Planning an Animation (P3, P4, M2)

Moodboard

Shown above is a moodboard representing the plans I have for the production of my filming. I plan on producing unique worn out clothing for my zombies as well as following the location being Leicester Square. I also will be using a dark colour scheme to help bring the gore out. 

Character Designs 

Patient Zero - The patient zero character will be focused around being held under a secure facility where the zombie starts to break out and escapee. Whiles escaping the zombie infects the scientists as well as civilians. Causing an outbreak onto the streets of London.  

Scientist - A researcher who is focused around securing and understanding the cause of patient zeros condition. However tragically is infected and turns into a zombie when he gets caught. Causing him to have popped out limbs and flesh being revealed. 

Civilian - An individual who is subject to being infected by the other zombies as well as patient zero. The outbreak has infected him and now he runs the streets. 

These are the base character designs for my main characters that will be used within my advertisement for the campaign. The idea will be to have patient zero infect a scientist and from there the infection mass spreads. I Plan to use a colour scheme of dark green, red and white as well as some shades of black. 

Annotations for characters 

The main colour scheme of my characters is set to be vibrant for the civillians to recognise the innocence of the actual people as well as how the colours contrast this. As well as this a secondary colour scheme of purely darker tones will be used specifically for the zombies in my animation, this is to connote the darkness of the virus and the zombies killing people. For the sound effects used on the characters, I plan to self create the sound effects to ensure that I can get the exact imagery and style of audio that I want. For the civillians the main idea is to ensure they are constantly inferior, to ensure this stays with my audio, I will make sure to record clips of myself and others screaming and being scared. As well as this I wanted to do the opposite for the zombies. I need to make sure that they seem as creepy and almost corrupt as they can be. To do this I will record myself at a much lower pitch to ensure that there is an earyness to my voice as if the zombies are groaning for death. I also will have included on the zombie models a bunch of blood and severe cuts/ripped skin. This is to ensure that the realism and gore of the zombies is met.

 Facial expressions 

I have created a list of facial expressions for my animation to be able to portray the different stages of the infection that will progress throughout the animation. The reason I have done this is to be able to identify the severity of the situation as well as be able to get a good understanding of the type of image im going for.

Character movements

The movement styles of my characters will be very similar as they are all either human based or human like characters IE Zombies. The main protagonists such as the scientists, civilians and patient zero will have slower more passive movements as to indicate how there is the calm before the storm of everything seemingly being normal. Once these 3 characters have been infected their movements will become much more rabid and aggressively fast paced, this is to show the intensity of the situation approaching. The zombies and patient zeros movements will have a faster speed than any other of the characters, this is to show the horror factor of the event and the theme of zombies being scary. The reason that I chose these type of simplistic movements is because it would give me a lot of time to refine the movements due to how easy they are to perform. 

I chose these characters specifically as they both will allow me to target my audience as well as having a good storyline / plot to the advertisement. Having the patient zero be this outbreak character who causes mayhem really be able to show the fitness for purpose as the animation style will be rapid and intense due to patients zero causing havoc in a small amount of time. 

Personally, I have chosen to overall focus on the effects within my scene to create more realism and drasticness compared to something such as facial features. This is due to my character choice mainly being from either clay or Lego therefore having different facial features can be hard. 

Storyboards 

I have created a layed out storyboard of what my planned out animation is going to look like on a basic stand point. I have created this to be able to layout in my mind exactly what kind of camera angles, scenes, lighting and editing features I will end up using on the day of filming. I have done this to be able to give myself options on what I want my figures to be doing movement wise as well on the day.

Backplates

London square 

This image will be used in scene. The wide open space allows for the realisation of what is about to happen to be had. The virus is about to break out and take control over everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bus stop

 

 The bus stop will be used in scene 5 as a comedic joke to people always not paying attention on their phones and getting attacked by the zombies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lab

 

The lab will be used in scene 1 of our animation, this is the breeding ground of the virus outrbreak and the use of this location is also to portray how serious of a matter this is.

 

 

 

 

Hallway

 The hallway will be used in scene 2 to also show how serious this is as a government research facility, however the outbreak occuring shows how little control they really had.

