A Bear in Mind

We pitched short films and picked our favorites. Then we were put into groups based on our decision on short films. I was placed with the "Bear In Mind" group. I have been with the group for two weeks and have done many things.

First, we discussed the goals we have for our production passes. We have one on February 16 and we hope to get the full story and the art guide to be finished. We have another one on March 15 and we hope that the first half of the storyboard and art to be done. On April 19 the third pass we hope to finish the second half of the storyboard and art to be finished. Then on May 9, we hope to get the 2D animatic and asset list to be finished.

We also started discussing the story and laying out the storyboard. One member of the group named Pidge suggested a brilliant idea where we use notecards for the rough storyboard where we write out the shot then on the other side we draw the shot out. We didn't finish doing a rough storyboard but at our next meeting, we finished it. We also had a little brainstorming for minute details in the shot.

We had planned for meetings outside the required time to meet. We agreed to meet on Mondays and Tuesdays because we couldn't find a day for all of us to meet. We don't have to meet on both days as long as we attend one.

For our next meeting, we distributed the shot cards evenly and had to draw the shot out in the back. We also plan to go over character designs for the next meeting and the art design.

Although the others wouldn't agree with me, I think we should pick up the pace for pre-production. I think we should shoot for finishing pre-production before the end of the semester so that we can start production. I think that could benefit us the most and give us a headstart for next year. I'm a little anxious about next year because we're expected to finish production in four months and that's little time. I dont want to rush production like last semester and take our time with it like we are doing now.

P.S.: During our break, Pidge enlightened us with a presentation that they did themselves. I believe will be a wonderful thing to share. Sadly I could not get all of it but Reiner took a picture of one slide and I think that is enough to get a full picture of the presentation. (Sorry that its a little slanted and therefore hard to read)

Before class started we had a meeting for the character design. We all shared our ideas and concluded that he was going to look like Jason Momoa (I don't think I spelled that right) and be a person of color. We discussed that we should do a second round of character designs for the meeting on Friday. That decision was pointless because we didn't look at the character designs we forgot.

In the meeting we looked over the storyboards we did and after finding a discrepancy we were hesitant but redid it. We decided to have two different story plots, one being the original story with the discrepancy and one fixing it. We wanted to ask the class during the production pass to see which they liked better. We also wanted to ask them if the protagonist should be a girl or a boy. However, we decided to name them Frankie, as its gender neutral and the parents will be two dads.

The previous story was that the father tears the bear, the boy/girl goes into the detective world, interviews the stuffed animals, has a chasing scene, goes into a room he cant go in, and finds his dad fixing his teddy bear. As said earlier things were in the beginning but had to leave the rest for Pidge, which was weird because I thought we were going to do it together. The changes were that the dad slipped on the bear, threw it while he was yelling at his kid, and took it while the kid wasn't looking. The kid ends up looking for it and then feels a tug revealing it is the rabbit. The rabbit hands the kid a magnifying glass then it transitions to the detective world.

Then we divided what we wanted to accomplish for the next meeting. These things include the color scheme, the style of modeling, the proof of concept of the noir world, and the sewing room. Additionally, we decided which person would do the character design for the characters like the dad, the child, the stuffed animals, and the clothing style as well. We also decided that people who were working on the same aspects like character design would work together on them so they would have similar designs and aspects. So that everyone is on the same page.

This week we went over the tasks everyone had to do: the character designs, the color pallet for the houses, the house layout, and for the sewing room. We also went over the lighting and extra items that my teammates would like to use in the short film. We decided that we would like a simplistic layout for the room our main characters are going to be in and in the sewing room. It was decided during the presentation that we would like to model the assets as round, simple, fluffy design. Additionally, we agreed that the Noir style would be black and white with a blue undertone to complement and highlight the shading. Moreover, we decided that the sewing room would be cluttered, bright, and overstocked. Finally we discussed that we wanted to add little details to the scene such as a sewing thimble, I believe it's called if we have time to do it of course. I didnt have time to complete my tasks, which were doing the character design for the raccoon and the dinosaur.

After the presentation, we worked on finalizing our first production pass project as its due next Friday. We discussed an alternate scene we wanted to present to the class so we had to do the storyboarding for that. We split it between three people, my part was the dinosaur's part. Another member organized the presentation and transfer all the items relating to the project to it. When we all finish the storyboard a team member is going to digitize it so they can put it in an animatic. While we were all doing our tasks another member of the team used the screening room to digitize the storyboarding we did for the main storyline to turn that into an animatic.

Last week we viewed every team's first production pass. However, the professor was late so the class decided to play hangman for about 45 minutes and watch Phineas and Ferb. Sadly the professor arrived before we could finish the first episode of Phineas and Ferb. The team leaders played Rock Papers and Scissors to decide who got to go first and my team lost so we went first. The presentation went well except for my part which I messed up.

