The Plan...

OK, we have officially started production! Lets talk about our schedule. Looks like Im handling the layout stuff at the moment. Still need to check everything with the tutors to make sure there is no problems (last time I checked our storyboard with Parr he only pointed out little bits to change and almost nothing to change from the story so I hope the changes we made covers those issues). Otherwise, I can do nothing but go ahead and do the layouts. And for my lovely animators we've been discussing our assualt and this is what we come up with...
2 weeks - Finish the character designs
2 weeks - Produce Model Sheets
2 weeks - Learn to draw the characters (and do animation tests)

Stages of animation:
Rough -> Clean Up -> Trace

Scene Distribution:
We talked about this a bit and I think what we will do is hand out the scenes as you finish them. But if you have a preference to a particular scene, let me know your top 3 choices and we'll see what happens :)

Title Shot

Upper section complete. Unfortunately I couldnt find the P-man today and we're kinda still in the induction period so it doesnt look like we will be able to find him for a tutorial in the next few days. But fingers crossed anyway. Our editor is on the animatic case. So fingers crossed again that we could get that timed out spot on which would help the animation loads!
Anyway, Ive also included a lil title to the opening scene. I had a few ideas for the title shot. It could pop up at the start, middle or end. This shows how it'll look if its at the start. It'll fade in and fade out as the camera pans down (following a cherry blossom petal falling). There might be some Chinese texts to go with the English tittle too.
The version where the title appears in the middle is a bit iffy. Prob not gonna use it but it would have appeared between the scenes where the master hits the boy and throws him out. But it would probably slow the pace of the film own.
Or it could appear at the end like I showed on the original animatic from the pitch when the door slams shut and all goes black, the text will pop out.
Oh, and what do people think of the name of the film so far anyway? Its not set in stone so if we can come up with something better then that would be a plus. But I think the title we have so far is decent. Perhaps we can have a slogan too?

The Beginning Of It All!

Its the early hours of the official starting day for the grad film productions and what a way to celebrate with the painting of the first shot being completed! Theres still the upper section of the pan to be completed but here is the 'juicy' part of it. Still need to talk with the tutors about our plan so lets hope we get the all-clear in a couple of hours time. Right Im off to bed.

Girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllll

I gave the girl another go. Kept it really simple this time. I tried to match TJ's design style he used on the boy character. She's not too difficult to draw, but I'll develop a more solid and systematic method for drawing her face if we go with this idea.

Our New Home!

Doesnt it feel like you just moved in to a new lovely penthouse? This is where we will be making magic for a year. We only have the three tables on the left side. The Risk team is right behind us there... We could nick it off em ;)
We also have a lovely view out the window. I bet we could even climb out there and onto that lil roof and put a few lightboxes there and a couple of deck chairs!
Anddddddddd... we get a lovely view of the first years too!
O and and and... New whealy chairs! No more walking!
OK, now imagine that place alive with animation paper spilling everywhere and pencil sharpenings flooding the place! Lets get decorating!

EDIT: A bit off topic, but we may be able to get a model maker to help us make models of the characters to help us out with visualizing the characters in 3d. But we'll probably need the model sheets to start that. And I also have quite a complex female manikin that I'll bring in to help with posing the girl character.

Productionish Stillish

Heres an idea of what teh production still might look like. This is mainly a mock up to show how the layout and characters could fit together. I used the blur effect I explained to TJ to creat a kind of depth of field look. Enjoy!

ReDrawn the Opening Layout

Yeah, I couldnt help myself and I went and redrew the first layout. I need to go out sometime :P