Revised Schedule

So I gave myself a little extra time in case what I thought might happen did happen. And behold, yes it did. Over the break I revised the bulk of my assets that weren't working and got some much needed work done on other assignments so I can focus here on more where I need to focus. That being said, my schedule isn't really valid anymore.

What I'm planning is to have at least half done by Tuesday (30th).

Attempt to get the remainder finished by Thursday (Dec. 3rd)

Then I'll have the DVD packed up and ready to go (Dec. 7th)

If the worst case scenario hits and this animation takes absolutely forever (meaning much longer than I've planned already), I'll finish over the weekend, but the DVD will still be ready to go by the 7th.

Further Editing to assets

For the outdoor scene, I changed the look of the tree to something a little more simple. I'm stll not totally sure it works, but in my opinion it works better than it did before. Also, I changed the mole to a skunk, just because there were complaints before about the mole, and I think the skunk would be funnier in the end. I chose not to to make purely a line character because it didn't work with a skunk.

For the living room I remodeled the cat and mouse, as well as put them in a different spot.

For the kitchen, made each character articulated with separate limbs.

Break Down of middle parts

1

2

3

4

Calendar for Final Project

Tuesday (16th): Have bulk of assets done.

Thursday (18th): Have complete any remaining assets, have all compositions staged, and begin experimenting with puppet tool to move line-drawing characters.

Tuesday (23rd): Have scenes up to where cat curls up with rat animated.

Thanksgiving Holiday: Animate remaining scenes of animation.

Tues (30th): Have DVD menus made in photoshop.

Thursday (2nd): make any final revisions on animation.

Tuesday (7th): Have first draft of DVD made.

Thursday (9th): Turn in final DVD.

Revised Idea

The rat still starts off with stealing food from the kitchen, the cat chasing the rat, and the cat still helps the rat. the owner sets out traps for the rat, starting with the humane ones, and as the rat doesn' t go near them, the traps at placed in more strategic spots and become steadily more brutal (electric doors that shut when a a rodent is detected to spring-loaded traps and glue traps) until one day when the mouse actually gets caught in a trap and dies. At first the cat mopes, but then she sees a mole. Completely taken in by the mole, she forgets all about the rat, and goes chasing after the mole.

Color Rendering

I'm planning to do the background in light pastel colors and make the characters out of line, strictly black and white.

Outline - Final Project

Storyboards - Final Project

Final Idea - Revised

So after a bit of thought, I made the consecutive decision that the whole rat and the lab idea wasn't going to end up going much of anywhere after the feedback last Thursday. I still don't really agree with what was said, mostly because I think it was more based around the idea of being politically correct, or catering to every minority in society. That being said... I could care less about politically correct, nor catering to these minorities or even the majority. I just want to do stuff that I think is funny to me. The way society interprets them is valid if only for the reason that society tends to paint its own ideals on everything anyway. The fact that anyone thinks I'm making a statement about something, simply projects those ideals, making its own separate statement about our society in general... we can't separate ourselves from our own insecurities and prejudice. But since I can't change the common opinion... and it could be potentially even more hazardous to my health to ignore it or try to change it... I will change the subject matter all together.

The new direction goes like this: A rat is going about his business, stealing food from the kitchen of a house. A cat watches this happening and jumps off its spot on the counter to chase the rat. And when we realize that the rat is not going to make it back to his hole in time, the cat catches him. Instead of harming him though, the female cat starts rubbing and licking him, like she would a significant other. So starts their odd inter-species relationship. The cat quickly recognizes his needs as a rat. She helps the rat steal food from the kitchen, cuddles with the rat for warmth at night, and helps him hide from people of the house that want to harm him...
Then the cat decides to let one of his stray friends meet his new significant other. The stray cat at first seems completely fine with the idea, and then he gobbles the rat up in one swoop. Crushed by the loss of her love, she mopes around the house until she happens to see an opossum that has taken residence in the yard. She immediately perks up and goes running out the door towards it.

I'm using the house cat instead of an outdoor cat because it would be more likely that a house cat may not hunt mice or rats, versus and outdoor cat that's accustomed to them. Also the possum is yet another rodent, and like the rat isn't very loved by the human population. Why the cat and the rat? The two are usually enemies... it would be interesting to see how a predator prey relationship could be pushed aside if an emotion came into the game. And for that same reason, it's fitting that the rat would be killed by another cat. This is a fitting end to the semester's subject in my opinion. However, since a cat getting along with a rat isn't really that normal, I figured that the ending was not only a nice gag, but made a light statement that the cat could be a little looney, or at least completely out of the ordinary.

