Summary Of Today's Meeting

Hey everyone, I took some notes at todays meeting so for all of those who couldn't make it here is a record of what happened:

Nogol laid down the law for all of us with her schedule for the next 10 or so weeks. I'll get her to post it here soon so we all have that as reference. It looks busy but if we can get a move on while the semester is relatively easy we won't be stuck with a whole cartoon to do when crunch time hits. So let's keep chugging, the momentum right now is great!

We had a good brainstorming session where we were able to finalize the storyline. Salman came up with a simple and sweet story arch that everyone in attendance agreed was interesting and left potential for some funny moments.

The conflict: The child character is completely disinterested in candy which, in contrast, is his Grandpa's life long passion. Convinced that no child should be with out the great love of sugar Gramp's drags the kid on a crazy romp through the Candy Bayou, trying to teach him about the beauty of candy.

As the story progresses the kid gets increasingly frustrated refusing. The grossness of the candy bayou only makes him detest candy more.

The Climax: Finally the kid has had enough of the Grandpa and starts shouting at him, but just as the kid is at the peak of his explosion the grandpa shoves a piece of candy in the kids mouth.

The Resolution: There is a change of expression on the kid as his mouth is filled with the wonders of this new world, and he realizes that he actually loves candy. The grandpa and child bond. Everyone is happy, a beautiful relationship is made in amidst the muck of the Candy Bayou.

Here's a quick look at the middle men/business men as bloodthirsty monsters and the bayou is protected by some guy with a shotgun.

Narrative Proposal

What happens when a profit hungry business man attempts to change the lifestyles of a homely and simple group of candy farmers by taking over their candy bayou with an insidious plot to mass produce and industrialize the candy production.

 Point Form Summary

1) Candy People Are Happy

2) Business Man Shows up

3) Business Man entices the Candy people  with profit and increased productivity

4) Business Man Changes the Bayou entirely

5) Bayou people are unhappy

6) Candy people realize they were better off the way they were before

7) Business Man is defeated

8) Things go back to normal

Narrative

Act1
Introduce the people of the Candy Bayou. Show their way of life, what they do to make candy. Focus on their humbleness and happiness.

Meanwhile, a business-man lurks in the darkness and watches the people of the bayou and plots. He introduces himself, shows how he could improve things and entices them with increased profits. He begins to dance around the bayou, transforming it from its original homely nature into a cold industrial factory for mass production of the candy.

Act 2
The People of the Bayou are miserable and segregated from each other. They have lost their cultural identity and humanity. (Think Metropolis 1927).

Act 3
Something happens to give one of the people an epiphany and they realize that things were better off before. The people of the bayou begin to change their home back to its original state. The profits drop but the people don’t seem to mind as they gleefully go back to their former way of life. The Business man looks confused, unable to understand how anyone could not desire his way of life. He is defeated and this should be visually represented (possibly with a  gag)


Themes / Underlying morals
American expansion
commercialism
mass production
heart and soul vs industrial coldness
humanity vs profit
cultural identity
integrity

Characters:
The Business Man:  A mix of Facilier (Princess and the frog) and Sweet (Once More With Feeling). Should look villainous and have visual but very subtle allusions to Americanism. Walks about the Bayou, doing an eccentric move (eg; snapping his fingers) and changing the layouts/backgrounds. This character should be jazz music inspired.

The People of the Candy Bayou: Dirty and maybe a little gross but still friendly-looking and happy. They could be a caricature of the Cajun culture.

More Inspiration

Here's one of my fav flash animators Nick Cross. His stuff can be pretty gross.

The Pig Farmer from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

This film was shown at the 2010 OIAF. So if there is anyone concerned whether or not gross humour is an acceptable art form in this industry, put your worries to rest. (Not To mention everything on Adult Swim, Family Guy, South Park, Ren and Stimpy and the internet).

Yellow Cake from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

Some Gags

I think this would be good gag. It would start out closed up on Bessie The Cow's Legs where a farmer would be milking the utters. Then it would zoom out to reveal the tape worm. The gag can still be pushed though.

So maybe in The Bayou they enslave slugs like oompa loompas to squirt their juices in to "Caramel" filled chocolates. As we pan along the hundreds of slugs squirting into the chocolate we come across this little fella squirting himself.

Here are some kids shows that might help set the tone.








http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HpVEEgmaCE

Voice Acting Auditions

I may be getting a little ahead of myself but I think this would be a good idea for when to decide who will voice act. It would probably work best if everyone who wants to voice act were to record by themselves and to play the file on iTunes or something as nameless files and we vote on how it sounds. That way all we have to worry about is thinking which voice is most like the character's.

I'll also post up a gag later that I've been thinking about for "middle men" being monster like creatures who are shot in the face.

Hope 'ervy body is thinking about fun stuff!

Steph

Anouncements

So this is the blog where everyone from Barney's morning flash class can post suggestions or make comments about the direction of the film. We are aiming to have the complete animatic done by the end of reading week (I believe that's the 1st week of March) so that we can actually finish the short by the end of the semester.

Right now though I need all of you to come up with gags, story ideas and concept art. Watch the Animatic below and help us build this world!

We are having a meeting next Monday at 12:30 in the A Class to share our ideas and try to make a more concrete storyline. See you all there!

The Candy Bayou

Rough Animatic/ Jumping Off Point.