When initially coming up with ideas for my capstone, I was sort of lost and kinda had no idea what I wanted to make or say with this film. I had 3 loose ideas that were more based around the type of animation I wanted to utilize rather than a story I wanted to pursue. My thought process was; medium first, story next.
My first idea was for a full 3D capstone that I wanted to be action based and have fun with (I will talk more about later). My second idea was for a half 2D hand drawn and half 3D animation revolving around a character that is transforming from one world to another. Idea number two was probably going to have more of a deeper statement attached to it implying how the world is constantly changing which could've maybe been told through different fashion statements throughout the years. For idea number three I was struggling to come up with anything at all, so I was thinking of maybe doing something super fundamental based with the principles of animation that would've been all 2D. I drew some inspiration from different shorts we watched in class that had really cool transitions from scene to scene.
Eventually through presenting these ideas and getting some feedback I was kinda buying in more on my first idea of doing something fun in 3D. The 3D space is something I have been really liking a lot this last year and could see myself doing for my career so I thought it would be a good idea to start experimenting now. I took what Ben had said about this project being the beginning of the future rather than the end of my time here at Bradley to heart and decided to flesh out the idea some more. Sometimes with animation I get so focused on everything having to be realistic that I forget its animation and anything can happen and it doesn't have to make sense. I don't want it to make sense, I just want this to be fun and have the viewers enjoy watching chaos.
The basic concept for my story is a comet lands in a city and a dinosaur pops out leading to a comedic chase of our main character causing mass destruction until the end where another comet lands in the same city, killing the dinosaur just for bigger one to come out. There is still much to be fleshed out story wise, but I have the basic idea and thats enough for me to start getting a visual sense. I want the focus of the film to be on destruction and I want to get that effect by running a lot of simulations and using visual effects. I also want to add elements from past assignments, such as walk/run cycle and facial animation with joysticks, to really harness those skills so I don't forget them. I think the scope for this project is very large, so some things I want to do to limit work time for myself it utilize a more low poly type of look when it comes to characters and assets. This should not only limit work time but also not put as much work on my computers shoulders.
I feel like I just kinda wrote what was coming to my mind so forgive me if this sounds like a bunch of unorganized chaos, there was just a lot for me to get out of my head and written down. Im very excited to start the project, but am also nervous because I know I'm being ambitious and there is certainly going to be HIGHS and LOWS. Here are some pictures, so you can get visual of what I'm talking about.
