Pre Production

Film Synopsis–

A young boy is left alone in his cabin in the woods , A creature is lurking in the distance waiting on the right moment to attack. Will the boy survive the night or will he meet his demise ?

Idea Process –

  • Genre- Horror oringally then alterd to thriller

  • Characters – Boy , Dad, Beast

  • Scene- Cabin in dense forest

  • Season – Autumn/Halloween

  • Time of day – Night/Pitch black, lighting based on moonlight , Along with partial light emmiting from cabin windows and bottom of the door frame.

  • Creature – Humanoid , Tall and slender figure

  • 2D & 3D combination

Style considerations –

  • Cartoony Animation

  • Art style references include:

The iron giant –

Treasure planet-

Thriller reference –

From seasoned animator Carlos Baena (ILM, Pixar) and a crowd-sourced community of over 100 people, La Noria tells the tale of a grieving young boy who one day encounters dark creatures that turn his life upside down.

What is 2D & What is 3D-

  • Beast – 3D

  • Boy and Dad -2D

  • Scene – 3D

  • Inside of cabin – 2D

  • Flash light -2D / Lightsource 3D

My Roles-

  • 3D Asset creation

  • Scene Development

  • Beast Creation

  • Beast Concept Art

  • Develop Part of the animatic

  • 3D Camera Movements

  • Beast Animation

  • Composition/audio

Beast concept & Inspiration-

Desired Appearance & Attributes –

Humanoid figure , Shapeshifter , Mimics sounds , Tall & Slender, Undead, Red glowing eyes , Sharp claws and teeth

Previous concepts –

Shadow creature , Quadruped anatomy (4legs)

Character Agreed Apon-  (Wendigo)

The wendigo is often said to be a malevolent spirit, sometimes depicted as a creature with human-like characteristics. Which possesses human beings. It is said to cause its victims a feeling of insatiable hunger, the desire to eat other humans, and the propensity to commit murder .

The Wendigo was gaunt to the point of emaciation; its desiccated skin pulled tautly over its bones. With its bones pushing out against its skin, its complexion the ash grey of death, and its eyes pushed back deep into their sockets. The Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave.

Artist Styles – Wendigo inspo:

Implementation of multiple artistic references that further influenced the creatures concept. Creating character concepts in 2d is not a strong suit for myself therefore iv taken parts of each creature concept that i liked and created a character based from those choosing’s

  • 4 eyes

  • spines protruding from back

  • Liked the skulls on its back but never implemented onto the beast.

This style was my main inspiration for the wendigo :

  • Tall and slender body
  • long , lanky arms and hands
  • Broad and defined chest region following a small torso and head

Story Boards – Created By team member Lauren

Feedback – 1

  • The story board is giving away information too early , the less you show the scarier it becomes.

  • The hand and then the head breaking is generic seems to come a across almost comical for a horror genre .

  • Style of the creature could be pushed .

Changes –

  • Genre changed to thriller .

Animatic – Draft 1

When it came to creating this animatic I originally started of excited and then got humbled fairly quickly since prior i didn’t reference it according to the story board more from memory, 2D animation isn’t as easy as it looks and quite a time consuming process . However I gave it a go, Overall i was quite proud of the animatic since it was my first take on animating a full story in 2d.

 

Feedback- 2

  • Story board and animatic drastically different .

  • Storyboard has stronger staging .

  • Pacing and pipeline testing Required

Changes –

  • Added Pipeline and tested 2D and 3D in scene.

  • Animatic changed to fit camera shots from storyboards.

Pipeline- 

Below is a diagram consisting of the  production pipeline that i created for the team to outline what needs completed and where each point intertwines with the other processes in developing the short film.

Animatic – Draft 2 ( Myself & Lauren)

Feedback- 3

  • 2D and 3D Previz required to see which scene is 2D and 3D cant tell in animatic.

  • Previz can just be created through camera movements.

 

  • Camera angle isn’t the same as the animatic version.

  • Start sound before animation.

  • The pacing on the intro is too quick along with the dad leaving the cabin.

  • Empty space

    Blender testing grease pencil –

  • When it came to using blenders grease pencil it was quite difficult to get the hang off . Trying to get the lines evenly spaced with the walls using a mousepad isn’t handy and the process was time consuming .

The below video showcases the beginning phase on how we where going to go about with implementing the 2d -3d merge . As my skills in 2d animation aren’t strong compared to my teammates i honestly didn’t have much hopes in combining the 2. However i drew the boy 2d in krita then exported the image out as a png image and imported it into aftereffects on top of the 3d image. I then used the lasso and transform tool to allow only one of the arms to move in the scene for the boy to be able to wave.