LO3 — Planning a new animation to feature created character

LO2 TASK 3

Planning a character for use in animation

TREATMENT

Title:  Dead Man's Gambit  /  Limbo and Libel  

Medium: Animated Series / 13 Episode Seasons / VOD

Run Time: 20 / Average script page count of 25 - 35

Synopsis: In an alternate world where everyone becomes anthropomorphoric animals, we follow Wayne Hauser, an anxious yet super cocky hitman and his exploits, shortcomings, abuses and follies serving under his employer.  We start off when it’s revealed his long gone father has committed sucide, and as Wayne takes it upon himself to find out, he uncovers a better look at the demon facade of this ambiguous world they live. 

Key Scenes: Introductory Scene; an old man who’s clearly dyslexic writes a suicide letter on a computer. We get a suggestion that he has a son out there, and we cut away after a gunshot.  We then open on two assassins, discussing the importance of the document they possess, and that if they were to express their concerns, they’d jinx the operation. So they attempt reverse psychology so they don’t jinx their fate, but are killed anyway at a distance by our protagonist, WAYNE HAUSER who retrieves the document. 

STORYBOARDING EXAMPLES

TARGET AUDIENCE

Target Audience would be somewhere in the 16-40 age margin.  No real intention to lean toward any basic gender, though it may be influenced by having a male protagonist and two supporting male characters.  The counterpoint to this being that because he is very… ‘blank’ and that his issues and flaws encompass so many of our issues lightheartedly, everyone would have some ironic or comedic empathy for Wayne, spurring a wider audience than we would if the character was a very niche / detailed one. 

His issues won’t really revel in gender, like relationship troubles or having a role in life, rather be more mental societal ones like ego, anxiety and perfectionism. 

Due to the themes and some of the content (use of language, occasional black humour) it definitely leans toward the 15 / 18 age gate. There is some pretty explicit content like swearing (though for now, they are left censored, since I think it sounds funny when swear words are censored).  Blood splatters and some gun-on-gun violence is a recoccuring element in the show. 

The show would be available to anyone who’d have good enough internet to stream the VOD broadcast of the show and Cable Packages that’d allow them watch it live. 

PRODUCTION SCHEDULE

ROUGH VIABLE OUTLINE:

Week 1 (22-26th Feb):  Script Excerpt / Rough Storyboarding

Week 2 (29-4th Mar): Voice Talent Search / Drawing Assets

Week 3 (7-11th Mar): Drawing Assets / Set Drawings

Week 4 (14-18th Mar): Voice Session with Actor 1 / Voice Actor 2

Week 5 (21-25th Mar): Lip-Synching / Animating All Scenes

Week 6 (28-1st Apr): Final Edit / Presentation

The standard loadout for working on the show would be:

Final Draft (Scriptwriting / Rewriting software, industry standard)

Photoshop / Digital Tablets (creating / layering imagery and elements to be animated / composited into after effects)

After Effects (compositing / animating elements and visual effects)

Audition / RØDE NTG-1 (Professional-grade microphone and software for capturing audio, applying effects and doing mastering of all audio files)

Premiere Pro (

Working with a Adobe Heavy process is efficient in both financial and logistic departments.  Adobe, although professional, is a lot more affordable than other industry-standard specialist packages.  Not only that, but recently, they’ve implemented a workflow system that allows adobe-application specific filetypes to be converted on the fly in other programs. You can basically bring audition multi-track master files (unexported) as an audition file into Premiere, without going through the process of exporting. 

LEGAL ISSUES

Copyright is basically a shaky area, fortunately signed by huge red guidelines easy enough to follow that it’s hard to not follow them. 

For instance, we’ll never ever show a logo or reference a real-life brand for the sole purposes of copyright infringement. That’s a given. 

However, there are issues that slip through the cracks.

One of which, in a show that depicts use of weaponry, guns themselves have copyright issues.  They licensing fee is less severe if you don’t reference the name or the creators or list technical aspects (no reason to).  Military Video-Games are notorious for having to deal with different licensing fiascos with weaponry and military hardware.  

In fact, one way to circumvent this is to create the storyworld’s own depiction of weaponry. This negates the licensing fee issue, but also gives more uniqueness and character to the worldbuiling. 

Another similar issue is the representation of other people. Take a show like South Park. They’re allowed to get away with representing real-life figures because those representations are hyperbolic caricatures of the person.

They’re so absurdly crafted that the person being poked fun at can’t even point a finger because there’s such a disconnect — unless they have too big an ego and try to shut the episode down, which never works.