 

 

 

 

 

Market place

 The market place will be used in scene 6 to show how wide spreading this virus is, the market place is referencing the community and them fighting off the virus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Race

Scene 7 will use this backplate to show zombies chasing humans at the beginning of a race, this is to link back to the brief and target audience of the zombie themed race.

Synopsis

Our animation starts of in a science lab based off in central london, we see a few researchers working on something very interesting and dangerous, patient zero. The scientists are trying to discover a cure for the virus the patient has contracted but all hell breaks lose and the patient breaks out and spreads the virus onto the scientists. 

Through the hallways there are scientists and staff being turned into zombies and slowly overflowing into central london as well as the london markets. The zombies overun the stands and streets infecting everyone they can. 

The zombies head into the market and start chasing the people there who were going to be doing a race through the starting line as to show the zombie references with the race.

Target Audience  

The primary target audience for my animation would be 16-28 year olds. This is because the brief calls for an animation aimed at an adult audience of horror enthusiasts. Using the age group of 16 will allow me to find the gap from immaturity, to more graphic and things older audiences will appeal to. By aiming at 16-28 year olds I can include a wide range of content and themes that would appeal to my younger end of my audience whiles still interesting the older side due to the similarities in age, resulting in both audiences finding entertainment. This should result in a much more successful approach to my animation as all the scenes will be appealing to people across all ages of my target audience. As well as this a secondary audience that we could target for the Zombie march animation could be 30+ year olds. This is because there is a large audience of older ages who look for ways to improve their fitness in a much less intensive way, as well as this older audiences will be much more in tune with zombie fiction due to the amount of movies there have been which also would be relevant to all groups (GRACE) who enjoy watching these types of films (Zombie enthusiasts). Therefore, by creating our advertisement and promoting it through sites such as youtube the video will be able to target all ages as well as get a wide range of promotion through the age groups.

Purpose 

The specific purpose of the advertisement is to be promoting the march that is taking place in leicester square in a creative, fun and interesting way. The animation will also provide people with information that might be needed for the march such as location dates and the theme (being zombie). The purpose is also to be informative, engage audiences and overall to be entertaining to attract a wide popularity. We have decided to create the animation in this stop motion style online to be able to attract a vast majority of audiences as well as major zombie enthusiasts to attend the march in a much more warm and persuading way. By creating a fun and goofy animation on zombies whiles also using contrapuntal music to contrast the violence and gore, our main goal from this is trying to persuade people who might be considering coming to give the march a go.

Medium 

The ways that i plan for the animation to be advertised is through cross-media platforms such as social media and youtube. The reason behind this is that because social media and youtube have such a wide and mass audience, this video will be advertised to everyone. This can create new viewers and audiences becoming interested in the advertisement as well as keep people coming in as videos are found by viewers everyday in these platforms. 

The brief specifies the usage of a mobile app. Therefore I will ensure that my animation works well for this medium type. The convinience of a mobile device allows consumers to be able to access the video wherever and whenever they want, meaning the exposure will be there. As well as this using a mobile device creates a unique audience of younger people as typically younger audiences use phones more than older ones. 

My animation will be created using stop motion, I have chosen this form of animation because despite the work taking a while to do, it is the most realistic and simple form of animation to create due to the pandemic. This also means that I will be able to get the best possible result. To create this animation I will be using clay or Playdough.

Equipment and Personnel required:

As the creation of the animation is a very demanding and a time consuming task, I will have to ensure that I equipment on set fully layed out if needed. 

Because I will be using stop motion for my advertisement animation style, I need to ensure that the equipment I am using such as cameras and batteries are at a good quality, because of the current lockdown however this is hard to do in short notice, therefore new phones such as the Iphone 12 make for good camera qualities as a plan B.  

Due to my characters for the stop motion being made from playdough / clay, I will need to make sure that I have a range of materials to use incase any of my propps fail or have issues, this is to ensure nothing can go wrong with my filming. Things such as spilling liquids can cause harm to my characters, therefore they need to be kept in a safe place. 

