After walking around the university the other day, I noticed that one of the buildings and the offices inside them looked perfect for what I had in mind for Tom's office, and the Bob Enterprise building in general.
My first trip back with a camera didn't work out so well because you couldn't see inside very good. Still I like the shape of the windows and the line pattern on the building.
Went back a few hours later when the lights were on, this worked out a lot better because you can now see all the details that inspired me to begin with.
This picture is pretty much perfect for referencing the desk and the computer that Tom will be sitting on in the opening shot. Although you can't see most of what is inside the room, the silhouette of the desk, computer and desk would work great for animation.
More shots of the rooms. No offence to anyone that works in these, but I love how pathetically small they look and that they are almost clones of each other.
And finally some more pictures that show off what’s in the room better, and allow you to see more of the details. I'll be using these pictures a lot when drawing out the animatic and for any concept art work I do for Tom room. In the future I may see if I can get inside one of these rooms to take more pictures, but I think they will look better and closer to the isolated look I’m going for from this far away angle.
When animating any character the main things you have to think about are body language and the way they move, a good way to figure out these thing are to figure out their personalty. What follows are descriptions for each main character, detailing some brief history, and information on how they think and who they are.
Founder and head of "Bob Enterprises" until he was bitten on the shoulder, by a zombie during a lecture on the importance’s of synergy.
Feeling more alive then ever after being turned, he UN-lives in a constant satisfied feeling of positive unchained bliss, similar to that of a drunk or someone on drugs.
Using the networking skills he acquired in life, has appointed himself manager and representative of the impending zombie hordes, who are gathered outside his ex business.
Has brain dead ignorance to the fact that his employees don't like him, even considers himself their friend.
Enjoys stamp collecting, good times, and easy listening country music.
Has amazing communicational skills, and exceptional singing voice.
Based on a series of animated shorts made for American comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live, creator Mike Judge took his characters and setting into live action with this smart down to earth comedy called Office Space. Judge who is best known as the creator of "Beavis and Butt-Head", wrote and directed this masterpiece of a movie, which satirize the tedious life of a pencil pusher, and just about how much they will put up with before they flip out and start doing things by their own rules.
As I've said before, a lot of what I have in mind for the animation based on Jonathan Coulton song, is inspired heavily by this film. While I'll get more into Coulton in a later blog entree, it is know that before all his internet music success, he spent some time working as computer programmer in most likely a dull office with an annoying boss similar to this movie. It would not be impossible to assume that he most likely saw this movie, and was either inspired or related enough to the characters from Office Space, that he may have based the character of Bob some what on Bill Lumberg. If this is not the case, then Coulton at least had as much experiences dealing with people like those featured in this movie, as Judge himself. All speculation aside, my personal view is that the song is essentially what you get when you cross dawn of the dead with Office Space, and maybe add a pinch of Evil Dead.
The Plot is centers around frustrated low level employee of Initech, Peter Gibbons. After taking in a group session with a hypnotist, attempting to have himself brain washed into liking his dull job, a hart attack causes his hypnotist to drops dead. This event causes Peter to stop caring about all the unnecessary stresses in his life, and after being unintentionally promoted due to his new relaxed uncaring attitude, takes revenge for his fired co worker friends, by hacking into Initech's accounts to steal a very nice redundancy package.
I will be drawing from the following scenes respectively, for character movement, directional camera placing, facial expressions, and humor tone.
In this first scene we get to see the differences and interaction between the main character Peter Gibbons, and his boss Bill Lumberg. Bill strolls into work very satisfied, while Peter drudges in and even hesitates to enter. This illustrates perfectly the dynamic I want for Tom and Bob, Peter clearly hates Bill, but is just pretending to do what he wants so that he'll leave him alone.
There are some great shots here to, which I'll refer to when doing the animatic.
Here is a quick scene between Lumberg and the character of Milton. Milton was the main character in the same titled series of animated shorts, which the movie was based on. One of the shorts even featured both of these characters in a similar type of interaction, which eventually carried over into this movie and this clip. This again works as more good examples for movement and expressions for Bob, as well as some possible reaction inspiration for Tom when he's hiding from the zombies
Another short scene between Peter and his boss, this time a different member of management. While Bob was based a lot on Bill Lumberg, this character also works as a good template for movement and mannerisms to reference. I really love the calm way that Peter tries to get across his point, and how he ultimately fails because the other guy is happy to talk but will not listen to a word Peter is saying.
