Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page 0 0 0 0 0 Ahoy a-head!: A Preproduction Case Study The Original Story The original working title of our film was Ahoy a-head! Characters: Theme: The crab couple: Herschel and Evelyn Pirate Captain A good deed is still a good deed, even the best of intentions lead to the worst results. Our intentions may be very good. But because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for a sin comes out of wrong intention. Dr. E. Stanley Jones, Methodist missionary. Premise: Goals: Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 A pirate captain has been buried up to his neck in the sand by his mutinous crew and left to die. Wrongly believing that the pirate is a squid, two crabs try to help him. This was to be a story about misinterpretation. The pirate would have hair and a beard that were wet, and when mixed with the sand took on the appearance of tentacles. Part of the misinterpretation originally had to do with miscommunication. The crabs were to communicate with clicks from their claws and mouths which the pirate would not understand. (We would subtitle the clicks for the audience.) The pirate would be particularly nasty, but the crabs, unable to understand English, would interpret his rants as cries of distress and pain, driving them to find a solution to save him. Squids, when they get beached, really do make sounds like a dolphin in pain. We would set the intonations and rhythms of the pirate s dialogue to help reinforce this concept. We wanted to tell a story that was amusing, endearing and a little bit sad. The crux of the story is the misunderstanding that the pirate is a pirate. The heart of the story is that the crabs want to help him. The irony and appeal is that they don t realize what he really is and end up killing him. One of the reasons that, as instructors, we were drawn to this story was because it had all of the elements that we try to steer students away from real challenges in the D environment as well as in staging and story. The style was more realistic. It has water. It has sand. The sand blows in the face of the pirate. The crabs need to dig into the sand. It has hair on the pirate that needs to mimic tentacles, deform and be pulled.
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 It has three characters, even though two of them are relatively the same design. Crabs have six legs and two pincers. The crabs are more anthropomorphic they are bringing their beach chairs and umbrellas out for a day in the sun. It has a lot of dialogue. The scale relationship between the crabs and the pirate head is large. The pirate head doesn t move. The way that we end our piece is to kill off the character. In addition, we had no funding. The possible core crew was local, but any additional help would be scattered across the country. The piece would have to be nonprofit and for educational purposes due to the restrictions on the academic software licensing and facilities we have access to, or we needed to raise funds for commercial licenses. Time was also an issue. Everyone involved in the project was employed full time with a range of demands on their time. We thought it was at least worth the time to investigate how this could be made, and take it through the preproduction process. Exploring this story would give us the opportunity to discuss why these issues were particularly challenging and document a discussion on how to think about, simplify and/or execute these assets. To begin the discussion, we made a rough animatic that was three minutes and seconds long and pitched it to nine artists who were interested in working on the piece. This included two concept artists, a D traditional and effects animator, and six D animators. The feasibility issues were forefront in the discussions. Please see the Ahoy ahead rough animatic by Gary Schumer on the 'A Good Deed Indeed' page of the Companion Website Time If we were to produce the piece, we had a deadline of just under a year. And the majority of that year fell during times that we were teaching or on other projects. The first thing to hit the fan was the length of the piece. People liked many of the elements, but it was too long for our time and resources. Rather than cutting the story first, we needed to address other issues such as effects and style so that we could possibly begin modeling and then work out story issues while the models were being made. Effects and Style Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 Of immediate concern were the water, the sand and the pirate s beard. The initial treatment leaned toward realism. The more realistic the piece, the harder it would be in terms of effects. For example, the hair on the pirate looked like real hair or dreads. Real dreads would have too much elasticity and play. The suggestion was to make the hair geometric instead and reduce the amount of hair as much as possible, having only what we needed for the story. Make the pirate bald and get rid of the mustache so we were just dealing with the beard. The separations or tentacles of the beard could be beaded or wrapped. Making those as solid or stylized as possible would aid in the feasibility of the execution of
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 the piece. Maybe the beard could get really physical and look more like an octopus or a squid, without going to the extent of the Pirates of the Caribbean. Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 Concept Art by Gary Schumer Ringling College of Art and Design It would be better if the wind didn t blow sand into the pirate s face (it would be better to get rid of wind altogether it doesn t serve a story point). Instead, just allow him to fall face first into the sand, and this could help neutralize and disguise him a bit more for the crabs and audience. Digging should have as little throwing of the sand as possible. Instead of digging and throwing the sand, maybe we could implode the sand into a trench as they moved around the head. Water is always a problem. We wanted to reduce the amount of waves lapping up on the beach. Solutions included changing the setting to an inlet, placing the pirate behind a dune, or lowering the camera angle so that waves were not visible. One of the problems was a story point. We had to figure that a mutinous crew would bury the captain close to shore so the rising tide would drown him. And if the crabs needed
