Music Video Concept Info, Weekly Podcast and Updates.

Still in the process of setting up everything: the blog layout, my old animation archives, a podcast feed, a podcast, my new Internet connection, my life...so updates are still coming in rather slowly right now...did I mention a podcast? A weekly podcast.

Having already failed my personal goal of submitting the minimum of at least a single blog post every week, I will continue and attempt to complete the rounded out summary of all my original Re: your brains university final year project documented work (you may breath now). Over the next few days I will post everything that I have not already previously covered about the video, ending the whole experience with a commentary wrapping up my final thoughts about the production and any hindsight I may have as of the recording. After that: CHANGE!!! (see here for more info)

So lets get this crap over with, next up the initial concept information, featuring the novelized summary of the entire video...which I really wrote after making the video, but pretended I didn't:

1      Initial Concept

After going over the edited down version of the song, listening to the way the atmosphere builds up through the use of the music and lyrics, I eventually came up with a visual narrative to accompany the exciting eerie music. I also spent much time thinking about how elaborate the animation can be, the scale of the situation that I wanted to present, and how long it would take to animate.

All the animation I was doing needed to complement and bring something of value to the original song. It had to be visually interesting and exciting and not just having characters standing around with flapping mouths. Doing that would not be a good example of animation

1.1      Characters

The music video contains three main characters, as well as a handful of interchangeable Zombie designs multiplied many times to create the illusion of crowds. The three characters are as followed:

• Bob

He is the office boss who has recently been turned into a Zombie. Bob is the only character who will speak in the cartoon, singing the lyrics from the song.

• Tom

He is the office worker who gets bothered by the Zombie Bob. Tom is the hero and main character in the music video, the intent is to have the audience rooting for him to not be killed.

• Janice

She is a hot secretary that Tom has to save from Zombies half way through the video. Janice works as the damsel in distress, giving Tom an obstacle that he can actually overcome by saving her. 

1.2      Locations

To keep location workflow at a manageable level, I decided that I would start with Tom inside a locked room, then twenty to thirty seconds of action while Tom is on the run and it ends with him again in a locked room. I wanted the beginning and end to have the main character reacting while staying in one place. There are four location areas which are:

• Tom’s Office

This is where the video starts. Tom’s office is a small glorified cubicle with a door, window and shades. This room is mostly full of the usual office supplies such as a computer, desk and filing cabinet. Tom has customised his walls a little with a few motivational posters and graphs.

• Tech Support Hall Ways

This is the conveniently endless strings of hallways where all the action takes place. Aside from the broken windows, fires, splatter of blood and vital organs, this area look more or less like a generic type of office environment.

• The Supply Closet

This is where the majority of the ending shots take place. For whatever reason the supply closet works nicely as a safe house, containing large amounts of food and firearms.

• External shots of Tech Support

Now and then throughout the video, we cut to shots of outside Tech support where there are usually large crowds of Zombies gathered round. The building is a large block separated from everything else, with a car parked around it. 

1.3      Plot

Tom is a frustrated software engineer who works in private, with the door locked and the window shades down, at the company Tech Support. He is once again being pestered by his boss Bob, who tends to bother Tom several times a day over the intercom. Usually Bob visits Tom to enquire about incomplete paperwork and inefficient software data, but this time things are a little different. Bob has somehow been converted into an unholy undead Zombie and he wants to eat Tom’s brain.

It seems while Tom has been working in his closed off office space, a Zombie apocalypse has occurred and now there are several hordes of hungry Zombie mutants crowded outside the Tech Support Building. When Tom finally figures out what is going on, the Zombie Bob tries to reason with him, assuring that they only want to eat his brain and that no one is going to even touch his eyes. Not taking kindly to this news, Tom barricades the door with his filing cabinets, computer, boxes and everything that is not attached to the walls. This workplace is fine for a little while, but before long Bob and the other hundreds of Zombies descend on Tom’s office. As a mighty undead fist smashes through the window, Tom realises he has to run for it.

