10/1/19 - Appreciating Preproduction

It has been a while since the last milestone and so much has changed.  I am always trying to get ahead and be hyper-efficient, so I can produce my best work. For this project I thought that meant getting to production as fast as possible.  I now realize I was wrong.

The act of animating has always been my favorite part of the process and in the past I have probably skipped some important aspects of preproduction.  After the last milestone I realized something was not right in my story.  It just didn't feel tight enough; it was too vague and I could tell it was rushed, especially looking at my storyboards.  I kept telling myself that I knew there was something good buried in there, but frustratingly I could not tell what it was, or how to convey it in an animation.  I restarted the writing process and gave it the proper time that it deserved.  I wrote the story 3 times, each focusing on a different aspect of the message I was trying to convey.  Then I took all the good elements from each version and mashed them together into a 3 act narrative with multiple themes working together.  After that I broke it down further and wrote each act 3 times, trying to bring out those nuggets of gold from all the other garbage I was coming up with.  Once I had found the heart of my story it was just a matter of cutting the fat and translating the story into visuals.  What I ended up with is still no masterpiece in screenwriting, but it has characterization, a plot, and visual storytelling working in unison.  Breaking the whole script down into bite sized pieces helped me gain an understanding of what my core idea was.  It also gave me a much greater appreciation of the writing process, and how much time goes into crafting a satisfying story. 

Currently I am on my 12th version of the script.  The first 4 were for Monohand, but after I changed my idea to Seed I wrote 8 more.  The story still revolves around The Creator, but it is more focused on his relationship with the world and the animal he creates.

I have also been doing some visual development work.  The main thing to report is that I am taking an exciting risk and making my main character in 3D.  A rigid, low-poly look will help convey the cold, synthetic aspect of this character.   I was planning on making him hand drawn in Flash, but I realized that I don't have too much room to grow in that program. Creating a whole film using old techniques would be playing it too safe and not the best way to grow as an artist.  I don't have much experience with 3D modeling but I want to challenge myself and learn something that will be more useful in my future career.

Here are some concepts of the animal, environment, and enlightened Creator.