Study Task 1 (Week Commencing: 30/09/19)

For this module, we were put into teams of four at random and each had to create a story based on the picture dice we rolled. After the teams were picked, the four of us sat down to discuss our: strengths, weaknesses and preferred medium. We also made a group chat as communication is key to making a successful outcome.

I chose the intergalactic themed dice and the three images I got were: a robot, an escape pod and a rocket (which I interpreted as a rocket crashing).

I then began to write a short synopsis of the story I had in my head, bearing in mind the limitations we may face in the future such as the timescale. I sketched and refined the antagonist, protagonist, and setting to help visualise the characters and chain of events. I am particularly pleased with my astronaut's design.

We were also informed that regular updates of our progress is expected, so I am planning to write weekly updates as the module goes on.

In Friday's lesson, we each took it in turns to pitch our initial ideas. The class voted for Stacey's story so from here we assigned jobs to each other for our pre-production stage.

I nominated myself for the job of the producer, as well as the 2D character designer. Kate will work on the 3D elements such as the design of the crow and any 3D backgrounds, and Stacey will refine the script and begin the story board. At first, we were considering combining the different mediums however as this story is told from the crow's perspective, I suggested that as the crow watches the chain of events, we could incorporate the 2D style by using this to let the audience know the story is being seen through the crow's own eyes at that point in the animation. Which meant Joseph had the job of designing the 2D landscape boards.



Link to Mood Board

To get a better understanding of the character, I made a quick mood board. I asked the director whether the style should be more realistic and horror-esque or more cartoon-like and was told the latter, so I looked to other animated shows that featured werewolves and films from the eighties as these transformations are usually more comical to watch compared to films being produced today.

I spent the weekend sketching up rough character concept boards. A note I received from my team was that the designs above looked too detailed which would be difficult to animate so I tried to simplify them.

The characters above are the simplified versions. I will continue to refine these over next week.