Final Project Pitch

Summary:

Our lab rat finally gets the good fortune of getting a partner in his cage. His new friend looks extremely feminine. He immediately starts fantasizing about how awesome she looks and her being his. So he launches a full scale assault of showering her with affection and trying to impress her. At the end, when he thinks he's just about there, the second rat opens its mouth, talking and it's revealed that this rat is actually male.

Outline:
Act 1: The lab rat is joined by another new rat who looks female. He fantasizes about her being the perfect rat woman (hair blowing and all that), and so he starts to try and win her over.
Act 2:-1st thing he does to impress his new companion is build a large mountain of wood shavings, stand on top of it and flex his ratty muscles (attempting to make them look bigger than they really are, using cage bedding)
2nd - he makes a flower out of pellets
- 3rd - he makes a statue of her out of wood shavings
4th- blowing kisses at the other rat.
Act 3: The second rat reacts, telling him to not kiss him. At the same time, it's revealed that the second rat actually a guy.... not a girl...



(other ideas for him wanting to impress her: dancing, singing, making poetry )

Inspiration:

Sketchy Duel



(Really simplified characters, but this is still really funny ^^)

Sketchy Ice Creams



Simon's Cat




The overall, character and objects I plan to have look like the Simon's Cat animation. I'm going will, I'll go for something like the Sketchy Ice Creams with light shading inside the objects for a kind of background. I'm also going to try and keep the character fairly simple in aesthetic.

Final Project - Possible Ideas

rat and the drain - A rat is plumbing a drain, and when he comes up, comes across the human room tenant.

rat and the kitchen - A rat tries to find food, but is soon discovered by the person the kitchen belongs to. She sets the cat on the rat and the rat runs for his life. Just when he thinks he'll make it, he gets captured, not by the cat, but by a jar.

lab rat finds love - Our lab rat finally gets a chance to achieve part of his most wanted earthly desires. A lab rat is placed in his cage along with him. With the new rat being tested for makeup, our original rat having moved on to steroids, he is under the impression that the other rat is a girl. So he begins to dream of things that rats, human, or both humans and rats do. In the end of his dreams come to an abrupt halt when he discovers that the new rat in his cage is in fact a guy.

AE - Effects Experimentation

Comp 1:

Color Correction - Brightness and Contrast

Since lighting changes in the beginning of the video, I used keyframes to correct the contrast and brightness to get some measure of consistency.

Color Correction - CC Toner
Then adding CC Toner, and controlling the blend with the original, as well as the color of the toner. The first setting is to a blue midtone toner, and a 0% Blend with the original created a complete contrast of dark blue and white. I then added key frames to increase the blend to the original, and one keyframe to change the midtone of the toner. So now it looks like it reverts to the original in the end, going through a sepia tone in the middle.

Basic Color Effects from Celia Mitchell on Vimeo.

Comp 2:

Transition - CC Jaws

For this rather cheesy effect, I experimented with the idea of an apple being eaten. Again, I used key frames to control the direction of the effect, the height of the "jaws", and the completion of the transition. Going back and forth in the completion made it possible to make a very cheesy version of the apple being eaten.

Generate - Fractal

This effect made the apple disappear. I turned on Transparency and Overlay under "Color." It's set to the original "Lightness gradient" Palette. Hue can add slight changes to the background or interior of the main body object. "Cycle Steps", especially when it's pushed 36 and higher, makes the object become thinner. The "Equation" sets how many sides the main body that you're looking at has. It starts at 2 sides and ends at 5. "Imagination" and "Real" on Mandelbrot moves the main body and animates the bright blue glowy stuff. On Julia, the blue stuff is moved right and left independently. Edge Highlights appear to work best on the CC Jaws effect, giving a lighter aoutline around its edges.

Experiment 2 from Celia Mitchell on Vimeo.

Comp 3:

Distort - CC Flo Motion

This effect is kind if like a black hole, or an inverter in position. In order to make it look like the apple had been sucked in, I controlled the amount of pull for Knots 1 and 2. And then made them reappear again afterwards.

Color Correction - Change Color

This only seems to help change the hue of the color. I used Key frames on "Hue Transform", and just changed "Lightness Transform", "Saturation Transform", "Matching Softeness", "Matching Tolerance" as a steady correction, and turned "Inverted Color Correction" to on.

Distort - CC Griddler

I used this to give the pull of the CC Flo Motion a little more umph! I set it so that it could only be seen when the apple was being "pulled in," and I lowered the tile size to 2.5 to make it less chunky. I changed the "Vertical scale" and "Horizontal scale" to create pixel-like boxes during the pull.

Untitled from Celia Mitchell on Vimeo.