A vital part to my equipment will be the camera / phone that I use to record my animation, I must ensure that this equipment is fully charged at all times and in case of it not being, I will make sure to have chargers to prevent this. 

The personnel that is required for the creation of my animation will be roughly 3 people, A main Director IE, Myself to work on the animation with one other crew member. A person to help me with the Post production section of my animation to ensure my work is refined. Finally we will need all 3 crew to be used for voice overs for our animation. 

Gantt Chart

Here I have created a Gantt chart to be able to keep management over my timetable for producing my animation in time for the Zombie March. The reason I have produced this gantt chart is to be able to set out each tasks that needs to be done and underline how long each one will take to get done. Using this, I can give structure to my production plans and therefore provide a good quality animation with strong mentality.

Storyline 

Equilibrium: Scientists are researching and investigating a new virus that has been found in London, they are testing on patient zero and working on a vaccination to help them. 

Disequilibrium: Patient zero starts raging in anger and acting like a wild animal, he breaks out of the testing area and starts attacking the scientists, spreading the virus and turning the scientists into zombies. 

Recognition: The alarms go off in the area of central London and everyone is told to stay in their homes and run away, the zombies are overflowing and break out of the government facility onto the streets. 

New Equilibrium, the zombies end up running into the marathon that is taking place and chasing down the competitors, the competitors run for their lives and complete the race whiles the zombies follow by. 

Risk Assessment  

I have created a list of potential risks that I may face during the production of my animation to ensure that I am careful and clear on what I need to get done as well as be careful with. Doing this will ensure I take all the measures needed to have a clean and easy production.

Running Order

I have created a running order to outline all the objectives and targets in my pre-production I needed to have met. I have done this so I can keep track of what I need to get done and manage it all in the best way possible. 

 

SCRIPT 

I have created a script for the production of  my animation to be able to constantly refer back to what I want to produce when creating my animation on the day. I have this so that If i have an issues with trying to figure out what is best for my scene, I can always come back and use this to follow suit.

M2

The idea that I plan on using for my animation and campaign has a range of strengths, oppurtunities, weaknesses and threats some of which could be an issue but also could help the animation. 

Strength 

One of the main strengths of my animation is the targetability to my audience. By aiming my work at huge zombie fans I am able to create a unique zombified feature whiles also meeting the briefs requirements of having a zombie gore marathon. To make sure that my animation is well appealed to zombie fans, I will make sure to make the animation simple and not overcomplicate things, as doing this can cause too much sound to be in the animation and therefore the whole idea of zombie marathons is missed.

Another strength about my animation is that I allowed for my animation style to be used through a variety of social media, this is because I wanted to make sure that my animation was able to be viewed through mobile devices as the brief requires, as well as this the media of youtube is an option for a much wider audience to access my animation. This means there is a much larger range of people to consumer my animation meaning more awareness.

Weaknesses

One of the weaknesses of my animation is that there is a very wide range of zombie based animations that have been produced and are being produced at this very moment, this could cause my animation to be overlooked due to it following simple conventions and being "just another zombie animation". To overcome this challenge, I must make sure to make a unique storyline to my animation to make it look different to the rest.  If I fail to do so this could lead to my animation not getting the proper attention its due meaning my animation was a waste. As well as this, due to the lack of USP's for my animation, my advertisement may easily fall behind in competition against other advertisements. This is also because there can be a diverse and wide range of different potential USP's other animations and advertisements can have such as unique benefits to attending or unique devices. 

 Oppurtunities 

By having my animation available on a range of media plaftorms such as mobile, youtube and more I am able to create an oppurtunity for mass viewership of my animation as well as the oppurtunity for collaberations to be made with people who enjoy the animation. Using the range of platforms for my animation creates the oppurtunity for a mass audience of people to view and enjoy my work, doing this means that the app for the brand is also well advertised and fit to work on mobile.

Threats

A threat we may face when creating the animation is the censorship of some of the parts of the animation may need to be in place or there may need to be a warning for age requirements, this is due to the gore side of the zombie animation as people will be getting killed and this is now safe for younger audiences. A way to stop  this is by putting age restrictions on the videos and making it clear it is not safe for younger audiences.