Tom Breaks down the door and crushes the four unsuspecting Zombies directly outside. Tom starts running down the hallway as Bob and the others chase him. After Getting some distance, Tom notices that Janice, the distant but very attractive secretary, who he could never summon up the courage to talk to, is surrounded by a small group of Zombies. Tom grabs the closest weapon he can find and rushes to save Janice. After spattering all the monsters heads against the walls, Tom grabs Janice and pulls her into the nearby supply closet, slamming the door behind them before Bob and his army can catch up.

As luck would have it, the room is packed to the brim with a wide selection of weapons, food, and locks. This ensures Tom and Janice’s safety, while the two of them get intimate. With little ground to stand on, Bob watches helplessly as his Zombie colleges try to chew off the door handle and get inside. Bob looking defeated however, lets off a little smile as we cut back to Tom and Janice looking at each other with concern. Tom gives Janice a thumb up, as a half hearted response, in an attempt to reassure her that things will work out. Taking kindly to this sweet gesture, Janice Gives Tom a big hug, it is then that Tom notices the big bloody bite mark on her back. A somewhat zombified Janice pulls away with a horrifying smile. Tom in shock takes a few moments to assess the situation. He then shrugs in an accepting expression and then the two intimately tumble underneath the sheets.

The Evil Dead & Bruce Campbell

Since it's currently taking me over 8 hours a piece to upload my old material onto you tube (leaching the net from my phone through a USB is apparently not as glamorous as I once thought), I decided that instead of going too long without an update I will continue to post more old FYP crap. After much soul searching I figured I might as well complete the documentation of it all, so that way if anyone ever cares to read all my words, they can go through it all and state "ah so that's where it all went wrong".

So with the added laziness of being ripped straight from my final year dissertation; I present my much prepared "research" (opinion) on the Evil Dead movies, it's star Bruce Campbell, and  how everything went on to influence the main character of Tom:

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• The Evil Dead Trilogy (1981), (1987), (1992) & The Musical (2003)

This franchise started off as a standard low budget horror movie about four teenagers being killed off one by one at a secluded cabin. Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead spawned a cult following due to its controversial gore and spooky atmosphere. For me personally it is a very badly acted cliché story that is more unintentionally funny than it is generally scary and I am very fond of this film for that very reason. One could assume that the creators saw it this way too, having its sequel concentrate more on the humor side of the series and finally dropping the horror element altogether for the third outing, which literally ended with our hero sleeping for thousands of years so that he can return to his job at a supermarket. Add to all of this the comedic stage musical made just over a decade later and you get a truly comedic genius of a trilogy that became something the original movie never set out at all to be.

The series centres on the S-Mart employee Ash, who has got to be the single most unlucky character in any horror movie franchise ever filmed. After forced to decapitate his friends who are possessed by ancient evil demons, Ash loses the control of his hand which begins to torment him by dragging him around the room, slapping him in the face and smash plates on his head. Once replaced with the very chainsaw he uses to cut it off with, he attempts to fight off the constantly re spawning Zombie like monsters with his newly formed saw hand and sawn off shotgun, only to be flung back in time to the middle ages where he has to defend king Arthur's court against a skeleton army led by an evil clone of himself.

The constant string of mis fortunate events that through unstoppable odds transforms the below average man into full blown action hero, is a theme I love very much and it is exactly what I aimed to mirror with my music video. The character of Tom is given two choices, die or be a man and like Ash he chooses the latter.

Bruce Campbell

As I mentioned before the character of Ash from The Evil Dead series is perhaps the most unlucky character invented, but none of this would have been apparent if it were not for the great performance of Bruce Campbell and how he develops the character throughout each movie just from his acting.

In The Evil Dead Ash is just a scared and helpless nerd. He has no idea what to do as the horrors start happening around him and opts to merely hide in corner while his friend Scott attempts to fend off the evil monsters that are coming to kill and posses them.

In Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, Ash now left alone to his own devices, descends into madness as he is forced to make best of the situation by surviving on his own. In one of the most iconic scenes in the series, Campbell has his character laugh joyfully with the hunted appliances scattered around the wooden cabin, as the evil openly mocks his efforts. The nerdy weak man that once ran away scared now embraces his end, loses all fear and decides that it is time to fight back.

Finally in Army of Darkness (A.K.A. Evil Dead 3) Ash decides he is not going to take it anymore and switches gear entirely into full blow action hero that will defend the innocent and vanquish the evil. Armed with his shot gun and chainsaw he cannot be stopped.

Bruce Campbell three act structure of the ash character is what I aim to apply to, far be it in a much more abridged fashion Tom given that Campbell had three movies, while I have two and a half minutes. First he is scared if Bob and his Zombie army then stricken with madness he runs through the battle field pushing all in his way aside. Finally when he sees Janice in trouble, he knows what he has to do.

All new Blog post no 1: The orignal FYP

Before I move on to my new material (which of course will at first be mostly recapping the past), I would like to take a moment to take care of some unfinished business. If I may peel back the lovely velvet curtain for a second and turn the spotlight directly on to FYP's original 18 posts, allow me to reveal the truth behind all writings relating to the creation of my very last university project. The “Re: Your Brains” animated music video.

I originally created this blog as a means to keep notes for what would later become my final year dissertation; which is, for anyone that doesn't know, a 10,000 word essay that every university student must undertake, regardless of whether or not their course incorporated a subject matter that lends itself to the dinosaur layout of problem, research, and solution; to be written by students who have been taught nothing but badly executed "How to draw Mickey Mouse with a pencil" techniques for the last three years. Also you get graded more on this essay then the actual project...*cough*

But I'm not bitter.

At any rate, during all the "fun" that was that write-up, I was able to touch on many different areas of interest, where I was able to tap into an attempt to explain all that goes through my over-thinking mind when it comes to the making of one of my animations. The original 18 posts mostly reflect this, albeit through a fake pseudo-educational "look at how amazing I am for ripping of Evil Dead and Office space" sort of tone, but I digress. After awhile, I began to enjoy documenting my progress. However, that feeling did not last through months of stressful, 10 hour, daily work schedules, unreliable university supervision, unfinished material and being forced to edit my notes down to bastardized BS student report style format where you talk like a robot about creativity.

The sad thing is that by the time I was done with all the endless praise I got from nearly everyone that saw the finished project, my inner self would not allow me to look past my short comings and appreciate what I had created. Coupled with a somewhat positively reinforcing, yet still rather lackluster "dance monkey dance" experience at the EXPOTESSSS, I left this blog to whither and never even bothered to post the final detailed black and white animatic.

UNTIL TODAY!!

   

So there it is. One day I may go back and do the colour version with full animation, but for now that’s it for my little visualization of an edited down song I have heard so many time now I want to destroy every known recording of it that ever existed. I kid, Jonathan Coulton’s “RE: your Brains” as well as all his many wonderful songs can and should be listened to on a loop forever and ever and ever, until your ears bleed and your skull melts while your eyes and tongue drop like slime from your head…BUY NOW.

Coming up next: The Simpsons, Star Wars, Transformers, Watchmen, Wonderland, Sonic the Hedgehog, a South Park South Bank London, mad scientists, disgruntled doorbell sales men, 3D animation, corporate logos, unhappy rabbits, killer rabbits, disgruntled house owners and…hamsters?

EXPOTEESSssssss...sss

After a somewhat tough couple of month in terms of work, I've received good news. I, along with 100 of other students studying in my year, have been chosen to get our final year projects showcased by the Expotees program at Teesside University. This is good because I will have a chance to show off my finished work to possible employers, as well as other folks in the animation industry that I wish to impress. Subsequently I've had to put together an image to be published in their annual handbook, which will go along side a photograph of me with a brief text description of what I am doing (this blog but very very very abridged). This is what I put together:

I'll admit it was a breath of fresh air to be able to draw something that wasn't a stick figure for once, in what feels like a long time.

