Final rewrite ... edited

This is very close to the final story i'll be going with. The story has changed quite dramatically and I fell it is now better rounded and more complete. From now on i'll be focused much more on modelling the scenes, then getting them as photo-realistic as i can. Here is the story the animation will be based on. I have been doing a lot of trials in mudbox and have got close to a realistic looking bird.

Shot 1:  close shot. A shiny metal nut is lay in some grass, a beak comes into shot and picks the nut up.

Shot 2: Interior nest. The magpie puts the nut on a nail inside a bird box where he lives.

Shot 3: Medium Shot. 2 flashing rings are on the ground; a beak comes into shot and picks 1 up.

Shot 4: Interior nest. The magpie also puts the ring on a nail, then looks at it intently, the magpie eat an insect of the floor as he does so without taking his eyes from the ring.

Shot 5: close shot. Quick shot of a beak picking up the second ring.

Shot 6: Interior nest. 2 rings are on the wall inside the nest not flashing, the magpie pecks each ring to make them flash then sits on its perch eating from a container.

Shot 7: Interior nest, point of view. The rings stop flashing and the magpie looks outside, it sees two magpie’s flying through the sky on a sunny day he also sees a female magpie looking back at him.

Shot 8: Point of view. Looks out of the nest after looking at the female magpie and spots a shiny trinket, ignores the female magpie and swoops for the trinket.

Shot 9: Montage. A series of shots shows the repetition of the lights going out on the rings, the magpie getting bored; looking at the other birds and bringing more and more trinkets back to the nest.

Shot 10: Internal bird box. Shot of the magpie dropping the last of a series of trinkets into the nest, camera fades to black.

Shot 11: Internal bird box. Shot fades from black to show the magpie having gained weight and the sparkle gone from his eyes. The magpie is trapped in the nest unable to leave because of the amount of trinkets he has collected. The magpie dips his head and lies still; the camera fades to black and temporarily stays black. This keeps the audience wondering if the magpie is still alive.

Shot 12: External bird box. A healthy female magpie spots the trinkets in the nest. (One of the reasons the male magpie gains weight is so the viewer can distinguish between the two birds) It’s a bright sunny day giving a contrast from inside and outside the nest. The female magpie attempts to remove a trinket from the nest.

Shot 13: Internal bird box. The male magpie squawks and flaps it’s wings, he is angry at the attempt to remove his treasure. The shot is lit by a dusty shaft of light; the overall light is low as is any colour. There is a brief struggle between the birds and the female removes the trinket she wanted.

New shot: As the female bird returns for more trinkets the male magpie notices and glint in her eye, the shot slows to focus on the females eye sparkling in the sunlight. As a result the aggression of the male lessons and his intrigue in the female bird grows.

Shot 14. A montage shows this struggle happening again and again with the female removing more and more trinkets a series of cuts shows the trinkets dropping to the floor. As more and more trinkets are removed more and more light enters the nest. By the end of the montage there are no more trinkets except the ring. The female returns to the nest with food, the male magpie reluctantly takes the food. The male magpie nudges the final ring to the female bird and she takes it from the nest. Camera fades to black.

Shot 15. Circular pan. The camera pans around the empty bird box, the camera leaves a blind spot in the centre of the nest that the viewer cannot see.

Shot 16. Wide shot. The female is in a tree alone sitting on a branch. The male magpie returns looking healthy with fluff and straw in his beak. The female removes some fluff from his feather before they both fly out of shot.

Shot 17. Cuts back to the nest with a fixed shot of the nest containing and egg with each bird either side of the egg. The male is adding to the nest surrounding the egg with straw.

Shot 18. Camera zooming out. The camera zooms out of the nest as the egg is cracking. The camera pans from the nest to outside the nest showing the ring above the doorway on a nail, flashing.

Shot 19. Credits. The credits show over the top of a pile of trinkets that have been removed from the nest nearby male and female can be heard squawking with the sound of the egg cracking. An additional baby squawk adds to theirs as the camera fades to black and the animation ends.

Basic Modelling

I have started to box model a magpie, here is the progress so far.

And here is the reference image I used to model it, it took around 3 hours to get the model looking right.

The current model has been kept really simple so it can be imported into Mudbox. Mudbox will allow me to add a high level of realistic detail I am looking for, of course I need to add wings yet.

There is a script called mFeather that allows for the recreation of accurately moving wings, I will be looking into how to use that over the nest few days as it doesn't look straight forward. The wings and tail will all have to be fully rigged allowing me to animate them realistically. The link to mFeather on creative crash is here:
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/modeling/misc/c/mfeather.

I will be either blocking out or producing an animatic for the animation as I am having trouble visualising certain cuts. This process will hopefully refine the story to something that can be used and allow me to begin modelling the various parts of the scenes. I will be using two main scenes; inside the bird house and an external shot of a tree that the robin will be in. The book i have previously mentioned; Ideas for the animated Short recommends keeping the number of scenes to a maximum of 2 or 3 for a short animation.

