Storyboard + Previs

After putting ideas together as a quick storyboard, I went straight ahead to put the piece together as an initial previs, particularly in the light that it would be difficult to convey the clear camera movement that is needed within a 2D animatic. As such, we are presented with a moment of flight with Volan and his island as he searches and soars the skies.






The piece relies much on tone and atmosphere which is slowly built up with the reveal of the island and the openness of sound. These initial sound effects and camera movements will undoubtedly go through further refinements, but they begin to capture the right tonality of the piece that I am trying to convey.

Building a quick mockup of the home and island has helped to resolve and generate new ideas to the piece and designs as a whole. I am eager to resolve these elements with the character of Volan being of next priority.

The Wolves Within - Update #2

Exciting news with The Wolves Within project, as we have received some new voiceovers by Philip Banks and Jack Pernell. Big thanks to these guys!

Preview their narration below (be sure to play in 360p and above for better sound quality):

Philip Banks


Jack Parnell


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With these new voiceovers, we experimented with them on our animatic as well as introducing a new ambient type track.

Philip Banks


Jack Pernell



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Here is our most recent animatic with version #5. The narration is now delivered at the very beginning before joining the race between the two wolves, where now two background soundtracks are included for better pacing purposes; an initial track to set the tone and tension before the race, and a second track providing a build up in a pace and intensity before the final culmination at the end of the race.



Updated storyboard with our most recent changes to help keep track of things.

The Wolves Within - Update

Lots of activity over at The Wolves Within - I'm just updating things over here.


Refined Approach + Storyboard
In transcribing the original Cherokee tale of Two Wolves, our idea now consists of a race between the two wolves of good and evil, as they seek to control and dominate our actions by reaching the metaphorical representation of the human soul/psyche first (currently represented as a Native American Doll).

Throughout the race, we will see the wolves’ effects on the neutral landscape of the inner psyche; where the evil wolf brings chaos and destruction, the later brings harmony and life. Neither wolf will gain a decisive advantage, culminating to a stand-off between the two wolves. This in turn reflects the eternal strife within us where our conscience seeks to guide us to do right or wrong.


With this narrative in mind, Jolanta and I have been working on some thumbnails and storyboards which you may have seen earlier. Here we have arranged our ideas together to form our preferred approach thus far.

Essentially, the race is broken down into three acts: the evil wolf initially takes the lead demonstrating his destructive effects to the environment, then the good wolf later manages to take the lead restoring life to landscape, before finally culminating to a stand-off between the two wolves as they approach their goal.

More to come as we'll begin to form some concept art and animatics.

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Thumbs/Storyboards/References
Some work in progress storyboards



Initial thumbs


Further references


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Freud's Id, ego, super-ego
In discussion of the very core of our narrative, we found that it captures the essence of the conscience seeking to direct our lives and goals, not dissimilar to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis of the id, ego and super-ego. While not straying too far from the point, we briefly drew parallels from Freud’s theories to elements of our narrative.

Id
The evil wolf comes to represent the dark, inaccessible part of the Id, where primal instincts drive the subject to satisfy pleasures and desires in complete disregard to all else. The evil wolf brings chaos and destruction to the environment with its relentless pursuit of its goal.

Ego
Conversely, the good wolf can come to reflect the Ego, as it seeks to control the Id’s primal instincts. It too desires to control the human psyche, but to suit long term benefits as reflected in its restoration of life to the surrounding environments.

Super-ego
Lastly, the super-ego is found in the culmination of the human soul and psyche of the Native American doll. Being influenced by both id and ego (the two wolves in this case), it strives to maintain a balance to suppress the unacceptable urges of the id and make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather than on simple realistic principles. It is present in the conscious, preconscious and unconscious.

This helps to discern the essence of what each element in our narrative may come to represent.

KLED Animations Update

Just wanted to give an update over at KLED Animations. We're finishing up on Pre-Production and beginning the Production stages of the pipeline.

The proposed synoposis of our B-movie trailer:

The Day Of The Chainsaw Wielding Baby From The Centre Of The Earth

A top secret government research facility located in the centre of the Earth, becomes the root of a close guarded secret and its escape to the planets surface. The secret, known as ‘Project 6’, is an entirely synthesised baby bred to be the perfect killing machine. However, Project 6 escapes his incubation pod before fully maturing and makes a break for the surface. Alone and confused, Project 6 unleashes terror upon the unsuspecting citizens of suburban America, using his innate ability to transform his arm into a Chainsaw.

The secret government group attempt to find and return their work by any means necessary. Will Project 6 ever be free and have a real life, or will he be forced back into a cage?

Refined storyboard as shown in our Pre-Production pitch.


Our animatic showing the proposal for our trailer.


One of my primary roles on the team is to produce concept art to help visualise our trailer. A key environment included an underground laboratory where I've tried to capture an iconic scene of a baby growing in a tube/pod.



View post.




View post/references.

The elevator becomes the baby's means of escape to the surface. Initially, we thought of a old rustic sort of elevator for further atmosphere under the depths of Earth. Yet in light of the overall aesthetic, perhaps the simpler round elevator would work better particularly when rising to the surface in a comedic manner.