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 to bring the water to the pirate/squid then it couldn t be too far away. So how do you have the water close by, but not show it or show it as little as possible? Moving away from reality could make the piece more feasible and create the opportunity for effects like sand and water to be done in D instead of D. The question was whether D effects would take more time and effort to effectively composite than to produce them in D. Using D for effects would eliminate the need to consider how to execute the sand and the water. To make compositing easier we could toon shade the entire piece, but the D artists said, No! Toon shading was a copout so we don t have to light. You lose too much detail and form. Why spend all this time modeling if we are going to flatten everything? If that is the option, then just do the entire piece in D. Also, in terms of content, we didn t want to go too cartoony. The piece is about mistaken realities and in the end we kill off the pirate. The style of the piece needed to fit the content and help support the misinterpretation. We talked about a more sculpted or carved look for the piece. This could pull back on the reality and allow for more latitude in movement and effects. We also thought the more graphically sharp look enhanced the personality of the pirate, the harshness of the environment and situation, and ultimately the ending. We were looking for sharper angles, stronger lighting situations. It is all a little macabre. So something sharper and a little darker might support that concept, while keeping the personalities of the crabs, in contrast, so concerned and sweet. More sculpted pirate studies by Jon DiVenti, Ringling College of Art and Design To this end, the design and style of the characters also needed to create a contrast. In this study, the pirate is more angular, keeping the crabs a bit rounder and more organic. The Pirate Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 To make the pirate convincing we needed to push him toward an octopus or a squid. Pushing the design of a bald head and neck that from the back was very organic and octopus in shape could help complete that concept. Putting a bandana on his head and a patch over one eye would make him more of a pirate, with the advantage of animating only one eye. This is small but everything counts. We needed him to be a captain. The note of the character was that he had been buried and left to die. How does that get communicated? We pondered a captain s hat probably not on his head but somewhere in the sand. If it was on his head, having it fall off as he fell appealed to everyone but created issues in added animation and staging. The hat would then be in the way of pulling him toward the beach. We could have it roll or bounce away, or have the crabs carry it out of the way but we were trying to reduce the scale of the film, not add to it.
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 Model sheets for a more squidlike pirate. Gary Schumer, Ringling College of Art and Design Copyright Taylor & Francis 0
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 The Crabs We did a lot of research into the crabs. We were looking to reference a crab that would have a distinctive silhouette, that could differentiate a female from a male and that would embody the personalities of our characters. We agreed on an African crab. The eyes extend above a small square body. We liked that the eyes could be up like Sebastian in Little Mermaid. We could visibly direct the eye. We also liked the small body like the crabs in Finding Nemo. It could lead to some interesting animation by allowing the legs distance from the body. This led to a side discussion, about who the crabs were. What was their relationship? In the original animatic they are anthropomorphic. They are at the beach, in beach chairs, under an umbrella, with sunglasses, etc. Were they an old married couple like George s parents on Seinfeld? Or were they more like characters in Driving Miss Daisy or On Golden Pond? Was he reluctant to help? Was this her cause but he wanted to please her? We spent a lot of time on this. Much of this discussion helped us understand the character better, but didn t mean much beyond because of our time constraints. To condense time, they needed similar personalities and the same goal. So why couldn t we condense them into one character? We tried having one crab discover him and go through the problem solving but it wasn t as endearing, and it took longer. By having two crabs, they could each be carrying a note. The male crab was onboard but singular in his solutions he wanted to pull. He was focused on the problem. The female multitasked. If the pirate was dry she found a way to keep him moist. When the male wanted to pull she only had small pincers so she had to find something to pull and that resulted in more chaos. He is the baseline; she is the one who finds solutions. They could play off each other. Animation Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 Crabs have six legs and two pincers. The male has one pincer that is larger than the other. That is eight appendages to deal with. What if they were something else? What if they were turtles or pelicans? Turtles are in contrast to the theme. Pelicans are not easier.