While I didn't Have Jennifer Aniston in mind when designing the character Janice, while looking for reference clips I could help noticing the similarities in what I was thinking about for the chemistry between her and Tom. This scene between Peter and Joanna demonstrates well the kind of thing I’m looking to do in the animation in terms of character direction.
Another scene with Milton and Lumberg. Through out the movie Lumberg continues to take and take from Miltons character until he eventually snaps and burns the building down.
Here is some footage of Lumberg talking to all the employees. Good references here are of crowds and how the way Peter is positioned really stands out among the other office drones.
Some more interaction between Peter and Lumberg. Peter really doesn't want to work on the weekend but he knows that if Lumberg asks him he will cave, so Peter is hiding from him in an attempt to slip out of work without his boss seeing him.
I like this part of the movie, because it shows that Joanna is just like Peter, and also answers to a dumb annoying boss, who also bothers her with pointless corporate BS. Mike Judge himself plays her boss, as a sort of cameo reprise of the Bill Lumberg he voiced in his original animated short. I like how her boss wants Joanna to obvious wear more flare in almost a threatening way; he just won’t say it for possible hint of legal implications.
Peter disturbingly dreams about Lumberg having sex with Joanna after hearing that she slept with a Bill Lumberg, who unknowing to him just had the same name. The end bit where his neighbor is talking to Peter through the wall, works as good reference for when Bob is speaking to Tom and Janice through the wall at the end of my animation.
After witnessing the death of his hypnotist, Peter finally gets the courage to ask Joanna out. I figured this would be a good clip to reference a short exchange between Tom and Janice after he saves her from the hordes of zombies.
Again more good stuff for the end of the animation, to show how Janice and Tom reacted to Bobs speaking through the wall of their well protected hiding space. Bill Lumberg continues to try and contact Peter, but Peter just doesn't care anymore.
The final scene between Lumberg and Milton. Lumber continues to be a total ass hole to Milton giving him perfect reason to snap and set fire to his Lumberg's business. This is a great piece for Bob, Lumberg maintains his complete customer service like attitude towards Milton, even though he and him are placed in an absurd area where there would be not point in deluding each other any further. Bob has the same approach to Tom, he doesn't care that he's a zombie, he's still his boss and he still wants to remain professional.
Now that Peter no longer cares about work, he no longer cares about Lumberg. The big thing of note from this clip is the way Lumberg pretends to himself that Peter still respects him and continues to act as if Peter has been fair and is doing what he asks. I want this to be the way Bob walks away at the end of the video while the other zombies are chewing on the doors.
Lumberg tries to have a word about Peter's behavior. It backfires.
And finally the ending moment when Peter sees his place of work and personal prison burn to the ground. At first he looks so what confused as if not knowing what to do, then he sees the guilty looking Milton sneak away and he lets out an almost insane laugh. Tom has witness his daily hood die, all his co workers either eaten or turned into zombies, but he got the girl, found a place of safety, and feels more alive then he has in years.
Next I'll be looking at a few more films that have inspired this animation, the Evil Dead Trilogy.
Work is going well; I’ve completed the rough pencils of the three main character models, in the process of deciding whether or not I will bother to create the two secondary ones Bill and Jill, or either cut them for generic zombies or just wing the designs in the animatic stage. Also the generic zombies will either be the same one copied and pasted a bunch of times, or I’ll make three that I will copy and paste a bunch of times.
Tom
Bob
Janice
Most likely I wont do as much prep work for later designs since as I write this I’m at risk at falling behind schedule, and must do what I can to move on to stage 2. The above designs will work as the main guideline for the animatic drawings, although I will be drawing the animatic in flash and the designs will most likely improve. I will do final cleaned up versions of all three when I get to the colour part of stage 3 in the project plan.
After doing some research by looking at more zombie designs, I redesigned Bob to look a little more creepy and ghoulish. I felt the previous design looked a little too young and friendly, and while I am going for humor, I still want Bob to look like more of a threat.