Full FYP Stick Animatic

When I started this method of planning I thought it would be one of the easiest parts.  This however was not the case. I found early on that this was the hardest for this particular project. Just with getting the timing right, figuring out what could work where and overall fitting everything with the song so that the animation did it all justice.

What follows is the result of 4 weeks of frustrated days, consisting of very basic drawings. This is the entire animation as it will look with stick men and it works surprisingly well based on the reactions I've received from people I've shown it to. The process involved much trial and error, moving scenes around, scraping set pieces, re-drawing the stick men again and again to get the right emotion and timing. Whilst the finished rough still leaves room for improvement in later stages, I'm very proud of it and think it is a good sign for things to come.

 

While I've fallen a little behind schedule I think that the bulk of the work is behind me. Next I've just got to draw the final drawings and insert them in the places of the rough, which is far from as time consuming as this version of the animatic turned out to be. In the end its better to do the wrong drawing with a crude stick man then it is to have to redo the final art again because something was off. I still believe the choice to plan the animation this way will benefit me more and more in the future and ultimately save me a huge amount of time...Plus if all else fails I can just submit this as my final year project ;).

Stick Animatic

Yesterday when working on a animatic for a separate group module, I was able to throw together 1 minute and 16 seconds worth of material in just a single day.

Learning from that experience I’ve decided to do the same for my final year project. Below are the new character models for each character.

After I plan every shot with stick men and crude backgrounds I will re-do every shot with more detailed designs. I think this will be a quick and easy way to plan out the animatic before drawing everything up all neat.

Tom's Office

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.

Character Information

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.

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TOM

• 30 years old.
• Has worked as "Programming Code Supervisor" at "Bob Enterprises" for the past five years.
• Is 99.99% Dead inside.
• Prefers to be alone in his small personal office because he finds the outside world tedious and confusing.
• Contains a frustrated hatred for his boss Bob, who constantly bothers him with improvement notes, and motivational speeches.
• Has feelings for the attractive secretary Janice who he is too nervous to talk to.
• Feels bitter that the world is usually stacked up against him, usually using humor to cope with this.
• Socially awkward but is king when processing code.
• Loves the job he does, not who he does it with.
• Secretly practices long range gun shooting, and man on man street fighting in spare time...always the quiet ones.

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BOB

• 45 years old.
• 100% Dead, both inside and out.
• 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.

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JANICE

• 28 years old.
• Worked as "Secretary" for "Bob Enterprises" for past 4 months.
• Gushing with life, spends most of her free time with her attractive friends going out and partying.
• Became a secretary to fund her insanely active social life and living hobbies.
• Looking for a man who will treat her right, yet sexually attracted to bad boys.
• Is very afraid of zombies and being eaten by them.
• Demon in the sack.
• A basic and standard, mostly clichés male fantasy.

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The Movie That Is "Office Space"

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.

Character Model Sheets

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.

Bob Redesign

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. 

Final Character Clean Up Concept

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.

 

Character Concept Ideas

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.

Tom

 

Bob 

Janice

More Style Research

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.

Project Plan

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.

Rough Character Concept Ideas

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.

Tom

 

Bob

 

Janice

Style Research

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.

Mood Boards

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.

Reference Sources:

Office Space DVD

The Evil Dead DVD

Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn DVD

Evil Dead Regeneration PS3 Game

Evil Dead The Musical

My Name Is Bruce DVD

Army Of Darkness Comic

Office Space Merchandise

Bob

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.  

Reference Sources:

Office Space DVD

Army Of Darkness Comic

Stubbs The Zombie Xbox Game

Marvel Zombies Comic

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto DVD

Pictures Of Johnthon Coulton

1

2

3

4

5

 

Other Zombie Images

1

2

3

4

5

6

Janice

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 inspiration I 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.

Reference Sources:

Army Of Darkness Comic

Secretary Images

1

2

3

Background Ideas

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.

Reference Link

Reference Link

Rough Plot Description

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

1. Tom
2. Bob (zombie)
3. Janice
4. Random Zombies (same one different clothing / body parts missing)
5. Jill (zombie)
6. Bill (zombie)