Pre-Production - Concept Art

I'm slowly learning the tracing method as a way to develop the concept art for my short. I am aware that i need to get some reference material especially for the clothing, styles etc for the flashback scenes and also the trains. I have some good ideas about where to get this information. I am experimenting with online photo galleries as a means to store/present this reference material.

At the moment i'm still unsure about which 3D modelling software i will be using. I've completed Max fundamentals and so i'm comfortable with Max bit i still would love to use Maya.
I have the Maya fundamentals series already (as well as tons of other maya material) but i'm not sure i can get up to speed in time for the modelling phase of the short. Also the ADP videos are in Maya so thats another reason to go with it.

Final story submitted.

Working title: A Promise to return.

Present day 11^th November
Scene 1
Open with old man on a railway platform. He looks small and frail but wise, against the big train and dark station.
He places his suitcase and sits. The tag on the suitcase shows the name R.Newman
He sits and smiles as he remembers a happy time in his life, a similar journey he took many years ago when he was a much younger man.

Scene 2
The old man smiles, the camera moves towards his eyes, really close.
As he blinks - we transition back into the past, the year is 1939

(shot in black and white, older style train).
The man is in his early 20’s. He is talking with a beautiful young woman, Marie, who is the love of his life. They are on the train and he is leaving for the war. The conversation is about love and their future. She makes him promise that he will return, and explains that she is pregnant.

Scene 3
We now cut back to now. (Overlap sound of present day with the old conversation)
A man is now seated, engrossed a book and a woman enters the carriage. She is sad and upset. There has been a death in the family. She arranges her belongings on the table and sits quietly. Amongst her possessions are an invitation and some old letters.
The old man watches her, she looks like/reminds him of his Marie, and he can see she is upset. As the old man gets up to leave, he pauses, smiles and then kisses her hand. As he leaves the carriage he gently knocks the woman’s book on the floor.

The man seated opposite hears the book fall on the floor. They both bend to pick up the book and that’s the first time he sees her. The woman says thanks, asks if he saw that and the man says he was too involved with his book to notice. The couple have books with the same author. This is enough to get them talking, it’s a start of a new relationship.

Scene 4

The train pulls in for the station. We see the old man with suitcase in hand, exit the train, into the arms of his Marie. As they embrace we see the old couple fade back to their younger selves and slowly fade away.

As the camera turns we see the young couple from the train, walking towards the newly built war memorial for Remembrance Day, near the bottom of the list is the woman’s grandfather’s name R.Newman who died in war 1944

Dedication:

Dedicated to the ones we love.

Soundtrack
Marie by Randy Newman

Visual clues

Old man and young man & woman are wearing poppies. He’s also has an invitation.

In woman’s possessions visible on the table is invitation to unveiling of the new memorial, she misses the ceremony due to attending her grandmothers funeral.

She also has the letters her grandfather sent whilst away in the war. The reference to rivers, rainbow and flowers is from the ‘Marie’ song

Have a purse/ID just visible with surname Newman visible if you look closely.

Modeling notes

The war memorial will be modeled from one that is in my village.

Use same base model of girl for the females in the story, modified but close enough to see resemblance (as actors in film, Bicentennial man)

Premise: Love is a force that lingers, can be transferred. The old man passes on the love for his grandaughter

The old man died in the war and is making the journey he promised to be with his wife.

Influences:
Titanic, Amelie , before sunset/sunrise, sixth sense, Bicentennial man.

The Website could be redesigned old fashioned world war 2 poster styled . New logo mixture of 1940’s/1990’s train tickets.

Revised story.

Premise:
Love comes when you least expect it

Scene 1
Open with old man on a railway platform. He looks small and frail but wise, against the big train and dark station.
He places his suitcase and sits. The tag on the suitcase shows the name R Newman
He sits and smiles as he remembers a happy time in his life, a similar journey he took many years ago when he was a much younger man.

Scene 2
(as the old man smiles , the camera moves towards his eyes, really close.
As he blinks - we transition to the past, maybe in B&W)
The man is now talking with a beautiful girl, Marie, the girl who will turn out to be the love of his life. The conversation is about love, the future and how love can happen when you least expect it.

Scene 3
We now cut back to now. (overlap sound of now with the old conversation)
A young man is now seated reading a book and a woman enters the carriage. She is sad (maybe upset). She arranges her belongings and sits quietly. (She might have a book by the same author within her possessions)

The old man watches her, he senses she is upset. As the old man gets up to leave, he pauses, smiles and then kisses her hand. She obviously stunned.
He then makes his way to the doors of the train; meanwhile the two passengers then begin to talk about what just happened. This is the start of their relationship.

