Pitch Tiem :D

Ok, I've worked enough on the main meat of it all, so it's time to make it all coherent enough to reference for my pitch.

Concept: Honor, spirit, and friendship arising from fierce battle

Reason: To put all my strengths into a finished piece, thus creating a fluid and high quality animation that could pave the way for later development on a grander scale. It will also bring out my strongest animation ability, while allowing me to touch up my weaker aspects.

Outcome: An exciting, hyper-kinetic animation with a nice twist as apposed to 'two warriors fight to the death', which blends a stylized 3D environment with traditional animation, allowing for real life movie techniques such as motion blur and complex camera movement.

Method: Environment will be rendered in Maya, using custom textures to make it seem hand drawn (as apposed to the system-heavy toon functions), characters and other elements will be animated in flash, then exported as GIF files. Both elements will be brought together in After Effects, where the hand drawn part will be fused with the 3D and tweaked with various effects and motion tracking. The final edit will be in Final Cut Pro.

References: Vast amounts of martial arts films, friends and freerunners that can be used for reference and second opinions.

Characters:

 

Basic Story: Hao, a mild mannered martial artist is crossing the Hong bridge when he notices Zhuang walking the opposite direction. They meet, and stop a fair distance apart, and Hao looks at Zhuang's spear, held upon his back and taking up the full length of the bridge. Zhuang looks up, aloof and somewhat irritated, and Hao politely asks to pass by, which Zhu responds to with an uppity 'no'. Hao tries to negotiate how he'd get past, but Zhu makes many excuses as to why Hao cannot pass, then orders Hao to go back on himself. Hao kindly refuses, then Zhu puffs up and threatens him. Hao tries to walk by, but is attacked. He decides there is no choice but to fight, and they do, spectacularly. Both men are as fierce and as talented as the other, but Hao manages to switch past Zhu. Zhu lunges, but Hao signals him to stop. He looks over his shoulder and realizes that they had passed. With that, Hao bows and thanks Zhu for the good fight, which is met with hearty laughter and equal respect. Both men turn and continue their journeys.

Time: 2 minutes approx.

-------------

Now I just have to scan in the character sheets and finish the storyboard, then make a few micro animations, as well as test textures. Long week ahead.

Tuesday 23rd - 2:50pm