Proposal

I enjoy doing many things when it comes to the production of animation. I like character design, storyboarding, making the animatic and animating. I find it hard to just choose one specific thing because I honestly feel I would enjoy work in all these fields. I also enjoy coming up with story ideas; from films to games, I just enjoy the creative process that comes from these ideas. That is why I've decided that my showreel will consist of the production work of my third year film, its current title being “Pups”. This will include character sheets and test animations as I try to get the style down, as well as storyboards, layouts, and perhaps the animatic. All these things will help expand the production time for my third year film and help to make it as good as possible. The film is a 2D piece as I have found 2D is the route I enjoy going down the most. Pups is very much the film that I have wanted to make for a while; always having rough glimpses of it in my head, I find now is the time to bring it to life. The whole feel is based on personal childhood nostalgia, back when the weather was bad but we would go on holiday regardless. The film will have a limited colour pallet of greys, blues and whites, as it suits the film’s cold wintery theme and will hopefully give the film a memorable look.

Pups will probably be a one-and-a-half-minute film. It will be the story of a 6-year-old girl named Jenny and a seal pup called Pup. Jenny lives in a beach town; as it is set in winter, the town is pretty much empty. Whilst collecting shells on the beach, Jenny encounters Pup, a seal who wants to go into the sea, but “the water is too cold.” Jenny helps him out by providing him with clothes from her house on the hill, adding more and more layers until Pup is a big ball of clothing. When Jenny runs out of clothes to give to him, and decides he’s ready to return to the ocean, Pup reveals it wasn't the cold he was afraid of – it was the sea itself. By this point, though, he’s started rolling down the hill. Jenny runs to stop him, but she trips, and Pup rolls into the sea. Jenny goes home, sad, but wakes up the next morning to find an ornate shell on her table and a pile of wet clothes in her sitting room, confirming to her that Pup’s fears have been conquered. We end on Pup popping his head out of the water, still wearing the scarf, and then he vanishes to swim further out to sea. The end message is that to conquer fear, sometimes we just need a push from a friend.

I hope that I can create a film that is simple but beautiful, and that if I start production work on it now it will mean a better film in the future. I can also add other things to my showreel to make it more visually pleasing, such as other ideas for projects that may not ever become fully-fledged productions, just to demonstrate variety. Also, seeing as Pups has its limited colour pallet, it would be good to bring in these other things, just to show I have a wider grasp of colour and design.

Overall I am confident in the idea of Pups. I hope it can be something that could get me noticed in the industry. This is why I feel I must start production this year, to make the film as showcase-worthy as possible.