Send Pix

I always like chronicling the stupid, meaningless adventures of life. I mean, you spend a lot of your life living, and not all of it is exciting, beautiful, or even has to tell a concrete story with morals. The two characters whose precious moments I will be telling is Jack Velasquez and Zachary Flynn.




Proposal

The object of the short is to capture a few seconds in the life of this carefree couple. Jack's character usually means well and tries his best to make his friends and family happy. Zachary, on the other hand, is usually rushed, hasty, and sarcastic, coming off as mean when he doesn't intend it.

The short will be done in one long take, starting on Jack. He has just turned on his new cell phone and wants to try and call Zachary to see if it works. He discovers that his phone can send pictures to people, so he takes a dorky picture of himself and tries to send it to Zachary. He starts shouting to Zachary, who's in the kitchen, and asks him questions that could be easily answered if they were in the same room. At the very end of the short, Zachary walks in and asks Jack what he wants him to see, and his cell phone beeps and tells him a new picture has arrived. He looks at the picture and rolls his eyes and smirks, leaving Jack a little annoyed.

With this project, I plan to:

1) Tell a very short story is a precise and comical way.
2) Create believable and well-animated characters.
3) Focus on creating a detailed background, since the short will only have one.


Assets

Character rigs:
Each character will need their own adjustable set of-
1) Face
2) Neck
3) Chest/Torso
4) Upper arms
5) Forearms
6) Palms
7) Fingers/Thumbs
8) Adjustable hair front/back

The basic character animation will be done in After Effects. The lip sync and eye details will be done in Flash.

Props:
1) Jack's cell phone
2) Jack's cell phone box
3) Zachary's cell phone

Background
Foreground (table top)


Schedule

The project is due on May 8th, so from this point on I have three weeks to complete it. So far the script is finished, and assets are coming together quickly. Here's a tentative schedule:

Week 1 (April 19th-25th)
+ Finish gathering assets
+ Record voices
+ Begin principle animation

Week 2
+ Continue principle animation
+ Begin lip sync and eye detail

Week 3
+ Finish lip sync and eye detail
+ Finish minor effects/gloss it up/make it pretty.



Since there aren't any camera moves, and a lot of the script is left to be ad libbed by my actors, I'm waiting for recording to be over before I spend precious time mapping out in storyboards. Here's an example of the basic layout (shot with a picture from my webcam... Sorry, my scanner's acting a little off right now.)


I normally use a limited color palette in my animations, but I want this one to be in color. The background will probably be limited to one color, probably dull so it will contrast with the lively colors of the characters. The characters will not have outlines, and gradients will be used for shadows. The characters will be rigged together using the puppet tool in After Effects, and some of the more fluid body movements will be used with the pushpin tool. I've never used After Effects for an animation project before, and I've also never even used the puppet tool, so this will be a learning experience for me. As the progress... progresses, I'll post what I have finished so far here.