Some b/g info...

The setting: the school

An all boy’s privet school – The look of the school is upper class, so you would think that the school nurse would be well qualified and not some psycho guy wearing a dress. It has good students, who get good grades, and for some reason ever since the school nurse came to work there, it has had of on the lowest sick/fatality rate of any school. It seems that the students of this school just don’t want to get sick for some odd reason.

The nurse: Main Character

He seems to be not quite right in the head. All his life he has wanted to help people, but somehow ends up making things worst. It is un-known as to how he passed nursing school, but it might have involved a freak accident that put his teacher out for the rest of the year, and for some reason all the class records when with him. And how he got the job as a nurse at an expensive school like his is still unknown to most. He has good intentions, and really isn’t all that bad. Because the previous school nurse was a woman and loved by all the students, the new nurse wanted to be more like her, I guess this explains the short skirt, or maybe it is because he just likes the way it looks like when he spins around in a circle.

Rough sketches

Visual research for Idea three: Nurse Boy (3)

Æon Flux - Peter Chung
A 2d animation that I watched when I will little, this might explaine why I am so messed up, I guess.. I love the clean look of the animation and the movement of the character.

My intent and central themes...

• To create a short 2D animnated film.
• It is to be a funny animnation - more dark humor unlike something like 'The Simpson'.
• I want to make people laugh.
• I wish to test my animnations stills - to see how much I have learnet.

Questions to ask:

• Which ending do you like?
• Would you like to see a different ending all together?
• What other ways do you think the nurse could ‘heal’ the students?
• Do you like the ways he has at the moment?

A first draft treatment.

Scrip/Walkthrough for Nurse Boy

Scene: The class room – the weather outside is nice and sunny – it is later afternoon.

The shot opens with a wide shot of the class room with students sitting there studying as all good students do. There is nothing out of the ordinary looking about this class room.

Student one: “Cough”

Hearing one of the students cough the rest of the students in the class room look at him in alarm, they look like the end of the world is coming.

The students begin to look around – as if they are waiting for something.

(Idea – maybe the weather changes and it becomes a thunder storm outside)

The shot changes to the windows which face into the hall of the school building. There is a figure that is moving along the hall way.

Just then the door is kicked in and there standing there is the not quite right school nurse.

The students in the room start to freak out and start running around the room.

The school nurse walks briskly up to student one.

School nurse: “Someone needs some healing” (or something corny like that)

He pins student one to the wall and beings ‘Healing’ the rest of the class.

(This part of the scrip needs a lot work and I know this)

Ideas so far:

• He throws smaller needles into the face of other students- they fall to the ground screaming in pain.
• Students that try to get out of the window – he throws banges at them and makes raps them like a mummy.
• The nurse pores pills into a students throat and they froth at the mouth.
• Uses big band-aid and cover the students mouth so that they can’t breath.

Ending one

The school nurse walks back to student one and takes the big needle from the wall and student one falls, when he student one gets back up the school nurse stabs him with his giant needle and pumps him full of the stang liquid.

Student one fills up with the liquid and more or less pops, sending parts of himself around the class room.

The school nurse stands there with a proud look on his face.

School Nurse: “All is right with the world” (or another corny line)

The school nurse walks out of the scene.

There are students lying around the class room half dead, and just then one of them moves a little trying to get up.

Just as the student does this a small needle comes flying across the scene and hits that student on the head – the student falls back down to the ground.

End

Ending two

The school nurse walks back to student one and takes the big needle from the wall and student one falls, when he student one gets back up the school nurse turns around and stabs another student with his giant needle and pumps him full of the stang liquid.

This student pop and is scatted across the room.

(I need to figure out how the nurse leaves the room)

Student one is left standing there, with a puzzled look on his face.