If the show tried to be serious, and have real-life figures make appearances, it’d be a more strenuous process. That, or no process at all due to the fragility of trying to seriously depict a person you have no permission to. 

Going back to copyrighted material, it’s important that any licensed assets we do use are actually checked with / paid for.  The show intends to echo other shows that employ the trope of using the ‘Ren & Stimpy’ soundtrack, which is now under creative commons. 

ETHICAL ISSUES

Can’t incorporate elements that are grotesquely controversial. Especially, if it can relate to the show’s setting.

A famous story about this sort of ethical issue sits with Dan Harmon, the show-runner of Community, a sitcom about a community university. When he asked ‘what’s the worst thing that we absolutely cannot touch.’ And, in light of the Columbine Massacre, the studio executive said ‘School shootings.’  Dan Harmon then famously created a school shooting episode, though, it was entirely revolved around paintballing.

My point being that we can’t mimic controversial events, and like the issue regarding depiction of non-fiction figures, we’d have to subvert it. 

Since I’ve given the show a goal of hitting a clean TV-MA rating (TV Parental Guidelines Certificate in US), there will be some themes to be expected from dry or black comedy. Violence is supposed to be laughed at, and there will be the occasional utterances of swear words. 

LO2 — Plan a Character for use in an Animation

WAYNE HAUSER  

A tall slender ‘man’ with broad features.  Subjected to an unknown underworld where everyone becomes a new manifestation of their original personalities, most commonly anthropomorphic animals.  There are few oddities, and Wayne is one of them.  A man with a skull for a head. He doesn’t perspire, carry odours, bleeds etc -- so he sticks to wearing three sets of the same tailored suit. Though he is broad and has a skull face, the skull’s eyes and their apparent openness actually evoke more anxiety than badassery.  He’s not like he’s been ripped off a metal-album cover, he is fact more reserved and kinder than one appears. In fact, the structure of his skull actually make his eyes look really goofy.  It’s a funny image of a skeleton going around in a tailored suit, wreaking vengeful justice with this rather stupid look on his face.  The amalgamation doesn’t exactly speak a man who is out to kill. He does work for a crime response agency, and will carry around a slick personal revolver for good measure.  

In a neutral position, he stands tall and open, but elects to have his hands in his jacket at all times, face again, beaming.  

Wayne is an independent person, though it would appear that he doesn’t have the support / standing to make his independence a major positive.

He is considered laughing stock at his workplace despite his accolades and quite confident reactionary behavior, it’s just the thing to do around that place.  His independence is a major factor in his agency work since he works pretty good alone. But outside the force, he’s a bit of a loner that gets a kick out of having conflicts with other people he meets (a running gag in the show could be a quick flashback to a romantic date that he screws up, not by being naive but being too witty and roguish).

His approach to life is completely changed and begins his major journey after discovering his father committed suicide, and thus gives himself a larger purpose and impose himself on the world rather than him just reacting to everything that happens to him.

CHARACTER SKETCHES - Emotions

STORYBOARD EXAMPLE

FINAL OUTCOME (PHOTOSHOP RENDITIONS)

LO1 — Task 2: Analysis of one animation

Princess Mononoke is considered an animated historical fantasy epic. 

Historical fantasy stories are your usual fantasy story that grounded in a world inspired and supported by real historical cultures and eras. Nowadays , European Medieval is the most popular setting for historical fantasies (Lord of the Rings being a large example, whereas Game of Thrones takes in loads of backgrounds) and all seem to fall under the same world-building conventions.  In this case, Princess Mononoke sets itself in a hybrid era of the Muromachi era (where Japan split and the rise of Samurai) and the era of using gunpowder and its implementation into infantry firearms (which wasn't a thing until mid-17^th century).  Both are huge world-building elements in this regard and despite the chronological intertwining of the elements, they come together nicely. The film's fantasy elements are more understated yet feel more inspired than average fantasy stories.  In this world, animals can express themselves through booming baritone voices that aren't really spoken through their mouths (eg. Narnia) but rather 'emitted'. Animals can grow to ridiculous sizes and are then considered gods.  Gods are not only larger but are usually give off some auroa to add to the whole supernatural element. Other fantasy elements include the 'corruption', a disease akin to 'The Thing' where it takes over a host whether it be a landscape or monster and renders it a 'demon.'  Also spirits play a huge role in the film and it's themes revolving around nature. 

In terms of film, Epics are considered a telling of a traditional story of grandeur / heroism that takes place over an ambitious running time. Fantasy epics are considerd also to contain three elements: It must be a trilogy or a very long standalone story, its story must encompasses the span of a fear years, and it must contain a large-backstory or world in which the story takes place.  Other examples of other epics that aren't limited to fantasy settings include: 

Das Boot, Apocalypse Now, Gladiator, Barry Lyndon, Lawrence of Arabia, Avatar. 