Current rewrite of the story

So this is the closest i have got to combining my story with a genuine narrative. It's definitely getting there and I'm happy with the progress but i can image I'll be adapting this a few times yet.

I'm not 100% sure where I would like to go in industry yet but from what I am beginning to understand about narrative and story telling it's a really useful and interesting subject. I'm surprised that I have read about Carl Jung's psychology underpinning most of the character dynamics in Hollywood films. 

So the following is what i'm loosely basing my animation on. This is an extract from the book discussing how to take a big idea and scale it down so it's suitable for an animation short.

This will translate into the following structure:

• A character wants something badly

• Something happens that moves him to action

• He meets with conflict

• Things get worse until the character is in crisis

• He nearly loses all

• Learns a lesson

• Makes a hard choice

• In order to succeed

And this is a rough copy of how the story may go, but it'll probably evolve a few times yet.

Shot 1:  Close shot of a bolt twinkling in the sun; beak comes into shot and pick the bolt up.

Shot 2:  Interior shot of the nest, the magpie’s partner is in the nest waiting for the magpie

             Male Magpie comes home with the bolt and drops in on the floor in front of the female magpie

Male magpie is looking at the perch as the female magpie fades away, as this happens it becomes apparent the female magpie isn’t alive and in her place is a large amount of sparkly possessions.  The male magpie has become obsessed with material objects and has lost the sparkle in his eyes

*This shot is the insightful moment where the story begins and in addition is designed to give a bond based on pity and empathy between the audience and the character*

Shot 3: The magpie’s attention briefly looks at a robin flying passed.

Shot 4: The robin is in a tree singing on a sunny day

*The purpose of this character is to act the opposite way to the magpie, to act as a type of resolution and to highlight the magpie’s flaws*

Shot 5: Magpie is seen flying from the nest and spotting another shiny trinket.

Shot 6:  Magpie is seen poking is head through the nest dropping the trinket, rolling it around the floor a few times.

Shot 7: Magpie is seen flying from the nest in search of more trinkets.

Montage:  A series of shots back to back showing the magpie dropping trinkets from the door of his nest to the floor.

Fade to black

Shot 8:  Robin following then eating an ant from the bark of a tree

             *This shot is designed to show how nature intended foraging to happen*

Shot 9:  Point of view, robin looking at the magpies nest

*there will be some sort of bond happening between the robin and the magpie around this point so the end makes more sense*

Shot 10: Panning shot, showing the magpie in his nest trapped by the surroundings which cover the entrance and block out light, magpie dips head and goes to sleep

Fade to black

*The viewer is unsure of whether the magpie is alive or dead at this point*

Shot 11: A wide shot framing the corner of the magpie’s house, looking at robins flying and chasing each other

*This shot is designed to keep the viewer in suspense as to whether the magpie is alive*

Shot 12: Low shot of the ground for a few seconds before: bolt falls to the floor, then another item drops, then an item that has been previously referenced drops to the floor

Shot 13: The robin can be seen looking at the nest, inside the nest cannot be seen but various things are still dropping from the entrance

Shot 14: The magpie sticks his head out of the entrance squinting, throwing yet another bolt from the nest

Shot 15: The robin starts singing

Shot 16: The magpie flies, hovers and lands a little way from the robin and eats a berry off a branch

Shot 17: A panning shot goes from the two birds on a branch to passed the old bird box which is looking faded and pointless, the two birds fly passed the bird box one after the other chirping

Shot 18: a shot of the “trinkets” on the floor below the nest showing signs of rust as the credits roll

For the magpie and the robin to interact at the end some something will have to happen between them earlier in the story This could be:

Robin flying up to the nest to give the magpie food

Robin flying in the nest and neither bird being bothered

Magpie watching the robin through the entrance of the nest, robin watching back

Working on narrative ...

I have refined the storyline a lot today and decided to be a little more conventional with the narrative, giving it a proper resolute ending. This is because I've been reading the book "Ideas for the Animated Short". If your struggling to add structure to your narrative it's a great book to look at. Below are the notes I have been updating as I was reading the book.

Conflicts create problems, obstacles, and dilemmas that place the character in some form of danger or jeopardy, either physically, mentally or spiritually. This means that there will be something at stake for the character if they do not overcome the conflict.

The conflict is the hoarding and obsessive collecting of the foil etc. This creates the problem of the nest becoming full and introduces jeopardy when the magpie cannot leave or move in the nest due to the rubbish.

Inciting Moment. In every story, the world of the character is normal until something unexpected happens. This unexpected event begins the story.

It is thought that the magpie is collecting the shiny possessions for his partner, it is revealed early in the story that the partner is not alive.

