After a slow start, I'd suggest you're warming up to a very successful story - but you need to move quickly and efficiently now, because yours is an ambitious tale, in terms of production design and character design and there's loads to resolve.
Your character designs for Nox and Lumen have natural appeal, but I want to see you really nailing them in terms of design; use the Colour Scheme Designer, for example, to identify really strong, really classic palettes; they're already working as shapes, but I want these to be deluxe designs and presented lovingly in your Art Of. Indeed, there is something 'classic' about Nox and Lumen - so much so that they feel like they could be part of a much bigger world. This is all good.
Your environment thumbnails are basic, and I want to see you investing all your experience from term 1 in their creation; essentially you've got 2 secret lairs here, so you'll need a visual concept for both of them; for example, Lumem's light house might derive its shape from all sorts of objects (it needn't be only a simple tower after all!)... I don't want any generic decisions here, George - I want these spaces, places and things to exist for a reason! Remember, in animation, EVERYTHING is designed, because nothing is just 'there' or ready to be filmed; everything is constructed and needs a rationale.
Your rough storyboard is effectively communicative of your story - but as narration plays such a big role, I hope you're pursuing the voice-over route as discussed; it would be great experience for you to collaborate in this way and start dealing with other professionals in this way. Your sound design will actually have to be quite elaborate; you've got a lot of fantasy sounds in there - the sound shooting stars make as they get sucked into the machine; the sound the light in the lighthouse makes when it illuminates; it would be useful I think to go through now and make a list of all the sounds you're going to need. Musically, it would be good to know what thoughts you're having too; it feels to me as if you're going to need a sort of 'theme' for Nox and a theme for 'Lumen' - put simply, don't leave your sound design to the last minute, because it's going to be absolutely key in bringing the magic to your story.
OGR 10/02/2013
ReplyDeleteHey George,
After a slow start, I'd suggest you're warming up to a very successful story - but you need to move quickly and efficiently now, because yours is an ambitious tale, in terms of production design and character design and there's loads to resolve.
Your character designs for Nox and Lumen have natural appeal, but I want to see you really nailing them in terms of design; use the Colour Scheme Designer, for example, to identify really strong, really classic palettes; they're already working as shapes, but I want these to be deluxe designs and presented lovingly in your Art Of. Indeed, there is something 'classic' about Nox and Lumen - so much so that they feel like they could be part of a much bigger world. This is all good.
Your environment thumbnails are basic, and I want to see you investing all your experience from term 1 in their creation; essentially you've got 2 secret lairs here, so you'll need a visual concept for both of them; for example, Lumem's light house might derive its shape from all sorts of objects (it needn't be only a simple tower after all!)... I don't want any generic decisions here, George - I want these spaces, places and things to exist for a reason! Remember, in animation, EVERYTHING is designed, because nothing is just 'there' or ready to be filmed; everything is constructed and needs a rationale.
Your rough storyboard is effectively communicative of your story - but as narration plays such a big role, I hope you're pursuing the voice-over route as discussed; it would be great experience for you to collaborate in this way and start dealing with other professionals in this way. Your sound design will actually have to be quite elaborate; you've got a lot of fantasy sounds in there - the sound shooting stars make as they get sucked into the machine; the sound the light in the lighthouse makes when it illuminates; it would be useful I think to go through now and make a list of all the sounds you're going to need. Musically, it would be good to know what thoughts you're having too; it feels to me as if you're going to need a sort of 'theme' for Nox and a theme for 'Lumen' - put simply, don't leave your sound design to the last minute, because it's going to be absolutely key in bringing the magic to your story.