FST 333 - 2D Animation

Treatment

My project follows the story of a little boy who wants to grow up to be a fireman but ends up giving up on his dream. It will be a sort of parable about choosing money over happiness.

I'll show him happily playing with his model of a fire truck while wearing a fireman's helmet. He will be day-dreaming about putting out fires and heroically rescuing people from a burning building. Other, older versions of the character will be seen still dreaming about the same thing even as he abandons the

hat and model truck. Then his parents will confront him about his dream, telling him that he needs to find work that will pay good money. Then I'll show how his college girlfriend is hassling him about choosing a well-paying career over his dream.

Finally he gives in, and chooses a career working as an office worker drone over being a fireman. It's obvious that he's miserable. He hates getting up and going to work in the morning, groaning when he has to get out of bed. He hates being at work. He hates the work that he has to do. He doesn't like his bosses. He sighs or rolls his eyes whenever he is presented with work. He lives for the weekend, counting down the minutes until he gets off of work. Occasionally while at work he still dreams about being a fireman, but he sticks to his job never changing anything, even though it makes him miserable.

I'm working with this idea because I think this happens so often in the world today in countries where people choose to do jobs, not because it's the only thing that can support them, or because they want to do the work, but because they think that earning money should be their ultimate goal.

The characters will be hand drawn into Photoshop, but divided into parts that can be manipulated in After Affects. Ie. Forearm, bicep, thigh, lower leg, toros, head, hands, etc. Props will be photographs of actual things, possible capable of being manipulated like the characters in After Effects (depending on the need for complexity). The backgrounds might be hand drawn, but will probably include pieces of photographs of buildings, trees, plants, office equipment etc. that have been cut out and pasted together like a collage.

The final product will likely consist of several parented layers in After Effects. Some for individual characters and others for other more complex actions. After the animation is finalized the sound will be mixed in using Final Cut Pro.

Storyboards

Production Schedule

Week 1 - NOV 1st : Begin outlines of characters, backgrounds, props.

Week 2 - NOV 8th : Finish characters/props.

Week 3 - NOV 15th : Begin animation, continue working on backgrounds.

Week 4 - NOV 22nd : Finish backgrounds and rough animation, record/find audio/music.

Week 5 - NOV 29th : Finalize animation and render out completed project. Mix audio. Post to blog.