Pick n Mix Project (Installment no. 2)

So yesterday i posted about all my issues with the Pick n Mix project I'm currently doing and Ive gotta be honest, getting all that doubt and anger with myself out on paper... kind of.. really helped. I continued my night doing this basic storyboard for an intro.. hopefully explaining my story for the series I am to complete.. So... S1 E1 of Snowball Snowdown - and yes ill probably change that... because its corny af.

So this is the basic intro sequence on the left and to the right theres the basic shots ill need for the episode as any one person speaks.

So the premise is, its a game show.. kind of like... QI meets James Corden meets Mock the Week...  Basically, Snowball the ceramic Cat is like the Stephen Fry of the Animated world, he knows all, though he doesn't have a sidekick. Ted the Teddybear (all names are subject to change because clearly I can't be trusted to name anything... Hell i named my dog bossy and my plant oxygen.. ) and Bobo the Bronze Owl are regular Characters on the show, and team leaders who each have a guest on each episode as their team member. 

the shots I planned to use were al close up to mid shots of individuals or their pairs and the occasional  longshot to display the whole set for things like scores. I was playing with the ideas of panning shots for movement of characters so that the character can be on a walk cycle loop as the background moves as its meant to be animated in 2D. 

So.. 'Why is the script not included Tasha?' i hear you ask. Well.. ITS REALITY TV WHICH MEANS I DONT HAVE TO WRITE A SCRIPT!

best thing ever about reality tv with this project is, I can write questions and answers on cards and give it to the person who's going to be voicing Snowball and then give random answers to the other 4 voice actors some of the answers to be correct and others not.. but they won't know... and basically, sit everyone down. get people to just have a chat around the questions and then make jokes as they go... 20 minute episode with around 5 questions in total... simple... then all I would have to do is edit the sound track together, film the voice actors as they go as reference footage for movements, as well as lip-syncing. 

Pick n Mix project (Installment no. 1)

So the Pick n Mix project started on Monday, the third - and yes I had to check the date...

so. what have I done so far? well.. i struggled for ideas up until saturday. I spoke to Kathy and Derek (my lecturers) and they suggested branching off from my cards and coming up with something related to the cards but not exactly true to the words I was provided.

so I shall explain.. My last post was about the Art nouveau remake piece, which was the first instalment of this project, we were provided on the 3rd with a further three cards with random words on them. My cards read:

Style: Art Nouveau

Place: New York

Show: Reality tv

Character: Ceramic knick knacks. 

So everything was going fine until the characters, thats where all my ideas stopped and I hit, not a mental wall... more like the project was this bottomless pit and the only way to escape was to come up with an amazing idea not only my lecturers would like but my class would too. so... it was hopeless, and I'm scared of the dark, and failing, so I got myself into this downward spiralling anxiety ridden project. 

So, when in such a predicament you speak to friends and teachers for ideas

nothing. 

I literally had nothing. it had been 5 days since the class and usually id be full of ideas, incapable of just choosing one. but this time i was done for. there was nothing. my house mates tried to help but even then.. it wasn't working. 

I literally gave up on saturday night. sat down, watched tv ate dinner with some housemates and chilled.

epiphanies happen at the most random of times. ill tell you that for sure. id ben straining my brain for an idea for 6 days straight and id even tried to pretend like i was chilled and not thinking about it in order for something to come to me, but it wasn't until id literally given up all hope and just said i won't even bother, ill wing it in a week, that i realised something I read. 

You see id done loads of research, on each one of my cards and it was a single line of text in pages and pages of reading that i remembered something along the lines of 'Reality Tv is any program which is partially or completely unscripted' - you know what that means:

Chat shows  - Late night with Seth Meyers

- The Graham Norton Show

- The Tonight Show staring Jimmy Fallon

- The Ellen DeGeneres Show

- The Late Late Show with James Corden 

They all count!

Comedy Tv - QI

- 8 out of 10 Cats

 -  Mock the week

- As Yet Untitles

This is where the ideas started flowing.

So heres the research bible so far :)

Proof of Concept and research into Reality tv:

 

Ceramic Knick Knack research

Art Nouveau in New York Research

This is when i started brainstorming ideas and had a brain melt. Nothing worked. Nothing Fit. Nothing seemed just right. There were ideas but not one that I actually wanted to produce. 

So, i continued my research into how id animate, what colours i should use to display certain moods or time periods.  Then into character design, hoping that if I came up with a character I liked then maybe I could construct an animation around the character...