View post/references.

Other environments included a park where the baby will rise to the surface, to a town where the baby will begin his reign of terror. The bright and colourful aesthetic of the surface world helps provide a comedic touch with the very nature of our narrative, as well as give a strong contrast to the foreign world of the laboratory.




View post/references.




View post.

I hope to post more frequent updates here on the progress of KLED Animations, otherwise follow our studio blog directly at http://kled-animations.blogspot.com/.

Storyboard Mushroom #01

I would have liked to have got this up a lot sooner, but I guess I've underestimated a few things and fallen victim to some dreaded procrastination. Despite this little setback, one must keep their spirits up and persevere onwards!

The storyboard encompasses the whole cycle beginning with the mushroom, growth and release of basidiospores, the germination of the spore as shown through mycelium, and ending with the sprouting of a new mushroom. Ideally, I've tried to focus on a level that cannot be seen by the human eye to further utilise the effective use of CG, being necessary to visually illustrate such remote worlds.



Some sketches of workings outs. Storyboarding really is one of those processes where you just have get things on a page to start resolving anything of significance.



An animatic should be coming shortly to further resolve timings and transitions.

Storyboard Draft #2

Second version of the storyboard, rearranging some shots along with the addition of new ones.



I decided to keep the initial shots of the snowman outside to help establish the space and characters of the story i.e. snowman is outside with the fridge inside as shown in the window. While additional shots amongst the action help vary the pacing and camera angles within the animation for a more dynamic effect.

Storyboard Draft #1

Initial storyboard to help further refine the story and pacing.

The cantankerous refrigerator, old, rusty and out of his prime, is resting (perhaps confined to the back garden shed and not in the home of the kitchen). With the rising sun, the snowman interrupts the scene seeking refuge inside the refrigerator. He slips as he is slowly melting, making a loud crash that wakes the cantankerous refrigerator from his sleep making him particularly grumpy. A battle of wits occurs as the fridge resists the snowsman's attempts to get inside him. Finally, the sun has reached its peak leaving the snowman to melt in his demise, yet the fridge also meets a similar fate being short-circuited from the water of the melting snow of the snowman.

With a plain background, this helps focus the animation to the central characters while avoiding unnecessary complications by establishing scene and setting. While keeping the cantankerous fridge as the centre in the majority of frames helps to emphasise the focus to the fridge.

A few issues that need to be resolved is that the snowman is perhaps a little 'too' cute, which starts to shift the focus away from the fridge with sympathy in his demise. Shots 1.3 to 1.4 similarly bring attention to the snowman and may perhaps not be necessary to the narrative, as shot 2.5 or 3.2 may work sufficiently to convey the element of the rising sun.

With some further refinement, I believe this could work well in providing an engaging little story while keeping the economy of hand drawing each frame into consideration. Any thoughts and feedback is welcome.

Some rough sketches while drafting the storyboard.

Storyboard

Finally got it done over past few days. Made some tweaks from my first iteration for better pacing and coherency.




Oh and the crab has somehow wormed its way as a background/side character...

Initial Storyboard

Here I have developed an initial storyboard for my 1 minute story featuring a Big Game Hunter, Deck Chair and Castle, helping to visualise the type of structure and imagery I have in mind. If it serves well, one should be able to read the storyboard and gather the basic premise of the story. But just in case, I've included a brief description to shed light on any confusion that might occur.


Act 1 opens with an extreme of close-up of the sand castle, zooming out to show BGH standing tall and proud admiring his handiwork of a colonial fashion sand castle. Act 2 shortly begins as BGH begins to attempt to deploy a deck chair.


Using a series of cuts in quick succession, this will help illustrate BGH vain attempts at deploying the deck chair in a comical fashion. His proud, composed nature notably deteriorates into an extreme fiery temper. Throwing the deck chair in the air in a frenzy, he grasps his gun and takes several shots at the deck chair filling the scene in smoke.


As the smoke clears, BGH smirks in triumphant as the deck chair reveals itself amazingly deployed. Act 3 concludes as BGH tries to recompose himself, sits down on the deck chair with a pause, only for it to collapse under the weight of him landing with a great thud, which causes his pride and joy of his sand castle to similarly collapse in total and utter defeat.


Its by no means final, as I intend to refine and develop the storyboard further as things will most likely develop. Feedback and thoughts is most appreciated as always.

Re-storyboarding 'Gladiator' (Film Clip Storyboard Sequence)

Here I've re-storyboarded a small clip from the film Gladiator to better appreciate the sequence and choice in shot compositions and storyboarding. This captures roughly a minute of footage before Maximus reveals his identity to Commodus after a victorious battle in the arena.





The sequence of shots is quite complex with a series of cuts from within the same environment, yet serves wonderfully in establishing the tension and drama with the confrontation between Maximus and Commodus, including all integral characters naturally into the scene without confusion. While working with this, one can definitely appreciate the amount of time, planning and work required to bring a film sequence to this level. Its an integral process that is often taken for granted.

Made with pen, pencil and alcohol based markers, using a quick storyboard template I made in Photoshop.