Student one: “Cough”

End

First draft synopsis: (is taken from a back post)

The main character is a high school nurse who is a little bit over-the-top when it comes to helping people. This makes the students of the school very nervous about being ill, or becoming sick. This will be a short 2D animated film. The story will start off with a classroom full of students quietly working, when one of them coughs just a little. All heads turn to that student with expressions of panic and horror on their faces. The door is suddenly thrown open and standing there is the school nurse with a big needle in his hands (and lots of other first aid paraphernalia on him). He walks up the student who has just coughed and says a really corny line like, “Someone needs to be healed”. He starts throwing needles around and pills everywhere as he tries to treat all the students in the class room. While this is happening, all the students are freaking out, trying to get away. But in the end all the students are all over the room, either with needles sticking out of them or with foam coming out of their mouths (from being given too many pills), while the school nurse has a very happy look on his face – the expression of someone who has done the right thing well. The film concludes with another corny line, such as, “All’s right with the world”, as the nurse walks out of the room, with everyone in it not looking all that healthy.

Storyboards + Flow

Flowchart/Flow of Animation

Starts of quite, good students working → Student coughs this leads to mayhem begins →school nurse come into the class room and stats the mayhem → Lots of gore and ‘healing’ → after the school nurse leaves the class room is left in chaos.

Storyboard - Note this is only a first draft, not a final storyboard in anyway. I still have many ideas, some of which I might put into the animation and some that I might not.

Final Concept Task

I express my idea as a ‘Post Secret'.

Week 4 Homework : Answers

Answers for Idea 3: Nurse Boy

What ‘healing’ things is he going to do to the students of the class? And ‘healing’ technique will happen after another healing technique?
Use his big needle of one student, rap some up in banges, throw some smaller needles at some students, stuff some pills in one kids throat, put a big band-aid on a student’s face, making him fall out the window. And I hope to get more ideas soon.

How long is the flight/healing scene going to last for?
I am a bit unsure of this at the moment but I know that the start of the scene is going to be slow placed and as soon as the healing/fighting begin the pace will become faster.

How big/old is the school nurse going to be compared to the students of the class at the high school?
I have yet to write up a back story for the school nurse so I am unable to get his exact age, but I am guessing he is in his mid to late 20, maybe even early 30s. The students will be at about year 10 level, maybe even year 11 (I guess around VCE age) , so high school students are a little big shorter than the school nurse, but the school nurse is designed to be taller and lanky then most people. But also the student vary in height because people do very in high in high school – so I guess some will be short and some will be tall etc.

Should you make it more obvious that the main character is the school nurse?
Ways in wish I can make it more obvious is:

• That the title of the animation could tell you that he is the school nurse
• Have a freeze frame when he comes into the room with the name ‘School nurse’ down the bottom.
• He could be wearing a badge, like a name tag that could tell you that he is the school nurse.

What SFX are you going to use for the fighting scene?
I hope to use music when the fighting scene is taking play, maybe with minimal SFX in the music (like just to add to the overall affect).

How big is the class – how many people does he have to attack?
I normal class room has about 20-25 people in it. But because I have chooses that this is a privet type high school with well playing student- I guess, students who do their work- there should be about 15-20 people in one class – this might vair depending on how many way of healing I can think of.

How are you going to created/made it? Use Flash?
I don’t like using flash all that much, because I fell that I don’t have enough control over the paint brush. I will only be using flash to get the timing right. And I hope to be using Photoshop to colour each frame. And maybe After Effect to put it all together.

Why is it in a school?
I chose for it to be in a school so as to restrict myself to one place and time, so as I could get more of a flow, instead of just some random nurse attacking some random people.

What style is it going to be in? What is a look you are going for?
I want a clean, crisp look, like that of JtHM with nice line work. I want to do a kind of cell shading, and to use thick lines for the outside of the characters like that in Invader Zim.

What artists will be influential to your project?
Richard Williams and Jhonen Vasquez. And I am sure there will be other that come up as I work on my project.


Answers for Idea 2: Attack of the Fuzzy Wuzzies


Where is it? Is it a real place? Is it made up?
The animation is set in a forest, such as that Robin Hood lives in. It’s an English forest with many trees and bushes.

What is the weather like in the forest?
It is a fine day with minimal cloud, but it is hard to see the sun as the trees are thick and only let in steams of light (that are very bright and light up what in the streams), but there is still enough light shining though to be able to see everything clearly.