I started by drawing out a non infected version of Bob based on his current design. I did this so I could home in on his key features, as well as try and figure out what the character was like before he got infected. My idea was that when human Bob was uptight and very self important in the way that he stands, once he became a zombie, he loosened up a little sort of like when stricken person tries alcohol or drugs for the first time. I like to think that Bob is a lot happier as a zombie then as a human.
So far the changes are mainly in the eyes and the ripped off part of his mouth. after looking at the pictures below I was able to add more details to these areas which in turn make the character look more messed up, which I think works well.
The blank eyes were taken from this drawing that I found here.
The ripped off jaw was inspired by these two above images, first taken from The Haunted World of El Superbeasto DVD, and the second here.
Lastly I took a look at this fan drawing of Jonathan Coulton to finish off the hair. This image can be found here.
Here is my 3rd attempt at cleaning up the characters. I am very close now to drawing up the final model sheet rotations that I will refer to when drawing the animatic. At the moment I am completely happy with the look of Tom, finally getting his hair right by taking another look at the Peter nodding toy on the Office Space Merchandise image. Janice’s Hair still needs a little more refining, and in the next drawing I will try to make Bob a little more taller and bulk as I feel he looks too young at the moment.
After deciding on the aspects that I liked best of the first set of drawings, I continued to refine each character design, developing and adjusting them to the style based on what I learned from my research and copying practice. To help with this I tried to put the characters in poses and give them expressions that they might have within the two minutes of animation.
After having some trouble when drawing the bodies and hands of the characters, I decided I should take some more time out before doing the second drafts by copying more of the source material. Above and below are more drawings based on Nick Bradshaw style from the Evil Dead comic series.
In order to make sure I stay on task and keep to a schedule, I have created a project plan so that I will consider all that I must do to complete the project before the deadline on the 4th of April 2011.
To break down the work, I have split the project into three stages:
Stage 1 is all about research and black and white concept art. Stage 2 focuses on the animatic and animation preparation. Stage 3 will be where I decided on colour, the final fully produced animation, and my dissertation write up of all that has transpired.
The plan is made up of a table with the task to be completed on the left, and the area in which it should be completed marked in red under the appropriate month on the right.
Here are the first drafts of character drawings based on the images in the mood boards. For each character I have tried different hair, clothing and body types to experiment with the look and try and find something I like.
I also want to add this picture of Michael Douglas from the movie Wall Street to the list of references. When drawing I referred to it a lot for both hair style and clothing inspiration.
In order to learn Nick Bradshaw I have spent some time copying aspects of his drawing. As seen above I first copied a few panels of the Ash character in the Evil Dead comic, as well as the poses the character was in.
Considering that one of the big major factors in any style is the facial features and expression, I felt it was important to find and copy as many as possible from the source material. As I continue to design and draw out the characters for my animation, I will references these drawings, as well as going to practice other parts of the style to research, learn and improve.
As I’ve been taught on my Computer Animation course for the last 2 years, it’s always best to get together a collection of images as well as putting together a mood board for each character. What follows are my findings which I will be using to help me design my characters as well as some of the background designs.
Tom
Since the style and look of the cartoon will be based heavily on the already referenced Evil dead comic, for the character of Tom I have found images of various incarnations of the character Ash, and his actor Bruce Campbell. Another huge inspiration is the character Peter Gibbons as portrayed by Ron Livingston in the movie Office Space.
For Bob I looked at a number of different sources to create a character based on a mixture of ideas. I really liked the idea of having Bob look like a zombie version of Jonathan Coulton, since he is the one singing his lines this makes sense for the character. Other pictures are a combination of zombie picture from comics I have really liked the look of in the past, and stuff I found searching around on Google and Deviant Art. Style and research choices I am interested in are other simplified ways to draw zombies and usage of shadows for zombie crowds.
I have also again referenced the movie Office Space, this time with Peter's annoying Boss
Bill Lumbergh played by actor Gary Cole. At a later date I will do a blog post which will go into more detail about the relevance and importance of the movie Office Space, and its effect on this project.
This character is created especially for the animation and is not part of the original song. Janice will work as the heroine for Tom to rescue from zombies and shack up with at the end. For inspirationI again looked at the Evil dead comics to get an idea of what women look like in the Nick Bradshaw style, and searched for images on Google for secretaries.