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 ModelSheet, Gary Schumer, Ringling College of Art and Design If the style is cartoony and they remain more anthropomorphic we could rock them back and just have them walk and move on two legs like Mr. Krabs on SpongeBob. But that s not our style. The design of the legs has three segments. If we reduce it to two it would be easier to animate. But two segments lock the body to the legs and then we run the risk of the crabs moving like spiders. With three segments, the body can hover over the legs. We can get a little bounce and swing to the body. And we want to make the shell dark so the whites of the eyes stand out. We like the eyes. Having them above the body allows for a lot of expressions with expansion and contraction up and down and easy rotation. And we would need to make sure we keep the eyes vertical. There is more squash and stretch with vertical eyes. ModelSheet, Gary Schumer, Ringling College of Art and Design For the claws, the male crab has one pincer that is small and one that is big. The female has two small ones. We could make the small ones really small to get them out of the way. For the female, this could help because when Herschel wants to pull she will have to find something she can actually grab. This might have some entertainment value and lead to the idea of pushing. But they have to dig and the less the better. Maybe we could design the large claw like a bulldozer. If the style is more cartoony, they could even switch out their claws for shovels or bulldozer front ends, like Transformers. Crabs mouths open vertically instead of horizontally. Do we want to do that, too? Vertically is creepy. It could be distracting. Keep the mouths horizontal. We have a lot of lip sync. Maybe we could make the mouths into lines, like ventriloquist dummies. They could mostly just open and close. If we use the
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 clicks this would be fine. Even if we don t, the pirate could have real lip sync and the crabs could open and close. This would simplify the animation quite a bit. ModelSheet, Jon DiVenti, Ringling College of Art and Design Dialogue The initial dialogue is too leading. We need more subtext to make it funnier. And remember to show, don t tell. For example, we don t need the pirate to tell us the crabs are digging him out, we need to get the idea and then see them do it. The pirate would realize it later, but not first. Props In the first pitch, the crabs have what look like real beach chairs and umbrellas. At the beginning they seem human but from then on they are more like crabs. Make the umbrellas out of stuff you would find on the beach; leaves and shells. How difficult is it going to be to get the crabs sitting in and getting out of the chairs? We don t have to show them getting out. They can look in the direction of the pirate, cut to the pirate and we clean entrance in. What evidence do we have of the other pirates? Rum bottles or barrels? Smoldering fires? Shovels? Swords? Lost peg legs? Or did they just bring the captain there, take the treasure and bury him? Do we need a hole where the treasure was? Is he in the hole? Would its shape read if it indicated the shape of a treasure chest? Do we need drag lines from the hole to the shore where they dragged the chest? What kind of plants do we need? Story and Character Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 We needed to make the story shorter and more entertaining. What if we just started the film when the pirate says, Aye, so this is how it ends! and falls face first into the sand? We need to eliminate the double point of view (that of the pirate and that of the crabs). Just tell the story from the point of the crabs.
