Animatic

To make my animatic I took my story board frames and put them into final cut pro. Here is my first animatic:

As you can see it runs far to fast, I think this happened because I'd been watching it so many times. I learnt that I would have to get my friends to look it over and tell me where it needed to be slower and what didn't make sence. I also didn't really like the music choosen anymore, it was to redgmented and I had subcontily edited the animatic timings to the music.

This copy of my animatic has some early animation clips in. You can see the shots I cut out. Most of the long shots are just stills to show what the film would look like.  

Turn arounds

Sea Gull Turn around

Fat Pigeon Turn around

Main Pigeon Turn around

Thin Pigeon Turn around

Robot Turn around

Armatures

All the pigeon armatures are going to be basically the same. All the main pigeon is going to have different is the quiff, which is going to be created by two bits of wire coming out of the top of it head.

There going to be made using Balsa wood and Aluminum wire, with feet big enough for tie downs. There going to be stuffed, using toy stuffing to there different shapes, eg. fat pigeon had more stuffing. One the outside there going to be dressed in light grey fabric, with black bands on there wings. beak, legs and feet to be made using modeling clay.

For the mini pigeon its going to be a solid block for body, head, tail and feet attached with wire. No wire wings, just fabric stuck on outside.

Seagull is also to be made with wire and wood, stuffed and dressed with white fabric, with grey on the wings and black on the tail. Beak and feet made with modeling clay.

Bombs, benches and set designs

I wanted the bomb to be instantly recognizable as a bomb, so I new I would have to go down the route of well known bombs.

I think I'm going to go with the dynamite because that recognizable and is an interesting shape so will drawn the eye.

The bench has to be something solid to hold the weight of the robot model and up to four birds. I had to have this in mind when designing.

I like the second bench design the best, but I think I will have to make the bars thicker.

Set design. I'm going to have to make three sets. One for one distance. Which will consist on a robot, bench, set on a path and surround with blue screen so I can add digital backgrounds later. This set will also need a set of little birds.

The next set will be of the robot sat on the bench, this will be for all the other shots, and made in such detail that when shooting it will look up to standard.

The last set will be on the bomb and robot leg, this will be for the shots of the pigeon while on the floor. The second set of pigeon will be made in ratio to the second and third set, making sure that the main pigeon can fit under the bench.

Time to design the robot

The robot went through different stages of development. At first it was going to be human looking, so the surprise at the end was that the robot was in face a robot, but as the story developed so did the designs.

I wanted the robot to have a human feel, so that the audience new it was a robot, but that pigeons couldn't tell. It also had to have a look of not being quite right, i bit like a clown.

The idea for it to have "pest control" written on it came at the beginning as well. So the audience new what the story was kinda about.

I didn't like the fist design (top on), I thought it was too simple, not really scary enough. It was then when I started to look at old tin toys. I really liked there hand painted look and the way they where put together. I tried to get this look into the next two designs.

As this was going on the story was still developing. I'd decided that the robot should have some type of gage to help build up tension.

So I designed different types of gages going with the arrow one because that would be easier to make and would look effective.

I also tried out different heads, to try and get the sinister feeling I was going for. In the end I've gone for this design (on the left), as a feel that gets the look and feel of a tin toy, and would look out of place sat in a park.

Now its the SeaGull's turn...

I started to design the Sea gull by doing real life drawing, like what I did with the Pigeon.

I found this helpful because I could get the shapes and proportions right of the bird.

In my animation the Sea gull is going to fly in, so I found it really helpful to see and draw a sea gull when it is in the air.

This helped when designing armatures.

I found it hard to design the Sea gull character, as it had to be more detailed then the pigeons, but still be in the same style.

Also this character is the "Bad Guy", is it had to have that type of look.

Pigeon Character Design

I wanted my Pigeon's to have a simple design, because i new i would have to make quite a lot of them.

My first design was these two pigeon on the left, but because of there big eyes it made them look to owl like, i liked the size of them though and that there where stood up right.





These next two Pigeons, the extreme fat and thin one's. Pigeons all looked the same so I had to find a way so that the audience wouldn't get confused one which character was which.

This Pigeon, the extreme fat one, was scraped because it's to extreme, and i thought that if I put extreme characters in it would be sending a different message in the story about greed in this cace.

The thin one apart from being way to tall and it would have been a job to get it to stand up, it also would be sending mixed messages.

The next two drawings are also a fat and thin pigeon. I had liked the idea of using this kid of think so you could tell the difference, but not going to the extremes. So i came up with these two, which i liked.

I also tried out drawing a girly pigeon, to see if that would work. I quite liked the out come. But if a put a girl in the story i believe I'd have to put some kind of love interested or Pigeons trying the impress her. Which i believe took away from the simplicity of the story.





The last two drawing's are of the main Pigeon, the little brave pigeon who try's to save the day. I had to make this one the most recognizable. That's why i gave him a tuffed of feathers on his head, or his quiff.

I think this gives him a more youthful look and helps him to stand out.