My animation summary

I am planning to create a 2-minute (or more) animation project for this semester. I have chosen to do my old project called Into the Fantasyland and I have decided to make some changes on it. It’s a sort of fantasy short animation about a deaf lady who is sitting on a couch watching television with a live dog sleeping nearby. The lady and the dog will be ‘sucked into’ the television and the scene will morph into an animated fantasy land featuring live action.

First off, the project begins showing a live lady sitting on the couch and watching television in a long shot. There is a live dog sleeping nearby also. The view will cut into a different angle behind her so we see her watching the TV. The scene there is animated and all of a sudden, an animated figure turns to look straight at the camera, staring at the live lady on the couch. The animated figure is smiling and waving.

The next shot is cut to the lady on the couch. She is confused and uses a remote to try to change the channel, but it wouldn’t change. The live lady walks up to the TV and touches the screen. Somehow, her finger points right through the screen and when she pulls her finger out and it is not real, it has become animated. And it begins to spread all over her body. She is changing into an animated girl. Then something pulls her into the TV and she falls down through a Vertigo-like swirl like a whirlpool with weird colors in the background. Then the dog comes to the TV and touches it. Who knows what next?

The lady arrives in the fantasy land and everything has become animated. It’s a beautiful sunny day in fantasyland except there is no one there. And she runs along calling, “Hello? Is anyone/anybody here?” with cueing. Immediately, she can hear what she’s saying! She also can hear things surrounding her. Then suddenly, a dog, her dog, barks and approaches and it’s also animated. She calls the dog, “Pepo!” Then she happily starts playing ball with the dog. Next, she and the dog go on some adventures, looking around weird. But eventually, she finds a special door that blocks the whole way out. And she decides to try to go in to see what happens.

When the door opens, it starts to brighten up like heaven. She reaches through the doorway as the camera cuts to show her arm sticking out of the live TV. She struggles through and reaches back to pull the dog out of the TV also. They are in the real-live living room but the lady and the dog are both still animated. At first she doesn’t know where she is at but now she realizes she’s home in real world! She finds herself still animated and doesn’t understand why. Then while she is so happy to see the dog, she finds herself to be live again. She is shocked at first but happy to be normal again. When she speaks something, she can’t hear any words. So she assumes she becomes deaf again. She is a bit sad, but she’s glad to be home after all!

The first thing on the agenda is find an actress to match the storyboard I described, and to refine and expand the screenwriting. Then we will actually shoot the portions with the live actress. Some classmates have agreed to help me with this and to work on the sound for the whole film. After the shooting, I will work mostly in Photoshop on rotoscoping the lady and the dog, while they are in a fantasy land and back to live action as well. A classmate is going to help me work on the frame rate animation. I would like to rotoscope them perfectly so that each frame wouldn’t mess up. And at the end, hopefully, I will put all the frames into After Effects or Final Pro Cut. Some classmates are going to help me work on the sound. This deaf lady is able to talk good and hear well in the fantasy world. For optional: Perhaps, I can create bubbles where someone is responding her. For example, when she starts asking questions, she can talk really good or hear well. But when someone calls back to her out of nowhere, the bubbles are blank which means there is no sound on, so she cannot hear what they are saying. For the whole post-production, I will be working on a lot of frames and create the background and the sound.

Original Storyboard

I will draw a much better storyboard next time. This is the original storyboard.