Classylandstarfish - Absent Minded Space Child

This is my final version submission for VCD2501 Animation Practice and Creative Workshops: Year 2 (two- minute film).  FINAL FILM FOR DEFERAL DEADLINE

My overall thoughts on this project were particularly interesting, from originally planning the pitch to directing a team. At first I thought I was able to manage the workload when it come to producing a production bible as the director however, I should have communicated better with my team and gave the more role to help out with when it came to putting the bible together and as a result I ended up working pretty late for most days in order completely finish the production bible before hand in. Although I would not change my team as they really did help bring this to life, and I am glad to have them both.   

Continuing on with post-production, my team and I decided to change a few things with the story and with that we create a better narrative structure after showing the previous animatic to a couple of people and receive feedback to make the story more clearer. Once we agreed on the final outtake of our animatic we started pre-production and at this point we had more of a 3 minute film which then we decided each of us would have about a minute to animate, although, I felt we could have picked one minute from the rough animatic to animate instead of each picking a random scene to make a minute, that way it would have kept more consistent with who animated what part. 

Finally it came for us to meet composers and recruit them. At first we couldn’t decide who to pick and eventually we went with this amazing 8-bit style artist. We felt their style suited our animation quite well. They responded quickly which was great, we got to talking and explain what we needed, however, communication on their side die out and we couldn’t not get in contact with them for a while, luckily we sort it out with getting another composer who was glad to lend a hand and we were extremely happy with the result, it was a lot better then what we expected. 

To conclude, animating had become more difficult for me over the past few months, as my equipment started to become more and more faulty and I wasn’t able to replace it for a while. Although I am happy with the result of my scene, I definitely felt I can do a lot better with the animation and lineart.

Finding my characters from using Museum Paintings

short synopsis of my three characters, in the end I chose the story “Empty”.

I wanted to mixing real life and animation together for most of my location drawings.

My New Showreel for the grad-assist. 

colour project animatic- I realise I forgot to finished off the colouring for the background when it was my part of the animatic 

My recent progress on working on Becky (third year) film background 

Absent Minded Space Child Production Bible.

This is my version of a dtiys at stripes.l on Instagram, their work is too cute 💕

Teaser:

A computer game enthusiast, “E” travels blindly through time, changing her past and future only to arrive at an unfamiliar reality.

Synopsis:

E is an average girl who plays way too many PC games, as a result of this she has a somewhat zombie-like appearance. One day when playing she travels through time and visits her past, however, she is oblivious to the fact that she time travelled and is constantly glued to her PC screen through the entire phenomenon, not realising she’s permanently altering her past. A tragic event occurs in front of her just as she time travels back, this causes her future to change without her knowledge or memories of the experience ever occurring, thus leaving E to return to an unrecognisable life.

Plot/ Animation Techniques:

This story is about a young teenage girl oblivious to the world around her, which inevitably ruins her life and changes the lives of the people she cares about in the past.

The story unfolds with little clues and hints that the past E visit is her own and that the people that she encounters are her parents (for the audience to relate to the character E but at the same time feel for her too).

Hopefully, the software I use this time would be TV Paint compared to Photoshop from my last project, but I guess whatever software I use I want to convey to the story with a lot of lighting in my animation to symbolise the bigger picture, what is happening around the character and how it can affect the story.

Soundtrack/ audio:

For my two minute film I don’t feel like I should have audio as I want the audience to focus more on the background then the characters talking, I do though want a sort of chilling sound in the background that slowly sounds darker as the film progress.

All Character Sheet/ information of that character:

E : She 19 years old female, she enjoys playing PC games, isn’t really interested in making friends unless it’s online, and doesn’t really leave her room. Although she seems unsociable, she has a big heart for the people she cares about.

Like her parents!

Kara & Karl Jeffery (age 32 and 35) both of her parents care for and play with E so they support her dream of becoming a pro gamer, although they worry for their daughter when she doesn’t leave her room for 2 weeks. Kara is outgoing and Karl can be quiet, they are the perfect couple.

This is the younger version of Katelyn Jeffery (age 11) before she dyed her hair and formally goes by E. Katelyn was a joyful, outgoing child that was very curious about the world around her before she played video games.

Concept Art (Style Frames):

I wanted to convey the bigger picture when drawing this concept art with a sort of night and day as the character E isn’t fazed with the things around her and is glued to the screen, not realising the lights keep flickering.

Late Night Gaming The Full Story: ( new title: Absent minded space child)

The gamer girl known as “E” casually starts her day playing games in a very messy room with her favourite items in the background (Pokemon, family portraits, figurines, anime posters). One night as she prepares for a gaming session, a pop-up ad appears on her screen called “time travellers the game” (free 1-hour trial). E willingly downloads the game and opens the application. This then quickly shoots her 8 years  back in time (the audience can know what year she visits as the calendar on her desk shows the date and time she time travels)

E is transported into a long hallway where a family of three (a mother, father, and young child) are exiting their flat.

They are startled to see a teenage girl on her PC in front of their door however though nothing of it and assuming she was the new neighbour's child (E also doesn’t pay any attention even oblivious that she just travelled in time as she is too invested in the game).

After the family leaves, E travels through time again, however, this time she moves forward in time where she is in a gaming store surrounded by other, oblivious gamer’s a father and daughter walk by.

E then travels to a few hours later but this time into the middle of a road at night where an ongoing taxi is heading her way, E still doesn’t notice her surroundings, however, can time travel out of the situation, unfortunately, the passengers in that taxi were harmed  only leaving one survivor.

For the final scene E is in a foggy field wherein the far distance the audience can see figures in the background of fog surrounding two graves and a small silhouette. Finally, E returns to 2022 to a clean room where most of the items in the background are gone and revealing that the two people that died were her parents  as the family portrait in the background is replaced with a shrine dedicated to them. E finally switches off the PC and heads out the door into the hallway to visit her dead parents.

(NOTE: a Dark twist can be E revealing that now she is in a wheelchair due to “the accident”).