TREATMENT
My story idea is a tale that encompasses life, death, issues of morality and even an instance of cold-blooded murder. …As told with adorable fluffy animals, that is. The scene opens with three woodland creatures peering over the bushes at a paved road. On the other side of the road is the smelly body of a dead opossum. Curious about their fellow forest beast, the trio of animals lope across the road… only to be run over by an oncoming truck. Once satisfactorily squished, the “dead” opossum opens an eye and looks around—why, he had been faking it the entire time! He leaps up and laughs at the stupidity of the fresh roadkill splattered across the highway. But right in the middle of his celebrating, an oncoming truck careens into our opossum protagonist and, he too, is squished. But his soul floats from his body and rises into the heavens, where he gains a halo and a wing. He arrives in front of the gatekeeper of animal heaven, which is a fluffy dog known only as Saint Paw. …Saint Paul. Get it? Anyways, St. Paw looks at his book then up to the opossum, frowns, and then pulls a lever next to him that’s labeled “Heaven” on one extreme and “Hell” on the other. He has pulled the lever to the “Hell” side. Instantly, the clouds part beneath the opossum and plummets down towards the firey underground, his wings and halo disappearing as he does so. But suddenly, the scene dissolves back to the roadside just as the car wooshes over the opossums’ covered head—he hasn’t been run over after all! After making sure that he is, indeed, still alive, he rushes to warn a new batch of animals that they probably shouldn’t go across the road.
I plan on using predominately the parenting and limb movement technique for most of the actions of the animal characters as well as some close-up more frame-by-frame reaction shots. While the characters themselves will be more 2D and rather flat, they will stand in sharp contrast to their surroundings and the cars, which I play to try and give a more stylistic feel rather than realistic. I don’t think there will be any dialogue in this film, but lots of sounds effects (which I will try and foley myself) and music (which I still need to research). The animals will all be hand-drawn and free-hand—I’ll draw them and their specific expressions, then scan them into my computer and trace these drawings using my tablet and separate those into moveable sections. For the backgrounds, I plan on finding a more or less abandoned stretch of road and taking pictures of it, then rotoscoping these at the angles I need. If I cannot find a good place to take pictures, then I’ll freehand the background. For the cars, I’ll take pictures of the vehicles I want to use and either use the actual cut-out images or rotoscope over them.
STORYBOARDS
These read from left to right.
PRODUCTION SCHEDULE
- Week 1 - NOV 1st : Take pictures of roads and cars, begin outlines of scenes
- Week 2 - NOV 8th : Finish scene outlines, begin coloring
- Week 3 - NOV 15th : Finish coloring, begin backgrounds and animation
- Week 4 - NOV 22nd : Finish backgrounds and animation, record/add audio and music
- Week 5 - NOV 29th : Finalize, polish, and render out