Lastly are a couple of pictures found on Google of business offices. This gives me an idea of where the animation is set and what the backgrounds might look like.
After selecting the song Re Your Brains I spent many hours listening to it over and over again, thinking about what could be happening during certain lyrics and musical segments. After much thought I wrote down a rough draft of bullet points, that goes through every shot, event, and important character movement to figure out unstrained everything that will occur in the video. This was also a great opportunity to figure out how many characters I wanted to use, and how visually Tom and Bob would interact with each other.
As I mentioned before, this written form is unstrained, meaning I didn’t hold back much when writing it in terms of limiting myself to a sensible amount of drawings and realistic work required. I’m sure as I go further with this project and get into the animatic, things will get cut out or changed altogether for things like timing and execution.
Animation Outline: First Draft
Tom is in a cold, dark, sterile office begrudgingly typing away on his computer.
He hears his boss Bob’s voice coming from the window next to his computer.
Tom’s window is closed has the shade down; he rolls his eyes.
He takes a sip of coffee from his “code monkey” cup, and sits it on his desk.
He reluctantly goes to open the shade to see what Bob wants.
On the line “…except that I’m a zombie now” Tom opens the shades to see a zombie Bob greeting him.
Bob has his face pressed up against the window and is drooling on the glass
Tom jumps in a “what the fuck” manner.
He runs to the door to see zombies of Jill from accounting, and Bill from marketing stumbling towards his office in the hall way.
Tom pushes his file cabinet up against the door. Grabbing what else he can to barricade himself inside.
He presses himself up against the side of his desk which is opposite to the window where Bob is talking to him.
Slowly he crouches up to look over his desk and out the window.
While Bob continues to speak, he sees fellow co workers get attacked and bitten by Zombie Jill and Bill. The windows are broken and there are more zombies in the background.
Camera pans back to Bob who is holding a memo and says “But here’s and F.Y.I, your all goanna die screaming”
Camera flies outside to a sea of zombies (Like outside the mall in Dawn of the dead).
We are shown the massive crowd of zombies from the back surrounding Toms work building. All screaming “ALL WE WANNA DO IS EAT YOUR BRAINS”
Bob picks up some eyes from one of the dead co workers below off screen, and throws them away. “We’re not unreasonable, no ones gonna eat your eyes!”
Another shot of the crowd of zombies swaying in an almost “comb by yah my lord” kind of way.
Bob flips through his notes, acts suggestive while pointing to a pie chart behind him on a stand up dry erase board.
Cuts to Tom horrified, unbelieving face with jaw dropped and eyes wide open. His head still stuck out from behind the side of his desk.
A zombie hand smashes through the glass of the window.
Many more zombies start pouring into the building.
As they start scratching at the door, Tom kicks it open crushing several zombies.
Tom stomps their heads as he steps on the broken door on the floor
He runs away from the broken windows deeper into the building, pushing away the zombies as they attempt to grab him.
Holding his coffee cup, he pours his remaining hot coffee in a zombies face, and breaks the cup on ones head.
He also throws his pens, pencils, and other stationary at them.
It is then he notices Janice, the nice sweet looking sectary that he had previously been to nervous to talk to surrounded.
He noticing the emergency shot gun in the “emergency shot gun, break now to open” case.
Possible idea if there is room: he ignores the emergency fire alarm, cleaver, and chainsaw in favour of the shot gun.
He pushes a moving cart, jumps on it and starts shooting at the Janice surrounding zombies. Hitting one of them in the head.
He hits the rest with the cart and they tumble like bowling pins…but with more blood.
One of the zombies tries to pull his shot gun away from him.
Tom shoves it to the ground, aims his gun and blows it away as blood his face and he smiles.
Amongst all this we cut to zombie bob realizing that he indeed a monster. “I’m, not a monster Tom…well? Technically I am…I guess I am”
Tom grabs Janice and pulls her into a windowless room, slamming the door shut from inside.
Zombie bob awkwardly walks up to and knocks on the wall to the windowless room Tom and Janice are in. He does it in a way that shows he knows he’s bothering his employee but he really has to tell him this important information.