Story Question. The inciting moment will set up questions in the mind of the audience that must be answered by the end of the story

A montage of cuts will show the magpie returning to the nest to drop of various trinkets. They may wonder were all the trinkets are going to go but before the reveal the camera cuts to the robin leaving the audience with questions.

Theme. Stories have meaning to the character and to the audience. The theme or concept is the underlying larger idea that the animation communicates. It is the deeper meaning of the story

The overall theme and message is to avoid consumerism and to realise that possessions don’t make you happy and can in fact own you.

Need. In order for the story to have meaning to the character, he or she needs to learn something to achieve the goal.

This is the main issue with the story currently; the character does not learn anything and dies as a result.

The magpie could observe the robins behaviour through a crack in the nest where he is trapped and learn from him, the robin could bring the magpie food and remove the rubbish that is keeping him trapped. The magpie would have learnt to be social and change his ways. The ending would show the magpie singing with the rest of the birds and the nest old, decaying and pointless. This would in-turn show the arc of the character and resolution of the story.

This raises the question should a formula be stuck to when writing a story or be deconstructed to provide a slightly different story.

In the first act, pity and empathy must be established for the hero so that the audience cares about the character and will engage in his pursuit. Then, the second act is the scene of suffering and challenge, creating fear and tension surrounding the hero and his challenges. In the final act, fear and tension are released by catharsis, the emotional release that allows for closure to end the story

In the opening scenes the magpie could be seen isolated from other birds.

Two perches could be seen in the nest as though a partner bird has recently been there

The magpie could have a limp or broken wing making it a struggle to move / fly

The act of the magpie looking at the other birds socialising could be enough to instil pity

The cathartic act could be the magpie pecking through the rubbish that has been collected and throwing it out of the nest.

Things to think about ...

After speaking to my tutor Jaime Pardo today I have a few other areas to look into:

• Should the message also incorporate all the waste humans dispose of or solely about this idea?
• Could the animation be from the robins point of view or should the contradictions run parallel?
• Should the story be more streamlined and simply be about a magpie keep adding to his nest and becoming trapped by his own possessions?
• Should the animation be stylised or photo-realistic?

In addition to the above concerns i also have an issue thinking of a research question to suite this project, possibilities:

• Which style is better for a serious subject; realistic or stylised?
• How important is a narrative when producing a short animation?
• Is the increased render time of final gather & global illumination when computing realistic shadows worth the overall effect?
• Can Maya's custom software create scenes aesthetically as good as Mental Ray?

  

And finally in addition to the above here is a short list of things that need to be researched 

• Create a mood board of colours, styles and textures to be used in the animation
• Research how birds move and act
• Read "Ideas for the animated short" to help with narrative Refine and complete the story / narrative

Initial Idea

I have had the following idea for about a month, the style is likely to be be realistic, possibly even photo-realistic. I aim for the animation to last around 2 minutes and I plan to study the narrative of the animation in depth to allow the story to unfold at a good pace.

The main protagonist of the story is a magpie, this magpie leaves his nest on a daily basis and goes flying. As he is out flying he'll notice sparkly, shiny and interesting objects, these will be brought back to his nest and stored. As the animation goes on it becomes apparent that the magpie doesn't really play or use these objects and instead is avoiding boredom. A quick succession of cuts allows the viewer to see the magpie is in a routine.

One day when the magpie is out he sees a small bike light, he manages to take this flashing light back home and places it in his nest. The magpie is transfixed with the flashing light and he begins to stare at it, as he stares he eats worms from a bucket. The magpie periodically gets bored with the light and goes foraging for more objects, the same thing happens; he looks at what he has just found, moves it around with his beak and places it on a pile with the rest of the "treasure". A video montage shows the bird repeatedly coming back to the nest with something new for the pile. Cut with this are the magpie in his dark nest transfixed with the bike light, eating worms.

In contrast to this character the viewer see's a robin fly by the nests circular door, this character is the contrast to the magpie. The robin is a social bird who is often out with nature singing and enjoying the sun.

When one of the cuts from the robin to the magpie happens after the video montage the viewer can see that the magpie has gained weight and lost the sparkle in his eyes. When he flies he flies slow and for short periods of time, because of this he spends more and more time inside the nest watching the bike light and eating worms. He just about manages to collect more shiny, sparkly objects. Towards the end of the animation the camera begins a circular pan of the nest starting from the light, passed the numerous object and possessions the magpie has aimlessly collected and as the camera comes to the end of the pan the magpies head has dipped and he has passed away.

From this shot the camera cuts to the robin eating berries in a tree with fellow robins all singing on a summers day. The robin has no possessions and instead focuses on having fun and being social.

So my main concerns so far are how bleak and depressing this story is! I'm not sure whether to tone it down or keep it harsh, i think if i keep it harsh and the animation and narrative are done right it could be quite powerful.