honestly, I think we should do a bike looking like this: simple, sexy, futuristic... I think there'll be some disagreement though, not everyone like the heavy looking stuff. I'm just worried we'll end up with something generic looking more like this:



Im just tired of looking at them.

how the temple should look is still in the shadows of our minds. Personally I'd like to come to some sort of agreement on a floorplan, just to figgure out where people are shot by shot, when we start storyboarding.

problem with such planning, is that most temples is buildt with a thought for actuall function and application. Short: they're boringlooking and empty. Have to look into game concepts to find something that looks awesome..... and reasonably easy to create in 3D.

Aaaaaaaand Monday! Back to work!

I went to the local library and borrowed a book yesterday. Finnished it a couple of hours ago. Long time sence I've read a good book. Too much anime and webcomics can do strange things to your mind. Strange, strange things.

In short, it's been a refreashing weekend.

It is!

Vrooooom!

Swooosh!

Jamie said he wanted a robot with gorilla-like anatomy (large arms, etc)
just scetched this out to suggest body/arms/head/neck/feet ratio.
It's of course too simple to go into the movie. But like I said, size-scetch.

Finnished dah paperwork today. Much due to the tireless Michael. Tomorrow we'll be prepearing for the presentation on Monday. We're going to get a lot done tomorrow, rather than whaiting 'til the last minute, 'cus Jamie is traveling to China to spend some time with his illegitimate children (this version of the story might not be 100% accurate). Tempus fugit, but I hope to scetch something up before I call it a night, so that I can bring something tomorrow. Unlike the rest of GreenSpill, I actually sleep at night.

Group finished most of the paperwork stuph today, I helped with budget and time estimate.

On a completely unrelated note, my spine hurts today.

the dead project recieved a helping push, from an e-mail by the teatch today. But sence the project is already dead, and both me and Vargfar/Martin have moved on, the project remains dead.

Thanks for trying, teatch. Apprecheate it. : )

sooooo, I joined greenspill productions instead. Much nice, skilled people.
also, idea seems like fun

scetch

The project just collapsed onto itself.

Spoke to one of my friends regarding potential sounds in the story. I might want some electric guitar work done as the voice of Sharkgrinn Bob (Martin named the monster that today, I like it).

as it is now, me and Martin (the other group member) are just writing a more defined treatment for the story, and such. Neither of us are fans of the whole "treatment" thing. Shure, I understand that it is a quick way to read film ideas, but it's also almost a process as comfortable as an electric drill to the skull.
------------------------------------------------------------
THE STORY TREATMENT!!!
--------------------
SHARK GRIN BOB the hall monitor is walking down a hallway in a residential building. He hears a tinny melody and claps his hands over his ears. After checking a couple doors without success, he enters an apartment and is met by a SMALL GIRL with a MUSIC BOX. Robot remains litter the floor, and the girl is wearing a robot head as a hat.

Shark Grin Bob closes the music box and leaves. As he closes the door behind him, he hears the music box again. He returns into the room and stomps on the music box, breaking it. He snarls at the girl and leaves.
The girl picks up the music box and starts repairing it.
CUT TO HALLWAY.
Shark Grin Bob is at the end of the hallway when he hears the music box again. He turns and stomps back, entering the room and slamming the door behind him. He grabs the repaired music box and jumps up and down on it while yelling loudly.
He turns to leave and is skewered by several long black spikes.
CUT TO BLACK.

The music box, now consisting of several body parts plays a melody. The girl wears Shark Grin Bob's skull as a hat and is nodding and smiling to the music.
An eye falls out of the skull, she eats it.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Other than that, I've gone through some "story analysis" texty thingie, as suggested by Remi (sub teach, nice guy).

? BEGINNING: SETTING-UP THE PREDICAMENT.

What does your lead character want?

Listen to music =^_^=

What do they need?

A music-box :o

What do they have to do to get what they want?

Loot corpses :3

? MIDDLE: CONFLICT - ACTIONS and REACTIONS.

The lead character struggles to get what they want and usually fails at the end of this middle section; however, through failure they begin to understand their true needs.

Main character tries to make music play, despite being thwarted by a monster repeatedly.

? END: FINAL STRUGGLE, RESOLUTION & AFTERMATH .

The emotional ending where the lead character discovers what they really need, whether they get what they wanted or not.

As a final solution, she kills the monster and uses his bodyparts to make a music box (both eliminating its threat of destroying the instruments, as well as creating a new one)

Set-Up, Conflict, Resolution

Screen stories are all about questions and answers - questions and answers.

At the story level you must ask:

? What is my story really about?

Cute, bloody murder

? What do I want to say?

Peekaboo!

? What is the story’s big hook?

? What makes it cinematic (or televisual)?

Its cinematic in the way that it takes the viewer for a ride through a conflict between two very different forces.

? Why is it way better than anything else I’ve seen?

It’s horrible and cute at the same time! =^_^= also, it makes the viewer believe that the monster is the main character of the story, but it’s actually the girl.

? Would I pay to see it?

….maybe

At the character level you must ask:

Complication:

Setup

? Who is my lead character?

The girl.

? What do they want?

To play music

? How can I show what they want?

By playing music, even though the monster clearly hates it

? What do they need to learn about the world or themselves in order to get what they want?

Murder solves conflicts

? How can I demonstrate visually what they need?

By having her repeatedly making music boxes, and having them play the same song.

Increasing Conflict

? Who opposes them?

The monster Shark Grin Bob.

? How do they attack the lead character and expose their weaknesses?

By making the music box stop playing

? Why is the lead character resistant to change, reluctant to confront their

weakness?

Irrelevant

? How does the level of conflict increase?

It gets more and more destructive

? What makes the conflict personal?

She loves music. He hates music.

