Water Tower Concept

The water tower is a very important environment as it has alot of screen time. I have made it quite large but also very solitary to show the bandit is hiding somewhat. I thought the idea of having a little rotting shack would work better with the narrative of him jumping down from the tower and getting a run up to jump onto the train roof. The ricketty shack could also unbalance him causing him to slip and slam into the train roof. Overall the concept is really nice and I like the structure of the tower although it could be more stylised with the wooden supports etc.

Prison Concepts

These are a couple of prison concepts I've worked on. I like the idea of having a very simple fortress kind of structure. It looks quite menacing especially with the smaller cell windows and this could look really nice as our final shot before the credits. Also the concepts give a good impression of how the colouring can change the mood. We have a lot of artistic license with the shades in the sky and we will definitely use this to full advantage in final renders etc to get the mood and tone of the film right.

Mine Concepts

These 2 concepts show the interior of the mines. I have tried a couple of examples using tracks intertwining and weaving through one another which I quite like, especially with the wooden structures built around other tracks. Seems very mazy and quite rollercoastery. I think having the mines more enclosed like the concept with the black round the edge will frame the shots better and give a feeling of claustrauphobia almost in the shots.

This entry shot to the mines is one of my favourite concept pieces. I really like the towering blocks of rock around the entrance and also the way we can have lots of props like mine carts and signs lining the entry will really give the environment depth. Overall I think this could be a really interesting area to develop alot more fully and potentially devote more screen time to in the animatic.

Desert Concepts

The 2 concepts above are of a kind of Western village that could be in the background as the wanted poster blows past in the opening shot. I have tried to incorporate the water tower but since doing this we have decided the tower should be more solitary away from the town and out in the middle of the desert more.

This concept is more of a shot before we get to the mines but a nice environment all the same showing a small creek that the train can cross a bridge to get over. This could look quite cinematic and further show off the Western style environments etc. I really like the way this small piece of environment could link the flat plains of the desert to the more rocky terrain of the mines that would essentially be in a more mountainous region or area. Also I like the fact we could have small flashes of plants and cacti in the environment to make it more colourful and not too drab and lifeless.

New Schedule

This is a view of what the new schedule now looks like. I have extending it all the way to the end of the project including the marketing we have in mind. I have also colour coded it better to show each stage of the production more clearly. Ideally I will update the schedule weekly with the progress we have made and the new re-assessed deadlines and targets as our workflow progresses.

I will also be emailing this on a weekly basis to all group members. I feel this is very important as a producer to keep people on track with their workloads.

Contracts

Contracts are an important feature of the production to ensure everyone knows what they are assigned to do and so that they keep to their deadlines as a contracted member of the team. I have drawn up these as producer for each member of the group for our reference and there is also a sound designer version. These can be re-versioned should additional people work on our project.

Presentation Board Templates

This is an image of the templates I have made up for our presentation boards. I feel it is important we have a generic look about all our work and this will in turn re-inforce our brand identity for the film. All group members will be supplied with these in A1, A2 and A3 PSD files and they can then add their own work to them to create our mood boards, character designs and environment concepts.

Project Scheduling

As producer I really need to work on project scheduling to make sure each area of the film runs smoothly and we cover all areas.

As a starter I have created an Excel spreadsheet which covers all the pre-production areas in term 1 for the whole group.

I have then made individual schedules for each person to follow and keep so that they can see what work they should be doing. By distributing the work up between people like this it means that the amount of work seems less over-whelming for the whole group. Also in some areas more than one person will be working on that area so therefore people can collaborate their work to get better results and create more work.

Final Logo Design

This is the final logo design we seem to all like and feel will be the best look. It is basically a more weathered version of the earlier design using this font. I will be supplying this to the entire group as a plain black and white image in various formats so that all our work remains consistent from now on and always has the logo on it.

Grading Experiments

I took this image to start doing some grading tests on it to define the style a little more. This is a still of some design that Sam and Matt worked on last year and I felt if we render the same way then I could grade it up to this state again to get a warmer Western feel to the footage.






The images above are all different versions I have created using warmer tones and some sepia effects etc to stylise the shots.



Here I have also added vignettes to frame the shots like they have been filmed with an old camera much like many Western films have.

Environment Inspiration - Mines & Railroad

The mines are an area where we can be really experimental with the style of the modeling and also the way we work the narrative as really this is a blank canvas to play with. I want to do something quite spectacular with this environment and create a nice action sequence which I think will give alot more purpose to the mines than what we already have in the initial narrative idea.

Environment Inspiration - Town

These are some of my main inspirations for the town area I want to work on. I feel this could be a nice opening area to the animation with some good cinematic establishing shots showing the traditional themes of a Western town and encapsulating this quickly will set the tone well. These 'ricketty' buildings I feel work really well and getting this kind of grimey / weathered feel will look great.

Wanted Poster Concept

In the actual animation we have a shot that features a wanted poster of the main cowboy. I have started working on this as it is heavily type based and I wanted to get the style right. Tony is also working on versions of this. I really like this look particularly with the weathered text. This will animate really nicely I feel on the film but it could also be a style we continue to use possibly as a teaser poster for the film as it doesn't give too much away. We will definitely be developing this style.

Firefly Promo for SCI FI

This is a promo that I did the graphics for on the SCI FI Channel and I feel the look really has a good feel which could feature in our graphics. Also the grading could be something which we consider in our own film to stylise it and the music is another feature we could take pointers from when it comes to our own sound design. Also having worked with the concept before it is good knowing I have some experience with the look and feel of contemporary Western themes and ideas.

Graphics Style Ideas

These were some inspirations I found for the style of wanted posters and possibly all the graphics we create for promotional purposes etc throughout the film. Establishing this look now will save us alot of time later on when it comes to marketing and promotional material. The 3.10 to Yuma is a very solid inspiration that I really like the feel of.

Font Selections

As well as a logo design to build our brand identity of the film I have picked a selection of fonts that I have supplied to the entire group. I feel by having these fonts used on everything it will make all our work seem consistent and it will certainly look more professional in our pitches etc. Also these fonts can later be used on concept work and environment textures etc to fit with the Western theme.

Logo Designs

Matt's asked me to work on the graphics elements of our idea as I have better experience with Graphics and Moving Image work through my work experience. I have started by building designs for the main logo of the animation as I feel this will give our film a strong brand identity and this will continue throughout our branding and project work. The images above show some early designs and ideas using fonts in Illustrator. I then narrowed this down to 3 main layouts and looks which I have pitched to the group. The finally 3 ideas I have layered up more effectively on a poster type background with a Western style as I think the group will see the design better in context with a background rather than just black and white. I will then develop the ideas from here.

Forming the Group

So having just pitched our individual ideas, mine unfortunately didn't get picked but this worked out well being as me and Matt really wanted to work together on the same film. His idea was something we originally worked on over the summer so we were both really happy to work on the concept aswell as others including Sam, Kanika, Josh and Tony.

As a group we are all also helping to work on Tony's film as his was also one of the selections.

So for the time being I am going to be working mainly on environments, graphics, branding and scheduling and planning in this early pre-production stage.