Story ideas - Humpty Dumpty - Research

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

The following is thoughts as they came to my head:

Possible Meanings of key words:

Wall:

-A fence

-A barrier - physical or emotional

-(sitting on the fence - undecided)

Great Fall:

-large fall

-fall from a high place

-enjoyable/fun fall - skydiving/bungee jumping?

- A Good Autumn?

From this breakdown - possible ideas:

- Bungee jumping (possibly too obvious - not really funny)

- Character is not sure about the changing of the seasons - he enjoys autumn - I lose the idea there - not sure how kings horses would relate.

Animated Story Idea:

Bungee Dumpty - OR - Humpty Bungee

Open on man sitting on a wall.

sad music

jumps off

we see he is actually bungee jumping - as in it is a great fall - happy/excited music

rope tenses

man splits in half - says "ouch"

horse or two look up from eating grass in a field - they have riders

they walk over to the two halves of body on the ground and look at it (blood pool getting bigger? - Don't know how far I want to go :P )

one horse looks at the other horse, pauses, then shrugs (riders keep looking at the body)

End.

OR

Bungee Dumpty - OR - Humpty Bungee

Open on man sitting on a wall - swinging his legs - looking like he is unsure (figuratively sitting on a wall)

leans forwards and jumps/falls off

we see he is actually bungee jumping and enjoying it - as in it is a great fall - happy/excited music

rope tenses

man splits in half - says "ouch"

horse or two look up from eating grass in a field - they have riders

the horses walk over to the two halves of body on the ground and look at it (blood pool getting bigger? - Don't know how far I want to take the gore :P )

one horse looks at the other horse, pauses, and then shrugs (riders keep looking at the body)

End.

Week 2 - In Class

Here are some screenshots for what I did in class today:

Here I was adding layer mask so that the teeth would look like they were in the mouth.

At this stage I had applied both masks so all the teeth looked how they should.

I parented each element of the monsters body to its corresponding parts so it moved with the already moving body.

Now I moved onto the animating of the limbs. In this screenshot I am animating the legs.

And here I am animating the arms.

At this point we were introduced to the puppet tool - We downloaded an image with a transparent background and I made the composition background white. After pinning the puppet points I renamed them so I wouldn't get lost later on in the process.

All renamed to their corresponding joint.

I've already 'puppet-ed' two parts at this stage.

I animated both arms and a leg here. He looked very seductive I must say.

Style thoughts

From my initial thoughts about the style of animation to use I wanted something either very simplistic or ultra detailed. As they are two opposite ends of the spectrum I found some videos of other 2d animation to inspire some more thoughts for what style I want to go with.

"MTV AR Bike"

http://vimeo.com/album/1714678/video/68632672

I like the colours used in this animation. I also like that there is always something happening - the eyes are never bored (even though it is only 20 seconds long). The sound design is also something to take note of.

" Kynect 'education' "

http://vimeo.com/album/1714678/video/67741947

This animation uses very simplistic styling - it is quite a friendly looking animation. It has a very light colour palette. The movement is slow paced and relaxing to watch. (I probably will move for something faster)

"Bless You"

http://vimeo.com/album/1714678/video/63796231

This animation utilises real world photography mixed with computer generated 2d animation. It has an interesting feel to it. It also uses subtle humour. I'm not sure yet whether to be subtle or quite obvious with the jokes in my video. I liked the layering of the photographs to give a 3d feel in a 2d world.

"Eye Candy"

http://vimeo.com/album/1714678/video/63561218

I don't really understand what this film is saying. But it was interesting to watch none-the-less. I liked the greyscale-ness of this video as well as the animation style (the way the characters moved). The character design in itself was also vaguely comedic.

"CHOIR TOUR (TRAILER)"

http://vimeo.com/album/1714678/video/59947709
This animation has a very interesting visual style, as opposed to 'showing' things as they should look it chooses rather to represent people and buildings in a recognisable, but highly stylised way. There are no words either - just another example of an interesting video that uses only sound effects.

"Shave it"

http://vimeo.com/album/1714678/video/63528500

This one is just fun to watch. It has a great, colourful colour palette too.

I choose you...

After some more thought I've settled on Humpty Dumpty for my animation. I think this rhyme will offer more opportunities to be funny.

Initial animation thoughts

After reading through the given nursery rhymes I ruled out 'Oranges and Lemons' and kind of honed in on 'Little Miss Muffet' or 'Humpty Dumpty'.

My aim is to come up with a humorous, 'clever' interpretation of whichever rhyme I choose. I want to form a story that is fresh as well as interesting to watch.

The Rhymes:

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Little Miss Muffet

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet

Eating her curds and whey,

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Both of these have literal interpretations which I would like to not rely on so much for this project; which is where I hope for the 'clever' part to come in.