Last Monday, I presented my Production Bible to the rest of my class and tutors. My Production Bible was a collection of my art showcasing what my film and characters would look like and contained my latest animatic, synopsis, schedule, budget, storyboard and other information that is necessary to make my film. Basically it should be enough information about your film (visual + written) that if you were not able to make it, the bible could be passed to someone else to finish, so it has to be very detailed and really thorough.
The presentation went well, it was only 5 minutes so it was just enough time to show my animatic and go over my new model sheets. My main points of feedback were about aesthetics rather than story. The points raised were mostly about the look of my Spirit character, that it was too much like an animal hybrid rather than a spirit. However, my inspirations are Japanese and Celtic-based that use animals as spiritual creatures, so I don't think an animal hybrid has any inherent problems. I will need to clarify with my classmates and tutors after Christmas what their idea of my Spirit is.
My next step is to animate my Spirit moving in the current design to prove that, when moving, it will appear otherworldly. The main aim is to get it looking 'morphous' and plasmatic. One suggestion was that it could morph between different animals, but I think that is too confusing for a short film and would require further establishing.
Otherwise, I could have it so that the Spirit could fly, float or jump to high places (i.e. top of the tree) and that it can't leave footprints in the snow like many Gods can walk on water. I had another thought that the Spirit could morph from two leaves on the tree that then become the Spirit's leaf ears, so lots of fun to be had there.
The only story issue was to do with my ending. The Spirit returning so early to Amber did not make sense... it made more sense to have her plant the last acorn first, then the Spirit is reborn from the ashes, so to speak. I think this would make a better ending and a stronger emotion with the Spirit returns to Amber.
Also, James thought my pre-visualisation was a bit dark and that I should be using the more pastel-like colours of my colour tests, so I've made a lighter and sketchier version of my pre-vis (that I much prefer) below.
And good news for my soundtrack, I'm currently emailing a prospective composer, Ben Rusch, about creating the final score for my film, I'm very excited to be working with him and hope to have some rough sound for my next animatic deadline in January. So that's one thing out of the way!
Finally, as seen above, my working title has now changed to 'Acorns' thanks to a suggestion from Leonie.
