Animatorssurvivalkit

After you have done some research and gathered a wide array of ideas you may want to animate, it’s time to  take them original. The following brainstorming exercise was developed to help people combine ideas they would not normally consider.

Most of the ideas you think of sitting around watching Star Trek or walking down the street have also been thought of by some other dedicated 3D maven who is probably working on it right now. You need to go beyond the first idea and go deeper. The majority of screenplays in Hollywood are rewritten from scratch at least 10 times before they are considered ready to shoot. You should spend as much time as possible making sure your idea is the best and most original one you can generate before committing it to production.

Never touch a computer unless you have final storyboards that have undergone a process such as the one described in these first three chapters. If the story does not work on paper you cannot fix it by adding a bunch of whiz bang special effects or even great animation.

Be honest with yourself, get lots of feedback and be prepared to make your final concept as successful as possible at the storyboard stage. A great deal of «rough» storyboard ideas end up in final animations because the animator was just so enthusiastic he could not wait to touch that computer. Sometimes you do get a great idea out of the blue but it will still need considerable work to make it a tight animated story.

Take out a big drawing book or sheet of paper and make four columns such as the ones that follow with these main subject headings:

1) 3D Characters: Think of some 3D characters you have always wanted to animate. You must think of a good reason to do them in 3D or you can’t put them on the list. Be specific and describe them using visual adjectives whenever possible. The goal is to be able to see the character and understand its essence from the description. «Robot dog» will not get you as far as «robot dog made of found junkyard objects, rusted, pit bull, sassy male punk teenager white trash mutt with one eye». Now you can see the robot dog better and get a good visual sense of his personality. Do not worry about sentence structure or good grammar. Sometimes just a few words is fine. Underline main words such as «robot dog» to help you glance quickly at the list later if this seems helps you.

«This is a 500 year old woman with lots of wrinkles. It would be very difficult to find an actress to play this role which makes it a great idea for a 3D.»

2) 3D Settings: Think your ultimate list of 3D sets. Once again it must make sense to do it in 3D. Audiences want to see things they have never seen before. Base all settings on actual exiting places to give them a style. Feel free to combine ideas. Add dates for reference to help us understand look and feel. «A city» gets you nowhere. «Ice crystal city Paris type metropolis 2300, future primitive cave buildings, powder blue with a silver mercury river». Once again underline the main idea if it is hard for you to pick out from the rest of the words. As you do 3D worthy.The visible motivation on the part of your main character is what will drive the story so be sure to choose motivations you can show well.

4) Obstacles: You need to look at the motivations column to complete the obstacles since they are tied together. Think of at least two obstacles for each motivation. «To get rich by inventing new happy drug» could have obstacles such as «bad side effects/drug companies trying to kill you for the formula».Try to have the first obstacle be smaller than the second.

Think of at least twenty to sixty ideas for each column. Add to this list as you go through your life. This brainstorming tool can also be tailored for specific ideas such as an alien game world, You could then concentrate on just alien 3D characters, alien sets and corresponding the settings do not look at the first character column list. You should not be trying to think of where the robot dog lives at this point.

«This prehistoric setting would make sense to do in 3D. You could not take a camera crew out to shoot this and it is something people have not much of before which will make it more interesting. The 3D characters also fit nicely into the environment.»

3) Motivations: Once again do not look at the previous two columns. Think of good motivations for characters in movies or stories you have heard. Motivations can be a bit more general or really specific if you want. «To getrich» works as well sometimes as «to get rich by inventing new happy drug». If you get stuck on thinking about good motivations go down to your local video store and read the back of movie boxes. Video stores are great resources for thinking up 3D characters and sets too. Just add slight design twists to make them.

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