‘Pre-production is where it all begins, including story development, script writing, production design, storyboards, and animatics’ (Glebas, 2014).
In this module, I was teamed up with three other students, Hannah, Gillian and Kirsten, and together, building on our knowledge from semester one, we were tasked to create a 30-60 second 3D animated short, based on the theme of ‘Journey,’ with each person within the group needing to contribute to the pre-production process, and model, rig and animate a character with arms but no legs.
With the initial stage idea generation, having first brainstormed some potential concepts on Discord, we agreed to each create resources before first meeting up of prospective characters, storylines and settings, with my ideas a Toy Shop theme, or the concept that childhood toys which had been discarded in favour of new technology, try to win the children’s interest back. The mood boards, possible backgrounds and concept art I created are shown below, with my idea that the plush rabbit could be a hand puppet, but my favourite was the pull-along toy as it would have to interact with other characters to move, the possibility to add sound as it played, suspense or fear could be introduced if held in a static, theatrical pose, or drama and comedy when pulled along quickly and playing furiously.
Other concepts within the group were Gillian’s idea of ghosts haunting a family, but eventually realising they had to live together, and various ideas from Hannah, including a short horror story where a worm eats an apple alive, and a love story where the sun and moon want to be together, but this can only happen at the time of an eclipse.
While the entire group liked the Toy Shop/discarded toys theme, concerns over the ability to tell the full story well within the 60 second timeframe, and differing 3D modelling capabilities within the team led us to consider an aspect where the main focus could be more placed on the characters. Therefore, as their story to eventually be together could be easily linked to the Hero’s Journey, but additionally, elements suggested during our brainstorming session such as stars, asteroids, or even explosions could be included to increase visual appeal or add tension, our final choice was to base our animation on the ‘Love Eclipse’ concept.
With only very rough ideas in mind at the end of our first face-to-face session, the next step was for us to each create rough character designs, and storyboards mapping out our own thoughts on how the story could evolve, and pitch these to the other team members. As part of my research, I read as many myths, fairy tales and folklore stories from around the world as I could find, that were based on the relationship between the sun and moon, and inspired by the Hero’s journey and little pieces of each, I created the storyline below and posted this on Discord.
However, although other potential storylines within the group also mirrored the sun and moon’s love story with a couple on Earth, on our tutor’s advice, a decision was made to simplify the narrative by focusing on the sun and moon’s inability to be together, and how the plot could progress, with help, and the inclusion of a comedic element and a ‘trickster’ character, to them eventually uniting and the eclipse.
When work began being posted on Discord, in her sketches Gillian had chosen a 1920’s ‘Rubber Hose’ style as inspiration for her character’s designs, and after discussions, with the group feeling that this would allow us to push the genre, enable our animation to reflect a specific era (especially if rendered in black and white), and simplify the modelling process to allow everyone to produce characters of a similar calibre, we opted to use this style going forward, with these my individual mood boards, character designs and storyboard.
Mood Boards and Character Designs:
Story Board:
Character were then assigned, with me being tasked to create the sassy star. Eager to see if my initial designs would work as 3D models, just as I’d done throughout assignment 2 of my 3D Digital Literacy course, I’d already created a version of each, and while I’d been happy with how my initial star design had translated into the 3D medium, I now needed to consider what changes I should implement for my final design to be more reflective of our chosen rubber hose style, and in keeping with the other characters.
Then, after discussing the merits of each submission, and voting on which elements should be included, we reached a decision on what was to be our final storyboard, bought this together, and having the general story and planning in place, allocated sections to each group member to recreate for the next stage – the 3D pre-visualisation (previs).
The 3D previs was a quick and functional way for us to consider shot composition, camera angles and timing, and the end result both allowed us to visualise how the sequences would flow, and provided a fuller sense of how our final animation might look and feel, with my segment, as shown on the storyboard above, running from where the star has an idea, through to the characters spinning out of control due to the explosion.
Inspiration for the previs was gained from the following resources:
- The star rope from The Van Buren Corporation’s Aesop’s Fables: ‘Mad Melody’ (1931)
- The meteor, particle trail and star explosion
- The lightbulb moment
In addition, I also created and shared other resources within the group such as the body for the crescent moon in the previs, and the 3D hearts and star trail used both in this, and the final animation.
- Star trail inspiration
2D character designs were also finalised at this stage, and having researched rubber hose characters in more detail, including the work of artists such as Bill Nolan, credited with first creating this style, through to recent Instagram artists such as Tony Babel, I amended my star design to reflect the more rounded, softer appearance I’d seen, and while keeping the curved, elastic arms, simplified other anatomical features including the eyes and hands, and as before checked how these changes would transpose into my model.
However, requiring a new storyline and previs, tutor feedback following our presentation was that some shots were not conveying what was happening, the middle section containing the meteor impact and star explosion was too distracting, and that the storyline needed to be simplified and make sense. It was also suggested that the star should be the one to solve the problem.
However, undeterred, as the pre-production stage is the time to experiment, and changes are all part of the development cycle, following our presentation, the team immediately began brainstorming ideas of how this could be achieved, with in our final previs draft, many of my original ideas now included in slightly different forms, such as the Earth pushing the moon towards the sun becoming the star pushing the Earth out of the way, the concept of hands slipping apart from my initial storyline, becoming hands joining together, and as shown in my character mood board, the Earth would now wear sunglasses, which to add a comedic effect, would fly off when pushed by the star.
Later too, after reading Francis Glebas’ ‘The Animator’s Eye,’ a sketch perfectly summed up where we had gone wrong, and that while we had been trying to make an impact with our storyline which would evoke emotion in the audience, that this could have been achieved more subtly.
Source: ‘The Animator’s Eye’ Glebas, 2014
Next, keen to test different ways in which I could utilise the sunglasses to maximum effect; taking my inspiration from Rayban Aviators, and realising these would not only need to be visible as they flew off, but also mirror the art style of the Earth who would be seen wearing them, I modelled a chunky version, and shared the Blender file with Gillian for her to use in her segment.
Over the following week, the new previs was then created, and was later followed up by a revised, and more detailed final storyboard, thus ending the pre-production stage of our project.
References:
Glebas, F. (2014) The Animator’s Eye: Adding Life to Animation with Timing, Layout, Design, Colour and Sound. New York: Routledge.
YouTube (2014). Aesop’s Fables: ‘Mad Melody’ (1931) Van Beuren: Graham Percy. [online]. [Accessed: 5.3.24].
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz6sVHVdXRE
YouTube (2020). Meteor in Blender – Abstract Particles: Blender Whiz. [online]. [Accessed: 5.3.24].
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_y99lFKRrg
YouTube (2021). Easy way to make a heart in blender: I.deal3d. [online]. [Accessed: 5.3.24]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGpxr52jYHk
YouTube (2022). Blender 3D Crescent Moon – Quick and Easy Modelling Tutorial: Alper Güzeler. [online]. [Accessed: 5.3.24]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W37KY2Kzas0
YouTube (2023). How to make a Light Bulb in Blender [Blender for Beginners]: This. [online]. [Accessed: 5.3.24]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orjTekDFvgo