BSA324: Skyway Robbery (Progress blog) - Chris Sutton

23rd May - Still storyboarding Containing work on Storyboards, several changes after script rewrite. Script is now a bit shorter after changes made at Rachel's suggestion. Current speed of storyboarding is too slow. I need to look at how I can speed up. Remade small Victorian wall lamp. textures/materials still playing up. Need to find a solution soon.

16 May - Poster and Technique thoughts Showed the "One small step" trailer to Rachel. We talked briefly about the technique. To my surprise, the characters are 3D animated with a toon shader and the shots have added lighting done in After effects. This cause me to raise a question with myself, "could my animation be totally 3D?" After looking back at my script and storyboards, I think the answer is a firm no. While I like the style and I would love to try it, that way I have written the story would simple mean that creating characters in 3D is more work that just hand drawing them. I might have gotten away with it if there were less characters, but the presence of other airship passengers and crew means that I would need to model way more than 4 characters.  Even if I'm not making 3d characters, there is still things I can learn from this. Rachel mentioned that the animation uses Adobe Affect effects to add extra post render lighting to scenes. Consid...

12 May - Title, 1st draft script Finished the first draft of the script and set Rachel as a collaborator so she can view the script on Celtx. Will send a copy via email with the draft of my PikPok cover sheet. I have a few post-finish thoughts about the script. The dialogue feels a bit forced. Rewriting it after a bit of feedback is probably in order. Might run it past some of my classmates for proof reading and feedback. The script is currently set at 6 pages. I'm a bit worried that it is too much. There is a saying or rule that a page of script is about 1 minute of screen time. If that is true, my animation will go over my 4 minute aim time. Will need to check if script can be trimmed for clarity and time out storyboards. Finished a typography test for my title. I'm not going to lie, I'm not very happy with it. I put it into the music and audio poster and the title just felt out of place. Might need to try things from a different angle. One small step - ...

May 9th - Script and modeling Currently working on the re-written script. While it is quite late in the cycle, this changes needed to happen. The best part of this was the chance to attempt some decent character driven dialogue. Once it is done I should get some feedback on it. 

4th to 7th May - Feedback and Changes Question Rewrite Redoing the question for my project with suggestions from Rachel. Main suggestion was that I need to include a "Why". This can be a "why do I think this will help the product?" or a "why do I think this is important for audience enjoyment". What Immersive character driven crime adventure action short animation How Using a steampunk/ retro science fiction inspired 2D/3D cartoon hybrid animation Why? New Zealand science fiction identity? Interesting genre – promote the genre Themes – Classism, Personal gains vs Moral responsibility Fun/ Entertainment value Critique Feedback Be less negative, add some positive notes in the critique Add the moral tale to the research question -Julia moral and character development Try move away from Hullabaloo a bit in art style. Look through other references and artist models. Consider investigating old/vintage footage - Look and ...

May 2nd and 3rd - Julia Practice, OBS and rewriting - Chris Sutton Finished a sketch of Julia as a means of practicing the art style. Pretty happy with it, hopeful the style is okay, I am slowly getting better at it. Still not sure if I want to have Julia's Grapple hook device to double as a walking cane or a parasol. Something I could discuss with Rachel I guess. For future note, goggles/safari hat is probably the hardest part to draw. Look into way to make it easier for consistency. I should find some time to do the other characters as well. Maybe even some side characters, like the crew and passenger X. Need to restart the airship model so I can record the "making of" for the next exhibition. This would be a great addition to the exhibition that could be shown on a TV alongside animation roughs. Did a rewrite of the synopsis/Story. Revised 2 scenes. This was so the scenes were more focused on the characters and their actions were more true to their actua...