How do you wish to make this? Using Flash etc?
A. Seeing as I have already made this animation before, I wish to make it more ‘clean’ using Photoshop, and maybe adding more frames and a bit more story, and or change it around a bit, the story that is. And put the coloured frames together in after effects.

Are you happy with the characters design?
Yes, the main characters might be a bit detailed for a 2D animations but it is only a short animation so I think it will be alright.

What are the colours going to be like?
I am thinking that there will be a lot greens used, a lot like Robin Hood, or even Link from the video game called Zelda. And also because he is in a forest.

Will I get bored because it's a previously explored concept?
I might, this is one thing I am worried about, but I did enjoy making this animation the first time round and making it to its full extent in which I had pictured it will make it all worthwhile.

Is it achievable?
Seeing as I have more or less finished this animation before, and have make it work, and written a script for it etc. It should be very easy to achieve. All I really have to do is make a few adjustments, add a few more frames, and add colour. I could use more of my time to make the colouring of the animation look very nice, and clean.

How will you do the sound for the animation?
I have already done the main sound FX for this piece, but I would like to make them better, as well as add background music, I would hope to get a friend to do the background music.

What is the genre?
In the end it will be a comedy, but I guess people will just think it’s a cute little animation with no real clear genre at first.

How will the background be different from the way the characters is ‘coloured in’?
I hope to make the background look more painted and more like a piece of art work – like with brush strokes. The characters will have thick (maybe) lines around them and clean cell type colouring to make them stand out from the background.

In a group of 3 - we had a talk...

Note write up from group discussion, contains good ideas.

• A quote for the nurse when he walks in the room “(did) someone call for a healer?!”
• A random kid in the class said something like “You’ve doomed us all” (don’t like this so much as it makes it a bit to obvious that something bad will happen)
• An ending quote for the nurse “My work here is done”.
• After he walks off, one of the students twitch and you see a needle coming from off screen and it hits the student in the head and he goes back down to the ground and doesn’t move again. (One possible ending)
• The nurse is able to throw desks around with one hand (like trying to get to the hiding students)
• Another ending is that the only person to survive is the boy who ‘coughed’ and then when all is silent he coughs again and the music starts again.
• He raps a student up in gores banges.
• In the sequence of ‘attacks’ on the students – once he uses something he can’t use the same attack again, eg once he uses his throwing needles he can’t use them again, unless he is pulling them out of one student and putting them in another.
• The last attack is that of the big needle- so as not to draw him with the big needle for the whole fighting scene, he might pin up the student that coughed with it against the wall, and in the end he can take it out of the wall and either use it on that student or on another student that is still standing (this one would end in the other ending where there is only one left standing).

Class Task 4: Interrogating Your Idea (Sam, Daniel, Amber)

Name: Sam Yang
Concept Synopsis:

In exchange for life, the dead Minty has agreed to claim the life of a living person. Minty soon finds out that the person whom he must murder is the same person he died saving. A final event forces Minty to make a choice and he ultimately gives up the life he had just regained.

Project Type:

• 2D animation
  

Are you stuck with anything?

• Who/what is this 'higher power' who's given/made Minty this deal of his life back in exchange for the task/favor he must do.
• How I will choose to present story, what sort of style and structure - Flashback? Narration the whole way? 1st person narrative?
• What the setting will be.
  

Interrogation:

• Does the higher power need to be bad, maybe the audience never does find out whether its bad or not?
• Maybe there isn't even the need to establish any sort of high power?
  
• How will Minty find out about his side of the deal? (What he must do in order to keep the life he was just granted.)
• At what stage does he find out the person he must kill is the girl he died saving?
• What is going to happen to throw the story into the climax?
• Does he ever see her face?
• Will the audience find out how he died (his past) at the beginning or towards the end?
• What exactly is his past?
• What kind of style will I use/pursue?
• Who is the intended audience?
• How will the animation be created/made?

Name: Daniel Luke smits
Concept Synopsis:

My character is a man who finds that his body comes loose from his ghost, in an outer body experience kind of way.
To get things done, he has to manipulate or 'puppet' his unconscious body, as he cannot touch or effect anything else.

