Animatic

Here is an animatic of the piece of animation I have decided to do:

Animation Style

I've been thinking about the style of animation I want to use for this project. I think I'd like to animate it similarly to this music video:

Since it's an advertisement, I will keep the colours much brighter than those used in the video. However, I like the digital cut-out look the animation of the wolf has, and I would like my squirrel animation to be
somewhat like that.

I'll base my squirrel cut out on the bone-structure of the squirrel, and then from that I can change the additional flexible skin/muscle from his hind legs depending on the position of the legs.

Some design work

These are just a couple of drawings I've done to get a feel for the aesthetic I'm aiming for. They're just in pencil for the moment, but I may redraw them in pen, and will likely colour them in photoshop.

Squirrels

I took some time out of my schedule today to visit the park to observe some squirrels. I'm strongly leaning towards the squirrel ad idea, and if I pursue that idea, it's important to me that the character moves like a real squirrel.

I got a lot of reference photos and videos, and did some life drawing while I was there. I will put some of my reference here in this post.

My Ideas

I used my research with viral marketing to determine the best approach with the advertising campaign. As with the most successful viral advertisements, these ads all open on something seemingly unrelated to the car, which is then shown to portray a message and advertise the product. In all three storyboards, the Seat Mii features quite dominantly, and the message is carried across that it is an environmentally friendly car. There are no voice overs or overly obvious attempts to push the product on people, just a simple message and reveal of the project.

Of the three storyboards, I am most happy with the third. I feel the first two may be too simple, and thus may come across as quite boring. The use of the squirrel gives the viewers a character to watch and be drawn in by, while still being quite simplistic and not adding too much fluff to the message.

Storyboard Idea 3

This is my third storyboard idea.

This version of the advertisement opens with a shot of an acorn on the roof of the Mii. A squirrel enters from the left of the screen and proceeds to sit by the acorn and pick it up. The camera cuts to a closer shot of the squirrel holding the acorn, and the squirrels eyes dart towards the camera. The music begins at this point. The camera cuts back to its original position as the squirrel turns to flee. The camera follows the squirrel as he runs to the back of the car and leaps. As the camera pans across, we see a tree trunk that the squirrel lands clutching. The camera follows the squirrel as he scampers back up the tree and out onto a branch. Once settled on the branch, the squirrel starts to nibble at his acorn as the camera pans in towards him. The camera then cuts to a more zoomed out shot of his section of the tree, then a shot of a larger portion of the tree, then a shot of the tree in its entirety, which as before is growing out of the exhaust pipe of the Mii. Finally, the camera cuts to a shot of the Mii itself before fading to black.

Storyboard Idea 2

This is my second board idea.

This scene opens on a branch of the tree, where one of the leaves is blowing back and forth in the wind. The leaf breaks free of the branch and begins to drift away in the breeze. The camera cuts to a closer shot of the leaf and follows it out past the trunk of the tree. As the leaf reaches the peak of its arch, the camera cuts to a more zoomed out shot of the leaf and follows it back to the trunk, where the leaf circles the trunk, getting lower as it does so. The leaf makes one more wide arch upwards before gently swaying down to rest on a bright surface. The camera zooms out to show that the leaf has landed on the Mii, and continues to pan outwards to show that the tree it fell from is growing from the car itself.