AndreasNor.com

(Updated 29/11/2009)

Practical Project (60 credits) – Project Specification

Project: Clockwork Heart – A short animation

The goal of the project is to create about 1 minute of a 2-3 min long animated short film, from the first stages of story development, to the final editing and post-production. The intention of the project is to show 1 minute of strong animation and visual storytelling, but also to pre-produce the rest of the film.

The main focus will be to create convincing animation, which includes detailed face model morphs. Detailed textures and good compositing comes second. Other elements, like sound and modeling, will be less detailed. A secondary goal is to create the animation in a more serious tone, as opposed to slapstick comedy, adding more diversity to a showreel.

3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Premiere and Nuke will be used for this project.

The story is about an inventor in his late thirties, whose wife just recently passed away. He creates an automaton replica of his wife, which is just finished when the film starts. She awakens, curious, but soon realizes what she is. She panics, the inventor tries to calm her down, but is electrocuted by defect wires connected to her heart. Falls dead to the ground. Automaton crouches by inventors side and flips off her heart switch.

The visuals will be gritty, set in a steampunk world. An establishing shot of a cityscape, camera zooming in on a house, will be done in a stylized manner. Possibly in 2.5D and/or as projected matte paintings, to give it a stylized look and to save time. As of now there are no plans to include voice acting, but to tell a story with body language and props. The inventor will be fully skinned, but the female automaton will have limbs linked together instead of being skinned. Both characters will have morph targets for facial expressions.

The story will be written as a treatment, then made into a storyboard. Concept art of the two characters and environment will be painted/drawn. An animatic and a previz will be made to plan the shots. Characters will then be modeled, rigged, skinned, textured, animated, lit and rendered in 3D Studio Max. Textures will be made in Photoshop and 3D Studio Max. All rendered passes and the cityscape will then be composited in Nuke. Composited footage is then imported into Premiere, where it will be edited together with sound, music and titles.

The report size will be 6000 words.

Schedule:

Week 1 (19.Oct - 25.Oct): Story planning & Treatment
Week 2 (26.Oct - 1.Nov): Story planning & Treatment
Week 3 (2.Nov - 8.Nov): Research & Concept Art
Week 4 (9.Nov - 15.Nov): Storyboard
Week 5 (16.Nov - 22.Nov): Storyboard
Week 6 (23.Nov - 29.Nov): Modeling of the two characters
Week 7 (30.Nov - 6.Dec): Modeling & texturing of the two characters & Animatic
Week 8 (7.Dec - 13.Dec): Rigging/Skinning(envelopes) of the two characters & Previz
Week 9 (14.Dec - 20.Dec): Modeling & Texturing of the scene and props
Week 10 (21.Dec - 27.Dec): Lighting the scene & Animation
Week 11 (28.Dec - 3.Jan): Animation
Week 12 (4.Jan - 10.Jan): Animation
Week 13 (11.Jan - 17.Jan): Animation
Week 14 (18.Jan - 24.Jan): Animation
Week 15 (25.Jan - 31.Jan): Animation
Week 16 (1.Feb - 7.Feb): Animation
Week 17 (8.Feb - 14.Feb): Animation
Week 18 (15.Feb - 21.Feb): Animation
Week 19 (22.Feb - 28.Feb): Matte painting, Rendering & Sound creation/gathering
Week 20 (1.Mar - 7.Mar): Editing, Compositing, Rendering & Sound creation/gathering
Week 21 (8.Mar - 14.Mar): Editing & Compositing
Week 22 (15.Mar - 21.Mar): Editing & Foley
Week 23 (22.Mar - 28.Mar): Reviewing the film & Finishing the report
Week 24 (29.Mar - 6.Apr): Finishing/printing the report & DVD creation