Project Type:

• Narative Animation

Next Steps:

• I need to decide on critical benchmarksCharacter personality
• Specifics of his condition
• Setting
• Situation
• Visual Style

Interrogation:

• Will I get bored because it's a been a previously explored concept.
• What is this character like? (Age, relationships, job, Life Goal, house)
• What will the setting be?
• How am I going to portray his ghost...thing?
• How will I make him distinct from other characters?
• What kind of mood/theme am I going for?
• How will I produce it?
• Will the narrative revolve around him or his relatives?
• How accustomed to the situation is he?
• WIll anyone else know of his situation?

Name: Amber
Concept synopsis: Nurse Boy

The main character is a high school nurse who is a little bit over-the-top when it comes to helping people. This makes the students of the school very nervous about being ill, or becoming sick. This will be a short 2D animated film. The story will start off with a classroom full of students quietly working, when one of them coughs just a little. All heads turn to that student with expressions of panic and horror on their faces. The door is suddenly thrown open and standing there is the school nurse with a big needle in his hands (and lots of other first aid paraphernalia on him). He walks up the student who has just coughed and says a really corny line like, “Someone needs to be healed”. He starts throwing needles around and pills everywhere as he tries to treat all the students in the class room. While this is happening, all the students are freaking out, trying to get away. But in the end all the students are all over the room, either with needles sticking out of them or with foam coming out of their mouths (from being given too many pills), while the school nurse has a very happy look on his face – the expression of someone who has done the right thing well. The film concludes with another corny line, such as, “All’s right with the world”, as the nurse walks out of the room, with everyone in it not looking all that healthy.

Project Type:

• A short 2D animated film.

‘Next steps’:

• Work out the fight/healing scene, and how it comes about and when he uses what to heal which student. Brainstorm about the types if things he can fight with, eg big ban-aids, needles etc.

Are you stuck with anything?:

• I am still trying to figure out how many people is in the class and how the story will end, I have two endings in the work.

• If I decided to use the second ending (where the one who coughed is left standing) how will the nurse leave the scene?

Interrogation:

• What ‘healing’ things is he going to do to the students of the class? And ‘healing’ technique will happen after another healing technique?
• How long is the flight/healing scene going to last for?
• How big/old is the school nurse going to be compared to the students of the class at the high school?
• Should you make it more obvious that the main charterer is the school nurse?
• What SFX are you going to use for the fighting scene?
• How big is the class – how many people does he have to attack?
• How are you going to created/made it? Use Flash?
• Why is it in a school?
• What style is it going to be in? What is a look you are going for?
• What artists will be influential to your project?

Class Talk about My idea one: String of fate

- What is the middle?

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

- Where does it take place?

• City or country?
• Other inhabitants/ characters?
• Realist or stylizied

-What is the dilemma?
-What are the obstacles?

- Who are the characters?

• How old are they?
• Personality?
• Quiet/ serious?
• Appearance?
• Dress?
• What has happened leading up to this moment?
• Loner? Introvert? Extrovert?

- What is your attitude towards destiny? Fate? What do you want to leave us with?

- How will you represent it visually?

- Visual style

• Realist or abstract environment?

- Why does she cut the thread?

- Why does she cut him off when she’s ‘meant’ to be with him?

- Dramatic or comedic?

- What is it about – what is your intention?

- Why do you want it to end badly?

- How does she cut it? - Visual/ actual…

- Is the end heartbreaking?

- Why do we care?

Visual research for Idea three: Nurse Boy (2)

Richard Williams- His 'The Thief and the Cobbler' animated film is one of My favourite films ever... and I love his Characters design...

Visual research for Idea three: Nurse Boy

Artist: Jhonen Vasquez (Wiki)

Images from Invader Zim and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac (JtHM)

JtHM is a dark comic about a well homicidal maniac who kills a lot of people are never get caught. I really like this comic because of how dark it is and gore it is. I like the sharpness of the drawing, as well as the darkness in all his drawing.

Vasquez was also the Creator of Invader Zim – this animated TV show is not as dark as JtHM but has the same drawing style as JtHM.