? Does the conflict become obsessive and force even friends to start deserting the

lead character? (if not it should!)

SHE DOESN’T HAVE ANY FRIENDS! HAHAHAHHAH!.... also, too many characters, that’d be.

? How is the lead character finally forced to confront their weakness and

contemplate internal change?

Story doesn’t tell a tale of change. But she needs more spare parts, so she disassembles him!

Unravelling:

Resolution

? Why does the lead character come back for one last attempt to defeat their

opponent?

She’s out of material to make music boxes

? Do they still want what they did at the beginning, or are they beginning to

understand that they will never win unless they change their goal or their attitude

to life?

She stays the same

? What moral choices that they have to make in the final struggle will finally

externalize their inner struggle between what they want and what they need?

Murder is a means to an end.

? How does the lead character close the divide between what they want and what

they need in the climax and resolution of the movie?

Murder!

The more you write the more you realise that before you write a word of dialogue

1. Introduce your lead character and setting

? Who is s/he and where is s/he? She’s a little, cute girl who sits in a wicked world and listens to her music-box play.

? What is his or her life like? She sits by herself and listens to music

? Who is with him/her? Not a single soul

2. What does s/he want? - The lead character finds out or reveals that s/he

wants something, or discovers s/he has a problem that must be solved.

Shark Grin Bob tries to stop her music box

3. What does s/he need to learn? – The character needs to learn

something to make them a better human being. This is usually similar to what

they want, but crucially different from it. She murders. She’s done it before (shown at the beginning of the film, explained at the end), and it does not seem like she has any compunctions against it.

4. Initial actions - The character then sets out to solve his/her problem or get

what s/he wants. Because they don’t understand that what they want is not

what they need, the lead character finds that instead of getting what they want

they are in a world of trouble. She tries to keep her music box running, even though Bob keeps breaking it.

5. First Major setback - Unfortunately your lead character also needs to

learn something about life and because of this they are about to find

themselves in more trouble than they have ever encountered. The story isn’t long enough to clearly show this part of storytelling.

6. Actions & Set-backs - Because s/he is not aware of what it is s/he really

needs, s/he will usually go about getting what s/he wants the wrong way. This

will bring him/her into conflict with other people (both enemies and friends)

who don’t like what s/he is doing - or the way s/he is going about it. The result

is a series of actions and setbacks throughout the middle of the story. Bob keeps wrecking her music-box. She fixes it, he breaks it. Murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder! =^_^=

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The girl being the main character is debatable of course, it just feels right in my head.

Today was no fun. Lotsa paperwork stuph needs to be done by next monday. +other stuff, group name, present full idea, logo thingie...
and still need some solution to the whole "not being mandatory (and necessary) number of people" problem.....
I'm not feeling highly motivated right now

SETBACK

project is now back to 2 people, less than mandatory... this needs fixing

PROGRESS!
(click for larger pics)


...very basic setup of story. Nothing written in stone yet, but seems like I have a potential group for this project. With 3 people, which is mandatory.

yes, indeed, progress

Sat down with people today, reviewing what we have so far. Just to see if we might end up in a group based on the ideas we have. Some other people seems to have decided groups last year, so some snags with the whole grouping thing is to be expected. At least I like the people I talked to today.

Unfortunatly, we didn't really like eachothers ideas enough to dedicate ourselves to them. So we quickly ended up with a little brainstorming session, to se if we could come up with something everyone would be willing to work with. We are, after all, going to be working on this for the next 5-ish months. And we want something we can be proud of too. The brainstorming session turned up little but off colour jokes/ sexual and desturbing jokes. (I kept score, think we got up to 12 pretty quick)

Tossing ideas for moody, artsy stuff made me throw a treatment I wrote last year on the table. Thought it be good for inspiration, or kicks and giggles at least. Turns out they like the damn thing. Exept the ending, but I suck at endings, and we quickly came up with a better one. Now they truly believe we should make this. Although I write it a lot, I'm somewhat a sceptic when it comes to making movies about more "serrious" stuff. It's a lot of empathy calling, colour and a lot of stuff I have a problem putting down in a visual media. Also, I dunno if working on it for months is my greatest desire at the moment.

Nevertheless, my treatment is in the hand of a classmate of mine. He's going to run through it for a better ending, and perhaps transform it to more middleground of treatment and synopsis. Not that it was a textbook treatment to begin with. Meanwhile, I was supposed to come up with alternatives, more solid than concepts (as we have plenty of those). All I've managed to do, was draw a doodle comic. It was a fine breather from complete lack of output sence newyears. But I doubt it will do much good.


(CLICK FOR LARGE)


I've always wanted to do something with the grim reaper, but tea-party doesn't exactly scream good story. Indeed, it screams another bloody concept. (Still, I love how Grimmy turned out in "part" 4 and how the soldier hunches down by the table in the last one =^_^=)

hope to get something passing through my head over the next few hours. Used to have one of my yearly ideas to fall back on, something my classmates agreed with. Now they seemed rather optimistic about my mystery treatment.

Time will tell
if this ends well...

this semester at Noroff, we're going to make a short 3D film... We, as in group work. Group, as in people from my class.

We are also going to update our progress in blogs, instead of making a over 9000 thousand page report at the end of the semester... or we're making a "making of" at the end, and blogging is instead of monthly reports, I can't remember. Don't think the difference matters much at this stage, we have yet to form groups. It's mandatory to start blogging at some point anyways.

Right now we all sit on a few ideas we'd like to see made during the next passing months. But because I have no idea what my group will be, what they desire to create, or even WANT to create, there will probebly not be any decent updates here before next week. maybe some rants, who knows...


SO, here begins the blog with an honest to god attempt to make short, animated films. Gods help us all...