwise for the time being anyway.

[aaver]

I also thought of the sign being pulled by the plane, but I think it would be abit tedious to animate it blowing in the wind. More so when the plane goes into freefall.

I think this could be done rather easily with cloth.

 

Also, any thoughts on how to animate the water?

[KenH]

I think this could be done rather easily with cloth.

I'm not that familiar with cloth in AM. But I might look into that.

 

 

Also, any thoughts on how to animate the water?  

 

I was trying to block that out But I'm thinking very simple here...more to concentrate on the performance.

Giving it abit of thought, as you can see the sea is just a plane with roughness on it. I think it gives a good effect....when you can see it To animate it at the shore line maybe it could be lowered and raised every few seconds or so.

[KenH]

A new addition....

[robvmonte]

how many people besides me have signed up to help?

[CRToonMike]

Here's my idea for the pizza box -- they're all promotional give-aways. Guy opens the box and there's a pizza-printed frisebee(sp) in it with a coupon for a free pizza.

 

This eliminates the need for the guy to check all the boxes, He could still bite into one and then realize they're made of rubber. Then he could fling a pizza-frisbee at the seagull, misses and the frisbee boomerrangs back at him and knocks him out.

 

How does that work?

 

mike r.

[KenH]

Brilliant Mike! I might just use that one. I see him reading the coupon intently while taking a bite out of the frizbee.

In fact, it's a great idea for any real pizza men out there!...the frizbees that is.

[modernhorse]

I agree, that's great crtoonmike.

 

Doug

[KenH]

We're going for the toon look now.

Does anyone know of a good way to do simple clouds?

[robvmonte]

yo Ken. Take out the white part. I understand what your trying to do but don't. Trust me. just having the waves go up and down against the island will work. Just go with my suggestion. adding white looks stupid. sorry.

[modernhorse]

Hey Ken,

Take a look at the WIP on the scene that i've been working on. I dunno know if its the look you're after or not but the process is quite simple.

 

look for the clouds

 

The clouds are just flat patches. I applied 'glow' to them and voila. Again, ignore if this is not what you're after.

 

Doug

[KenH]

Something's spooked Jim!