Major Project ideas: One

Idea one:
String of Fate

This idea is a short 2D animated film featuring one main character, a male character with no name, being lead around by a red string (the ‘red string of fate’ from Asian mythology). This string attaches his hand to his ‘soul mate’. He must overcome situations (battling through crowds of people going the opposite way, one of whom becomes tangled in the string, or crossing difficult terrain, etc.), in order to get to the one he is destined to be with. He finally gets to the end of the ‘string’, only to have her cut it, thus severing their fate together.

Red string of fate info:

From Wikipedia.

The red string of fate (Traditional Chinese: 紅線; Simplified Chinese: 紅线; Yale: hung⁴sin³; Pinyin: hóngxiàn), also referred to as the red thread of destiny, red thread of fate (and by other variants) is an East Asian belief originating from Chinese legend. According to this myth, the gods tie an invisible red string around the ankles of men and women who are destined to be soul mates and will one day marry each other. According to Chinese legend, the deity in charge of "the red thread" is believed to be Yuelao (月老), the old lunar matchmaker god who is also in charge of marriages.

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet,
regardless of time, place, or circumstance.
The thread may stretch or tangle,
but it will never break."
- an ancient Chinese belief

The two people connected by the red thread are said to be destined lovers, regardless of time, place or circumstances. It is said that this magical cord may stretch or tangle, but never break. This myth is similar to the Western concept of soulmates or a twin flame.
The legend has since also become a popular myth in Japanese culture and other East Asian cultures.

LINK.

Notes from book:

Drawings:



Style of animation eg:

Major Project ideas: Two

Idea two:
Attack of the Fuzzy Wuzzies

This idea is a short 2D animated film involving a main character going for a walk in the woods and what happens to him. As he is walking he hears a sound behind him. He looks around and sees nothing, then he hears the sound again and he becomes scared and begins to run away in fright. As he is running he trips and hits the ground hard. He gets up and finds a cute little bunny-creature jumping out of a bush. As he looks at it, it suddenly appears to turn evil, and many more evil-looking bunny-creatures jump out and attack him, pushing him to the ground. It turns out that they just want to give him love and have been chasing him because of that.

This is an idea for a remake of an animation I made last year. It was a hand-drawn animation and I was not able to finish it to the extent that I would have liked to. This is an opportunity to make it bigger and better, by including more animation and using colour, so as to make it more the way I originally envisaged it.

Notes from book:



Drawings:

Major Project ideas: Three

Idea three:
Nurse Boy

The main character is a high school nurse who is a little bit over-the-top when it comes to helping people. This makes the students of the school very nervous about being ill, or becoming sick. This will be a short 2D animated film. The story will start off with a classroom full of students quietly working, when one of them coughs just a little. All heads turn to that student with expressions of panic and horror on their faces. The door is suddenly thrown open and standing there is the school nurse with a big needle in his hands (and lots of other first aid paraphernalia on him). He walks up the student who has just coughed and says a really corny line like, “Someone needs to be healed”. He starts throwing needles around and pills everywhere as he tries to treat all the students in the class room. While this is happening, all the students are freaking out, trying to get away. But in the end all the students are all over the room, either with needles sticking out of them or with foam coming out of their mouths (from being given too many pills), while the school nurse has a very happy look on his face – the expression of someone who has done the right thing well. The film concludes with another corny line, such as, “All’s right with the world”, as the nurse walks out of the room, with everyone in it not looking all that healthy.

Notes from book:



Drawing:

Major Project ideas: Four

Idea four:
Interactive Novel

This is an idea for an interactive game that tells a story, but you as the player must choose the path the story takes. The main character is called ‘Jack’ (as in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, ‘Jack be Nimble’ and ‘Jack and Jill’ and many other fairy tales and nursery rhymes). For some odd reason all the characters he meets along the way are from fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, but they are not quite in the form you would normally expect, e.g. Little Red Riding Hood is a fully-grown woman, Goldilocks is traumatised by her experience in the bears’ house. Whatever path the player choses to follow will decide the outcome of the story and maybe even which characters you meet.

Notes from Book:

Dawrings:

Interactive Novel game: