Proposal

Working Title:

Attack of the Creature from Planet TrES 2B: Alien World Blacker than Coal!

Outline Description:

The project is a mock trailer for a 1950’s style B-movie. I will write a short script for the movie itself. It will be an old-fashioned love story of young sweethearts separated by an alien attack on planet earth. 

The main animation will be done in 3D. All the characters and environments will be computer generated. The creature will be animated in Stop Motion. I will make a model out of clay and film short scenes using Stop Motion software, these scenes will then be composited into the 3D environment.

Rationale for Project Choice:

The main reason I have chosen to do this project is my own personal interest in B-movies. I really enjoy horror films of that era, as this was before the invention of CGI and the special effects that were used were a lot more creative. I chose to animate the Creature in Stop Motion as homage to Ray Harryhausen, who was one of the original visual effects pioneers.  I feel the Stop Motion will add that authentic B-movie feel to the trailer.

Another reason I chose to do some of the animation in Stop Motion is that with the rise of CG animation, it seems to be a dying medium. I also think it would be a great addition to my portfolio.

I chose to do the majority of the animation in 3D to further develop my modelling and animating skills that I’ve built up over the past year.

Areas for Investigation:

Two of the main areas I will have to look into are lip-syncing and facial animation. I haven’t done any 3D animations with talking characters, so I will need to learn how I would achieve this. Thankfully, there are plenty of online tutorials and I am doing a Sound for Animation workshop at the University. The workshop should also help with the music side of the project.

Although I have done Stop Motion before, my past projects were of silhouettes or 2D drawings, so animating the Creature will also be a new practice for me. I will need to work out which material would be best for sculpting the model.

Background Research:

In order to learn more on the subject I have watched various B Movies, including Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space, which has a similar feel to what I’m planning to achieve in regards to the style and over dramatic acting. In regards to research on the Creature I watched some pre 1960’s Harryhausen films. The stop motion animation in Mighty Joe Young is exactly how I plan to animate my Creature. The rigidness of the movements will add that old fashioned feel to my trailer. The main creature, Ymir, from 20 Million Miles to Earth is a big inspiration for my Creature, as well as the Creature From Black Lagoon (aesthetically).

I have also watched a number of trailers for films of that era. Although they all tend to be longer than my trailer is going to be (~30 seconds), I still managed to get the general feel of them. I noticed that many of those films had very long titles, so as a nod to that the title to my mock film is overly long. I noticed the font choice is very important and have managed to find some interesting fonts online. I have also researched the general look and feel of Black and White footage of that period, as I will try to emulate this in my animation.

As well as looking into films, I have also done some  research on various planets. I chose Planet TrES 2B as it’s currently the darkest known exoplanet. The planet reflects less light than coal (hence the title of my project) and the cause of the darkness is still unknown.

As part of my research on Ray Harryhausen, I went to the London Film Museum, which had some of his work as well as other interesting exhibits. I watched Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan (2011), which is a documentary of his career, with interviews from Harryhausen, tributes from famous directors that were inspired by his work as well as behind the scenes footage of Harryhausen animating and creating the effects. I have also contacted Bradford National Museum regarding arranging an appointment to see their collection of Harryhausen’s work.

Literature review:

SHAW, S. et al. (2004) Stop Motion: Craft Skills for Model Animation. Amsterdam; Oxford: Focal

HARRYHAUSEN, R. & DALTON, T. (2004) Ray Harryhausen: an Animated Life. New York: Billboard Books

OSIPA, J. (2010) Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing

JESSEN, T. 2005. Ray Harryhausen: It Came From the Animation Table. AnimationWorld [Online]. [Accessed 15 October, 2013]. Available from: http://www.awn.com

JACKSON, W. 1997. An Interview With Aardman's Peter Lord. Animation World Magazine. [Online]. 2(2). [Accessed 15 October, 2013]. Available from: http://www.awn.com

http://www.stopmotioncentral.com

http://www.digitaltutors.com

http://www.imdb.com

Methodology: 

As I mentioned before, majority of the animation will be done in 3D. For this I will be using 3D Coat and Maya to model the characters. The environment modelling and character animation will also be done in Maya. I don’t have a huge amount of experience using Maya to animate, so I thought this would be a good way to learn more about the software as it seems to be the industry standard, but my lack of knowledge could also be a potential problem.

The Creature will be a clay model and will be animated through Stop Motion software, such as DragonFrame or iStopMotion. Animating the Creature this way will give the film an authentic B movie quality. It can be a long, painstaking process, as a simple mistake can be a huge drawback.

I will be editing the animation in Nuke or After Effects. I plan on having three layers for the scenes with the Creature: the background - environment, the middle ground – stop motion animation of the Creature in front of a green screen and the foreground – the human 3D characters.

I will also use After Effects or Nuke to colour correct the animation and add some effects to make it appear more authentic.

Research Ethics:

After looking into research ethics, I feel that this project will not provide any ethical problems.

Project Plan:

Week	Tasks	Deadlines
Week Starting 14/10/13	Finalise idea, Submit Proposal	Proposal- 18th October
Week Starting 21/10/13	Script, Concept Art, Storyboard
Week Starting 28/10/13	3D Modeling
Week Starting 04/11/13	3D Modeling
Week Starting 11/11/13	3D Modeling, Previs, Clay Model Sculpting
Week Starting 18/11/13	Stop Motion Animation
Week Starting 25/11/13	Stop Motion Clean up	Progress Review- 29th November
Week Starting 02/12/13	Recording Voiceovers
Week Starting 09/12/13	3D Animation
Christmas Holiday	3D Animation
Week Starting 06/01/14	3D Animation
Week Starting 13/01/14	3D Animation
Week Starting 20/01/14	3D Animation
Week Starting 27/01/14	3D Animation
Week Starting 03/02/14	3D Animation
Week Starting 10/02/14	Editing
Week Starting 17/02/14	Editing, Sound
Week Starting 24/02/14	Render
Week Starting 03/03/14	Render, Compositing
Week Starting 10/03/14	Compositing, VFX, Titles
Week Starting 17/03/14	Report	Product Submission- 21st March
Week Starting 24/03/14	Report Submission	Report Submission -28th March

Project Deliverables:

The final product will be a narrative driven 30-60 second animation, consisting of a combination of 3D and Stop Motion techniques. I think this combination of techniques; as well as various effects will make a very good addition to my professional portfolio as well as a good submission for animation festivals. I will also produce a report.