In the 1970s, way before Studio Ghibli was conceived (or Valley of the Wind) for that matter), Miyazaki had sketched some concepts about a princess who lived with a beast in the forest. It wouldn’t be until 1994 that he’d pick up the concept again and write a plot-line and draw the initial storyboards for what would become Princess Mononoke.  Around the same period, Masashi Ando (the supervising animator) and Miyazaki took a trip to the Yakushima ancient forests and the Shirakami-Sanchi mountains.  For this trip. they had brought a bulk of the art directors, background artists and digital animators for three days.  The film was allowed a budget of 2.35 billion yen (25 million dollars). Over 144,000 cels were used for the film, and Miyazaki had apparently had made adjustments to 80,000 of them. The final storyboards (of the film’s plot itself) weren’t conceived until months before the film’s premiere date. 

The plot follows a prince (Ashitaka) who’s arm is infected after fending off a demon that invades his village. It’s revealed that demons in this world are Animal Gods (oversized animals like Wolves, Boars etc) that are taken over by a maggot-like corruption that comes from an iron ball lodged inside the boy. 

In search of a cure, Ashitaka comes across a monk that informs him that it’d be worth it to find the Forest Spirit, a huge-stag like creature by day and a humanoid like colossus at night. During a storm at night, a convoy of men and Oxen led by a female military leader are attacked by the Wolf Goddess Moro (indicated by having two tales and being extremely huge) and her rider, San.

LO1 — Task 1: Analysing Existing Animations (Studio Ghibli Case)

Following the large success of Japanese animated film ‘Naausica: Valley of the

Wind', directors Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata and producer Toshio Suzuki founded Studio Ghibli and ended their venture with TopCraft (the producer of the film).

Currently, the studio is headed by Koji Hoshino (executive director, president) with Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki remaining their seat as key people on the board.

Studio Ghibli is Japan's (and one of the world's) most celebrated creator of animated feature films, short films, television and commercials. Every one of their theatrical releases has opened to critical acclaim and huge profits (their films are guaranteed to win the highest-grossing film of the year they release in);

For instance: 'Kiki's Delivery Service', 'Only Yesterday', 'Porco Rosso', and 'Pom Poko' were all the highest grossing film of their independent years.

'Princess Mononoke' and 'Spirited Away' both broke the record for being the highest grossing Japanese film, with Spirited Away still holding the record to this day. SA was also infamous for taking away Titanic's number one spirit in multiple regions.

Being a Japanese studio, they're very insistent on using a similar unified style known as Manga. Though there a slight differences in aesthetics that represent different genres, the changes aren't as varied as say styles in Western animated studios. Speaking of which, Studio Ghibli seem to have the most international success more so than any other Japanese Studio due to their westernised approach to storytelling, with their focus being more drawn in to character and theme of the plot with 'show-don't tell' story mechanics rather than the usual exposition dumping a lot of other 'animes' suffer from. In tone, Ghibli seem to go for more plausible and dense reality with understated elements rather than overpowered characters who are seemingly perfect surrounded by dumb opponents. It's important to note they don't write Western scripts, just influenced. This has allowed them to create a middle-ground for being a unique studio for both their home-region of Japan but also the world.

Being a massively influential and international Studio, Ghibli had to acquire a large amount of partnerships in order to have their films produced for certain regions. In terms of their local distribution, TOHO distribute all the theatrical releases to cinemas for Ghibli, whilst Walt Disney Japan manage merchandising and video-on-demand releases. Internationally, Disney is their largest partner (Japan, Taiwan, North America, France). STUDIO CANAL handle United Kingdom releases.

When distributing, a major process that must take place is to have a the regions age certificate authority re-rate the film for classification. Some countries take more apparent offence to some content than others:

UK goes by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification).

North America swears by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) .

Locally, Japan falls under 'Eirin' (Eiga Rinri)

A famous story that spurred from Ghibli's international distribution deals was Harvey Weinstein of MIRAMAX (the Western distributors of 'Princess Mononoke') .

Originally, the first western release of Nausicaa Valley of the Wind was heavily edited, breaking the intention of the original vision of the movie. When it came to Miramax coming back for Princess Mononoke, Weinstein insisted they edit the film to make it more marketable. As a response, an anonymous producer from Studio Ghibli sent Weinstein an authentic japanese sword with the words 'no cuts' engraved on it.