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 Gary Schumer, Ringling College of Art and Design Gary Schumer, Ringling College of Art and Design
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page 0 Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 0 This would eliminate the clicks and misunderstanding of dialogue. They could just talk. It is enough that they think he is a squid. For the crabs it would be fun if they were like an old married couple. She tells him what to do. He is grumpy or ignoring her or hard of hearing and doing something that he misinterprets. That could add an extra layer to the meaning of the piece. But it may take the story another direction. It may be enough for them to be friends. That is the essence of what we needed them to do: work together toward the goal and support each other. We decided to start there and then build out if there was more time. Staging Staging on this piece was going to be a challenge. The scale of the crabs to the head was big. If they were in the frame together, you might not even see the crabs. In addition, the head is immobile. It is like a large boulder that we have to stage around. And we have to stage around it because it is the main problem in the piece. Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 Right now we are going to try to keep the camera low. But we may need to break down and find the resources to do the water. The Title and the Head Interestingly when we sent the original animatic out for fresh eyes, many people missed that the pirate s body was buried beneath him in the sand, that he was buried to his neck. Somehow, because this was animation, people were willing to go with the idea that this was a disembodied head. Hmmm. So we needed to find some way to make sure that the audience knew he had been buried. The obvious suggestions were to show him being thrown into the hole, maybe as the sun was setting in a long shot in silhouette. Or to show rowboats going to the mother ship, the treasure being hoisted aboard and watching the ship leave. While both of these were workable, it meant that we would have to model and animate human figures or model a ship on the water for a few seconds of screen time. We played with the idea that this could be a different treatment. It could be done in Flash or D and be representative of the viewpoint of the pirate. We could book-end the piece with this treatment at the beginning and end like Kung Fu Panda. Other suggestions were to do it with a series of close-ups and sound. Sound can be a powerful communicator. We could have protests from the captain. You mutinous bastards! Or Leave me to the crabs, will ye? We could have close-ups of shovels hitting the sand, treasure chests being dragged, anchors hitting the side of the ship, sails unfurling and chaos until all is quiet, until we see a shovel handle with a broken sword tied to it to make a cross, a marker, and we pan down to the head. Again, if the style were really cartoony, we could do more with D effects and images. Maybe the last part was all we really needed with a little bit of the sound of the departing pirates. He s getting what he deserves! or Aye! Now the ship is mine! The popularity of the recent Pirates of the Caribbean series could buy us a lot of latitude. There is plenty of common knowledge of pirates and what they do in popular culture. We could use that knowledge to simplify the beginning by borrowing a few key lines of dialogue. Either way, the pirate was going to die. One of the things we tell our students is that if you blow something up or kill your character off, your story is definitely over, but usually there is a more sophisticated way to end your story. But in this case, we have to take it to the extreme to contrast the good deed of the crabs. And that s when the title became A Good Deed, Indeed.
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 Maquettes. Gary Schumer, Ringling College of Art and Design Course of Action: Style: Do a version with sculpted, carved look and smaller effects. Do a version that is more cartoony with larger effects. Pirate Make him more squid-like. Make him bald. Add nose ring, eye patch, sunburn. Focus on the beard as tentacles. Crabs Reference African sand crabs. Small or no shell. Focus more on a face. Keep the eyes vertical, mouth horizontal. OK on the different-sized claws keep the male large claw not too big. Three joints in the legs. Environment Keep the camera low. Crab props made from things in the environment. Make it an inlet, not a shoreline. Ship is D. Props close up in D, de-saturate to D in the background. Research and test to figure out the best way to handle the trench. Story Give each character a note. Shorten it. Begin where the pirate collapses. Make the crabs just crabs and they are friends. Clarify the miscommunication. Simplify the arc of the pirate. Add more harm to the pirate. Make everything fine in end from perspective of female crab. Begin with a D silhouetted ship leaving over the horizon. Summary Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 We decided to engage two storyboard artists to execute the linear script. Steve Hickner from Dreamworks did a version that was more realistic and found a clever way to bring the water to the pirate without rushing it down a trench. Nilah Magruder from Soapbox did a version that was more cartoony with larger effects. Both Steve and Nilah were generous enough to write a shot analysis detailing their thought
Ahoy a-head-p.qxd // : Page Ahoy a-head! 0 0 0 0 0 process for staging. Steve s version is published in the book and Nilah s follows this document on the Web. Steve did storyboard panels and Nilah s version is an animatic. To begin production we sent out a call for volunteers. We had a number of people who wanted to work on story or animation, but only one that really wanted to model. Aubry Mintz details the challenges of producing a volunteer-based film in his case study and we ran into many of the same problems. We went through a lack of leadership, two directors and were stalled by other projects and commitments that entered our crew s lives. Because the book is about the preproduction process, we found the documentation of the thought process valuable for new animators. We hope you do, too. Copyright Taylor & Francis 0 Gary Schumer, Ringling College of Art and Design