Week Three

So it's week three and things are going slow or least it feels that way. I'm working on the third draft of the script which is sure to get torn to shreds by Neale and/or Jack, it's becoming a process of one step forward and two steps back. At this early stage it's frustrating but ultimately necessary.

I think this year I'm going to tackle pre-production differently, I've decided to do thumbnails simultaneously with script writing. I've found that drawing things out help me to work out any script issues I've had.

I had originally planned to film puppets for the real world elements of the animation and 2D animation for the fantasy world elements but now I've decided to stick to 2D animation only. I didn't want to waste my time trying to get puppets to perform the way I want, so now I'll focus on doing great animation.

I still want the real world and fantasy world to have two different animation styles. In the early phases of this story I was playing with the idea of using shadow puppets for the fantasy world and after seeing this video I'm planning on using 'fake' paper puppets using After Effects.

 

So it begins....

Another year, another animation begins and this is the big one.

Finally the third year has arrived and it's time for me to make the animation I've wanted to make for nearly 4 years.

Back in 2010 I wanted to tell the story of a little girl who loses her teddy bear under the bed and has to face many obstacles to get it back. The story has been altered many times during the past 3 years:

• The first version of this story had her travelling through a cave under her bed and emerging on the other side to great desert, she teamed up with a tin soldier and other lost toys under the bed to finally retrieve her bear from the lair of the shadow monster.
• Next version of this story the girl threw her bear under the bed out of anger and the monster under the bed was also a little girl who had built her own bear out of spare parts and needed an arm to finish her bear.
• In the final version the girl's brother causes the bear to be lost and the little girl gets revenge on her brother and steals his bear.

So the plan is to make the final version this year but the other versions will hopefully be animated later on.