We then see a close up of the doors opening, to see an old woman, Marie, waiting for him on the platform.


Influences:
Titanic, Amelie, before sunset/sunrise.

Soundtrack
Marie by Randy Newman

Website update 2 + zbrush videos

website.
i've made some progress but stuggling to get roll over buttons working. they work fine in golive using preview in firefox but after the first use in a browser they fail to appear again. any ideas anyone?

I'm new to web design so the website is always gonna be a work in progress as far as the actual design/layout of it.
I'm not enjoying the golive workflow at all. i find my page blowing up at every occasion and i have to backtrack alot to keep on course. At some point i hope to convert to dreamweaver as i am about to do an adobe cs3 course which covers dreamweaver.

zbrush.
I watch the first 4 videos and i have started to get the hang of the interface. The videos are top notch (as usual) and are far easier to understand than the other competitors videos (e.g digital tutors, gnomon etc)
Video 5 has been posted this evening but i've concentrated on the website tonight (i would definately prefer to learn zbrush than the struggle i have with golive!)

website update

I've spent most of the weekend doing my first website. I'm working in golive cs3 using the tutorials (cs2) and finding the whole thing rather fiddly. Golive seems to blow up every time i insert something new. I think i'm getting the hang of it now but i've found it very frustrating.

I got the main pages set up now, and i'm hoping the content will be easier to put in place.

slow progress.....

I'm slowly learning how to construct a web site!
The website is gonna be pretty basic to start with until i get enough knowledge to make the changes.
At the moment i just want to get a website up and running because i would really prefer to use my time on the animation development rather than web design. I know more videos are due early next week so really i need a basic site prior to those being available.

I've decided to go with the train idea but obviously it needs more development.

I also need to make progress with MAYA. I've complete MAX fundamentals but really want to get into MAYA. I already have Maya fundamentals and other maya training as well as the new videos coming up so it seems like the right thing to do.

Story Ideas

1. Camping trip

Boys on a camping trip to the woods with parents. (parents only seen from waist down - idea is to keep views from kids worlds?)
Smaller boy walking in front with bigger step-brother engaging in conversation, (demonstrates their relationship! maybe small boy finds a bug and brother squashes it?)
The family are at the campfire at night. the family (maybe Dad) tells spooky stories to the boy (torch up to face etc).
Smaller boy looks frightened and says he better turn in ,(runs to his tent , last of the 3 tents). Bully says hes a wuss.

Later bully in tent hears noises outside tent. (build tension!) Pokes head out and gets fright of his life when he sees the monster he described in the story. Bully runs to mummy and daddy.
Ends with reveal of small kid made up as monster, covered in moss, twigs, branches etc laughing to himself.



2 Train journey

An old man on in a train carriage enjoying the scenery and rhythmic sounds of the train.
A second passenger enters, clumsily dropping handbag, papers and she also has mobile phone clutched to the ear (thinking female office type!),talking loudingly with big gestures. Spoils the peaceful scene, and as each conversation ends she immediatly rings another friend/colleague

A second passenger enters, rough thug type

As train goes through a tunnel the old man seizes his chance to get revenge, he switches the mobile phone with something of the thugs (not sure yet!)

As the light fills the carriage we see them both shocked and the thug then staring menacing. The lady then sits in silence and the old man chuckles to himself.

2b Train journey Alternative…..
The third passenger is a fit, male model type who the girl obviously fancies.
When the train emerges from the tunnel there is a handwritten note next to the man say “I love you" or "you're fit”. The man thinks its from the girl and he smiles at her. They then talk quietly and the old man (cupids) work is done.



3 Imagination.

Idea… to show a young boys imagination. Show how things are used in play, such as trees turning to monsters, trolley becoming race car or space ship. Not sure of details just general idea.

Maybe work the other way….

Start with boy in action sequence in costume (superhero, armour clad, spy, pirate ?). or short intro ... "previously on " sort of thing
Go through action and just as they are about to ..walk the plank, ejected into space, etc
His mum shouts him for dinner and scene dissolves (morphes?) back to garden scene with all the props shown from the previous scene e.g his pet dog could be his nemesis, trees as columns? Etc.

Progress so far....

I'm currently watching the web design videos and working on the design of my site.

Also trying to get a story sorted out. I would like my site to reflect the story so not sure what to do with the site!

At the moment i'm feeling excited about the next 6/8 months but also worried, scared that i've got too much to learn.

My feeling towards developing the story are that i really need to get it right. A good story in animation is very important.
Then sometimes i think that even if the story is not brilliant i'm still gonna learn loads in the process. Is this a cop-out?

I'm gonna put the 3/4 stories i have so far in the next post.

First Blog entry! Hello