After the presentation, we got constructive criticism that I agreed with my classmates such as not going back and forth between the Noir world and the real world. A week later we discussed those criticisms and applied them to the story and character designs. Although I didnt agree with all of the changes we made. We also discussed the assets and started to come up with designs for them as well which was my task for the week. We discussed how the rooms would be structured and designed for the sewing room and kitchen. I was tasked with coming up with designs for the other assets from other settings in the short.

In the meeting this week, we are redoing the opening scene because we liked a suggestion a teammate made. Additionally, it fits in more with the criticism so we decided to do it. However, we ran into a problem with the new opening as it doesn't fit in with the dad and some plot elements. The dad and plot elements in the story plays a major part and with the new opening, it completely erases him from it. Moreover, it contradicts some elements as well. We are still workshopping the ending and whether the dad should be a part of the story. We decided we would think it over and come back next meeting to discuss some ideas. Also, we decided to show the class at the next production pass the two storyboards: the original one that changed a few aspects but not the overall structure and the other one where we redid the opening and needed to workshop the ending. Additionally, we talked about some assets for the sewing machine and the character designs for the stuffed animals such as the dinosaur. Additionally, we discussed and analyzed the finished turntable for Frankie and the one who worked on her moved on to create the turntable for the dad. We are still working on the other assets and the storyboard as well. People in the team decided to do the concept art for other settings such as the parlor or the integration scene.

This week we talked about the assets and the storyline that a teammate suggested. We looked at some assets that some of the team have created and all of them looked great. We were split on the decision of whether we add it or not because there will be complications. We talked to our teacher about it, they suggested that we do both to pitch it to the class and see what they think. i liked that idea and we all as a group decided to do it. Im glad that we decided to do both because there were some complications with the group as there was some people that felt left out because we didnt want to do that idea. I believe that the intention was to not leave them out but the fact we didnt want to do that storyline as it creates more issues and things we need to do to compensate.

However I feel as though Im not putting as much weight in the group as I like to and I feel frustrated becauseI cant speak up for myself. I usually let the others get what they want to do and I get the scraps which I dont like to do but I cant help it. It gets more frustrating when I do speak for myself and declare that I want to help in a specific area. However I cant because I dont have a drawing Ipad like the rest of the group. I understand their concerns and dont want to put extra work into me but I dont mind it. Because it was an area I wanted to do and cant afford an Ipad like the rest which makes me feel isolated from the rest.

In today's session, we were left confused because we had mixed views and suggestions on the production pass. However we did notice that everyone else had a north star and we didnt so we decided to rework the story. We changed the story a bit and decided on the lesson of grief through play. We cut out the back and forth from the Noir world to the real world. We added more sincere moments in the story to make it more balanced. Some of these scenes include one where Frankie and Hopson crash the car and the raccoon gets away the audience can only hear the sound of rain as Frankie looks disappointed. Additionally in the next scene, Frankie has a mental breakdown. I honestly am glad that we reworked the scenes because before it was a bit of a mess. It was all over the place story wise and wouldnt be that coherent to the audience as the new story is. We then assigned work to the rest of the team. It was a productive day for the team and Im glad we did the changes; it help ground the story overall.

We didn't get that much done this week because we were missing some people in the group. One of the people missing were responsible for the storyboard which was one of the subjects we needed to talk about this week. However we couldnt because once again they weren't here and we didnt want to do it without them. We like to include everyone. Although we did finish the organization and the scheduling for the group. We now have a meticulous organized lists for our preproduction activities. We just continued on the things we had to get done this week that we were able to get done.

We had our production pass a couple of weeks ago and had some effective feedback. I dont remember all of it because it was weeks ago but I was reminded by some teammates that one was about having Mr. Bear found in the end. I dont agree with that comment. This is because I think that it works better if Mr. Bear isnt found to make Frankie learn her lesson of appreciating the things she has now. The rest of my teammates didnt remember or write them down either. We finished the rest of the script as we didnt finish the last scene of the short. We didnt hone in all the details and just focused on the main themes such as what Frankie will say to Hoppson when her dad tells her she needs to go. I do admit that we ripped off from Toy Story 2 where Hoppson is going to hug Frankie while they are in the car but I think its a sweet moment that really highlights the bond between the two. We then divided the work we will do for the next production pass which makes me nervous because its closer than it usually is. Although its our last production pass I feel like were behind the other teams because were now going to start doing a 3d layout for an important scene in the short but its not a race. It makes me worry for the future that were not going to complete the short on time. However we did briefly discuss what were going to do over the summer. One of my teammates stated that she heard a now Senior say that they were glad that they did some work over the summer. Im gald she brought that up because I really want us to at least start working on the project over the summer, just in case something bad happens in the future. I want to do it as a failsafe and not just to get ahead of other teams; I dont want to show our short half half-finished but completed which I think will help if we doing it during the summer.