He taps his watch “Got another meeting Tom maybe we could wrap this up”
Bob points over to the door where three zombies are attempting to get it open. One is chewing on the door knob; the others are standing around looking confused. “…I report back to my colleges who are chewing on the doors. I guess we’ll table this for now”
Tom is shacked up with Janice. Janice is under bed sheets; Tom is shirtless smoking a cigar.
They are secure with silent hill 4 like locks on the door; there are many weapons around, and plenty of food.
We inter cut with them and Bob as he gives his motivational speak. He eventually leaves walking off with a sense of pleasure that he did a good job as he says “…and we’ll put this thing to bed, when I bash your head open.”
Tom gives the thumbs up to concerned Janice, to reassure her that everything is going to be fine.
Tom hugs Janice and suddenly notices the big oozing zombie bite on her back.
His hands fly off her in terror, then his expression changes to a “what the hell” look. Tom shrugs.
He puts his arms around her again and they tumble like lovers off camera to the ground.
THE END
3 main characters, crowds of generic zombies, 2 less generic zombies
Tom
Bob (zombie)
Janice
Random Zombies (same one different clothing / body parts missing)
While I will be looking at other artists and styles through out my project, there has always been one piece that shows exactly what I am trying to accomplish in terms of tone and look for the video. This sequential art from the comic series Army of Darkness Shop Till You Drop Dead, published by Dynamite in 2005 and based on the Evil Dead movie trilogy, demonstrates exactly the kind of animation I want to create for this song. Art by Nick Bradshaw.
Despite that this concept design material is intended to recruit an animation team to finish the final product I felt it seemed necessary to edit down the source material from its original time length of 4 minutes and 32 seconds down to something more manageable. Using Nero WaveEditor I removed the second verse, shorted some of the instrumentals in the middle, and took out the ending in favor of a looped chorus that fades out. The song is now much sorter at 2 minutes and 36 seconds.
This helps when allowing me to create a full length animatic under the set time constraints as well as eliminating certain themes and ideas present in the uncut version that limit my creative vision. For example there is a line that I removed about the character of Tom being trapped inside a mall; I wanted him to be inside an office, so with that lyric gone from the audio I am free to do this.
My name is Mike Lawrence and I am using this blog as a means to help myself keep track of all the research, preparation work, and execution for my final year project. Here I will be posting images and videos that inspire me, mood boards, character and set designs, expression sheets, and finally the animatic and final animation.
The project itself is a 2D animation pitch for a music video, based around the song Re Your Brains by musician and song writer Jonathan Coulton. The idea is to create material that aims to generate interest from other animators in order to recruit them into being involved with the final colour animation. I will be putting together myself the character designs, set designs, prop designs, a black and white animatic for the entire length of the cartoon, and twenty five particular seconds of completed final animation to demonstrate what the finished result could look like with a team’s involvement.
The cartoon itself will provide animation to compliments the entire edited song, consisting of two minutes and twenty five seconds cut down from the initial four minute original. The animation like the song is about a struggling office worker who is approached by his boss, now turned zombie. His boss Bob wants to kill/eat him, but in a professional way. It will contain three main characters, as well as a handful of interchangeable zombie designs multiplied many times to create the illusion of crowds.
I will be using animation and art software, Abobe Flash, and Photoshop respectively, all rough work will be drawn out using traditional methods of pencil, paper and light box before being cleaned up with for mentioned digital programs. There will be efficient amounts of research into different art styles and animation techniques, referencing old material for inspiration and to learn new skills. My objectives are to overall improve my skills in many different fields’ e.g. 2D effects, parallax scrolling on multilayer giving a 3D effect, character animation, background and character art, facial expressions, and develop an appropriate new style that stands out and looks completely different to anything I have ever done before.
Finally copyright violations is not a concern. On his official website Jonathan when asked if his music can be used in a student project, responded in the FAQ section:
"Yes please. And I would love to see/hear it. All my music is released under an Attribution-NonCommercial Creative Commons license that allows any kind of non-commercial re-use provided you: 1) credit me and link to this site, and 2) don’t use it to make money (this does not apply to songs with material that I don’t own, like covers and mashups and remixes). Really, no need to ask permission, just go make that thing. If you want to know more about how Creative Commons works, check out the site."
