The theme of our 30 second animation was ‘escape’ so I got a marker for the whiteboard and began brainstorming. We had several good ideas but focused on two main ideas. When a new toy is placed next to a broken shredded one, we follow the bunny as it tries to escape the same fate the other toy had. Along the journey we watch the bunny get ripped apart and accidentally broken, eventually, it gets placed back next to the original toy just as broken and then it is revealed that the original toy was only just purchased the day beforehand. We liked this idea because it was funny and allowed each of us to have a toy to design.
Our second idea was a sliced pan that was trying to escape the fate of a toaster, each character being a kitchen appliance made to look like a war figure.
We decided on the toy idea and focused on our storyboard.
I booked a room in the library to continue the group work and began making a quick storyboard, we needed to make a room layout n order to continue with the storyboard. We needed to stay with the 180-degree rule.
We had a few layout options but decided upon the top no.1 option.
I made a storyboard for our movie and we are still agreeing on final sections and when the bunny gets injured and at what stages.
I got the duck as my character and decided to make it a toy duck that was a wheelie pull duck that was missing a wheel and had the wood torn and weathered.
For the room layout, Ellie made a room that had some of the props we were talking about in our meeting. I liked the room but the layout didn’t match the one we had agreed upon so I asked if could I edit the file. We pulled inspiration from toystory, adding posters to make it more realistic, I looked into Molly’s bedroom from the first film when shes a baby
Molly’s room was simple and stood out as a child’s room
I would’ve liked to remake the room but time was against us so we stuck to the original example that ellie made but each of us edited parts of the room.
I accessed the file and moved around some props to fit our storyboard and the 180ยบ rule.
Eventually, the door was moved and then the layout was complete!
As for research, I looked a lot into disney pixar’s toy-related films. the 1988 ‘Tin Toy’ short was a big inspiration, it was a simple set with an effective storyline, and we agreed that the spare toys and props would be helpful to add to our story and environment.
This short gave us the inspiration for what kind of toys that were simple that we could add to our animation. It helped comfort me knowing that even simple toys are effective. We had made a list of what toys we wanted to add
each of us chose a character to design and rig, it was an easy process because we basically all chose characters that we ourselves suggested. As for the style choice we decided on Doc mcstuffins to be our main point of research,
The characters are simple for kids and fit our ideas. I figured that focusing on the animation was key over the complexity of character designs which was also comforting because it meant Ill be able to focus more on the animation side of this assignment.
I found that when out and about and I saw toys that reminded me of my duck ii would take pictures,
I found this bath bomb which had the initial shape of the duck that I wanted, it was almost perfect bar the fact that it had a flat bottom,
when shopping I also saw a pop funko duck with wheels that helped me visualise wheels on the duck aswell as having facial features
This toy in primark was very similar to a style we were looking into of low poly designs, originally it was an idea we had to make the animation style look simple but effective but we didn’t end up going with that idea.