Simple Design

Commercials are saturated with great animation, story, and design.  Some of the best talent are assigned to this challenging medium.  Every element has to be deliberate and nothing can be wasteful or irrelevant.

I like the coke commercials because they design the characters around human sensory.  Eyeball personifies a specific traight and act accordingly.  While the tongue and finger have their own attributes.  You can do more with less!  The inventiveness and clever design makes this commercial…

A unique twist

A 60 second commercial can tell a complete story…

The setup: nerdy man runs into a couple of street wise rappers

Conflict: his integrity

Climax: he puts the rappers back into their place

Resolution: Wins the admiration of the rappers

Story Reel

Here’s another version of the story reel by a former student of my at Sheridan.

watch it several times and with each time pay attention to these elements:

Timing/Editing:how long are the shots on the screen?

Staging: how he designs each shot

Posing: line of action, strong poses, and the sequence of action

Conflicts

Here’s a demo sheet on how to build up conflicts.  Now since your film is short and sweet you may only have just one or two conflicts, but make them good!

Line of Action

Storyboard/Story Reel assignments DUE TUE NOV 3rd

I will combine these two and make them both due TUE Nov 3.

Storyboard: 10 pts

Staging(5): How you frame the characters within the camera.  Good solid design! Cinematic range of far, medium and close ups.

Posing(5): Your characters should have solid performance with line of action and expressive poses.

Storyreel:10pts

Timing(4): Are your shots well timed out.  Not too fast or too slow.  Is your setup, conflict, climax and resolution build up properly

Cinematic(4): Do your cuts flow and lead the audience in a logical path.

Audio(2): sound effects or sound track enhance and build your film.

Deliverables:

Story boards: 8.5 x 11 72 dpi  Shots, panels and pages sequentially numbered!  I’ll include an example.

lastname_first_finalproject_storypage01.jpg, lastname_first_finalproject_storypage02.jpg

Story Reel 640×480 Quicktime

Lastname_first_finalproject_storyreel.mov

UPLOAD your storyreel onto your youtube page!

STORY ARC

By now you should have delivered the brick/leaf (5pts) and the Ball bounce (5pts)  I’ll grade those before next class.

Tuesday: have 4 panel story arc!  Based on your ceramic character.  The file should be JPG 8.5 X 11 72 dpi.  Put it up on the server in our Assign folder.  You will pitch your idea to the class on Tuesday.

I put handouts in the Story folder.  From there we will proceed to story board your film on index cards.

Setup: What is your Character’s Goal?

Conflict: What is preventing them?

Climax: The most exciting moment?

Resolution: Happy or Sad or ambiguous?

Have one sentence explanations with your panels!

here’s a worksheet to help you…

Assignment 4:Ball Bounce DUE TUE OCT 20th

Have the ball bounce once on the floor then onto the wall and then bounce back onto the floor and settle.

the ball should behave like a basket ball in nature and have convincing squash and stretch, rotation speed and ARC!

Total pts 5.

timing: 2

Arc:1

Squash/Stretch:1

Rotation:1

Render a playblast movie with the checkerboard texture on the ball so to see the proper rotation.  stage the movie from a profile with a low horizon to capture the arc and weight of the ball.  No up or down shots!

NAMING CONVENTION: lastname_first_assign4.mov

quicktime/playblast 640×480 72 dpi

make sure you folder has the proper permissions so I can upload and download files.

DUE: before class 12:30pm

Leaf Fall: ARC and Timing

Falling Leaf

Casey did a great job on the leaf assignment.  I want you to be aware of the timing of the leaf and how it falls fast and then hovers for a moment and anticipates the next arc.  I will be sending you feedback and hope you will find time to revisit this important aspect of animation.  ARCS and Timing/Spacing are very critical to get to the next step in character animation.