- Establishing shot of a forest environment
- Close up shot of a puddle
- Character runs camera tracks footsteps briefly
- Medium shot revealing the character, still running
- Camera is looking out through a hollow tree log, character runs past it
- Character comes back
- Character inspects the log
- Character hears a loud roar and climbs inside the log
- Character is hiding inside the log, visibly anxious breathing heavily
- The log is picked up and moved
- Character crawls to the other side of the log and jumps
- Character runs and reaches a dead end
- Unknown organism approaches, covers character in shadow
- Character covers his face and looks worried
- Character starts screaming as he is falling to his back
- Scream transitions into laughter
- Medium shot revealing he is being tickled
- Camera zooms out revealing a friendly looking monster is playing with the character and they were playing tag all along
The first storyboard idea as per this weeks assignment brief, the idea behind this storyboard is playing with building up tension and subverting expectation. For my FMP I want to focus on body mechanics and animation, for this reason I chose to work with only one humanoid character to really focus on the quality of the animation, this storyboard idea was developed with that in mind.
Below is the second storyboard idea. This storyboard also explores building tension and subverting expectation, albeit at a slightly humorous way.
The idea behind this storyboard is a man walking into an alley and keeps climbing up until he reaches the top of a water tank on a rooftop where he finally sits down. His motive is hidden until he reaches the top where it is revealed he was looking for a quiet and peaceful place to have his lunch, but right before he takes his first bite a crow flies by and steals his lunch. Again the formula here is build up tension, and through some kind of revelation release tension and subvert the viewers expectations.
Idea 3 below
Wide shot overlooking a fishing village, in the distance we can see a rowing boat and a figure on the boat
Move closer to the boat showing a person rowing a small handmade fishing boat
Fishing rod in one hand and rowboat oars in the other hand the man lets go of the oar but accidentally drops it in the ocean
Close up of his face revealing that he is blind and old
Under water shot from below the boat looking up towards the boat
We can see the rowing oar sinking, something moves in the water
The old man throws his bait
Bait lands in the water
A small fish approaches and inspects
Suddenly the fish is startled by something
The fish is scared and swims away
Camera angle changes and reveals what the other fish was scared of, we see the large head of a fish moving towards the bait
Closer
Closer
A giant fish swallows the bait and surfaces from the water
The fish stares at the old man
Wide shot reveals the size of the fish compared to the small boat
The fish pulls the string, the old man is too stubborn to let go and flies along with the rod
The fish swallows the stubborn old man because he refused to let go
This idea is inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s novel the old man and the sea.
I did not fully storyboard this idea because by this point I had decided to further develop storyboard 1 and due to other course work decided move on as this was taking too much time. The rest of the story is that the old man is swallowed by the fish and in the belly of the fish meets other fishermen like him. Each person tells their story of how they just like the old man had gone out to the sea, caught a giant fish and ended up in its belly. Listening to the others the old man realizes that they all ended up in their current predicament because they were to stubborn and unable to let go and change direction when met with adversary. Suddenly everything starts spinning, a hole appears above them and air is sucked out, everyone grabs onto something and they yell at the old man
“grab onto something as tight as you can otherwise you will go”.
“Go where?” The old man replies.
“To the other side, dummy!”
“What’s on the other side?”
“No one knows, none have returned!”
The old man decides to let go and is sucked out through the hole by the air current. The old man wakes up at the shore and realizes the hole was the fishes air hole and if all the others had let go they too would be on the beach with him. The End.
This idea is too narrative driven and for my FMP I want to focus mostly on animation quality and animation fundamentals, for this purpose I decided to go with storyboard 1. Storyboard 1 shorter and concise, it allows me to focus on quality rather than quantity and since I’m not a generalist and strictly want to animate storyboard 1 is a more appropriate project to focus on.