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Seriously.......In my last post that mentioned merging the duck story with aliens surveying the earth....This would work, and can be made to work really well.
A short, short version:
The Uncle (storyteller) starts the same way, telling how he has taken his nephew under his wing when the parents went missing, and is late to the wintering resort.
The Aliens are seen here and there, probing surfaces , not finding exactly what they want.
Meanwhile, while the main duck character is stuck in the ice, an alien probes and tests different materials around him. When the alien probes the duck, he finds that the duck maxes out his meter (softness probe), so lasers him and the dragonfly out of the ice and takes them to the mothership. Unknown at this time is the fact that the aliens are looking for soft things to pad themselfves during their hard landings (duck down).
The main character ends up finding his parents, the dragonfly (mad scientist dude) helps the aliens make large dragonfly-type wings to make soft landings & the aliens become friends with the ducks & dragonfly (very thankful) and (softly) land them at their wintering resort.
Smiles.......Yes ---that is the benefit of creative writing there really are no bounds to where you can go!
Whichever story gets picked, I think it is also important to keep the story short and to the point. Nobody here wants to be still animating this thing 10 years from now, I hope. We are looking at 5-10 minutes final length, correct? So if the plot has too many points or too many characters or too many scene changes, the viewers will get confused.
For this reason I think CLICS is too complex for this format. It could work as a single episode that concentrates on some plot point, but I don't think we can realistically cover the whole story.
I like the aliens survey story because it could be easily partitioned and shortened without loss to overall plot. The ducks story I think is less flexible, but I'm sure it can be optimized in the next level draft.
And ultimately, it will up to the writers team to come up with something both entertaining and reasonably sized, as well as manageable.
I think CLICS is a worthy exploit, and something I wish we could pull off at this stage. It probably wouldnt be a bad idea to start planning a story like that one out for next year maybe. But for the time being and the short length we are working toward we probably need to keep it simpler. CLICS has a fantastic potential, hopefully it will see the light of day someday.
I kind of suspect he will be centrally involved since the final storyline will most likely be his. Indeed its too soon to call. I will add McQuiver's name to the list, thanks for that reminder. McQuiver has a great deal of skill that can be used in many areas of the production. He is essential, regardless of final storyline determination.
I trust you to enlist any human resources you deem necessary. I personally suspect that more willing individuals will soon come forward and volunteer their skills. We will only be in the preliminary drawing stages for a short period of time, after that we will have moved on to the Carrara interpretation of the boards, and I envision many critical decisions being made at that time. You and Antara have quite the task ahead so the more the merrier. Fortunately, skill is abundant around here!
CyborgTY should be around soon to introduce himself to the group on the Technical direction side of things. He was one of the first to contact me about involvement in the project and he has a decent amount of experience with it. I feel really good about the team from a skill and general professionalism of attitude standpoint. I'm very encouraged.
Over the next day or so Mike and I will determine the final look and feel for the test project. Then once that ship is sailing we will get to the logistics of the full CCMP.
Admittedly, much of the technical discussions going on in the threads is beyond me already. Dont know much about the Carrara VM, I use Truespace typically. So I really need to get studying. Gotta be able to keep up. I feel like an out of touch congressman making policy over stem cells....not good.
Antara---- Indeed no matter the story....keeping it under 15 minutes seems almost necessary .
Rashad-
I think things are moving along in a nice way ...and thanks for your organization to these projects. Getting started in anything with a community is a challenge. That said I have been encouraged by the growing number of folks who seem to want to do something positive together. There is a level of co-operation growing that although in its infancy does seem to offer great hope in actually creating something special.
rich
rashad--- Right now as of 1/20 - there are 30 votes posted. I think we should wait for some more at least a few more days. Maybe till 50 as we once discussed.
You know the whole story/idea phase is so so important and usually a producer for instance would have been looking at a full script before making any decisions on making a movie. So we kind of made the decision making process a little more difficult for everyone. And for instance , the Mcguiver's duck idea I expanded based on the knowledge that he had some neat models already and that it could make for a nice quick start. But that was a couple of weeks ago before we got to see some of the potential contributors and I have been impressed with the growing number of participants and their various skills indeed.
And the overall intent should always be to join the community not form opposing forces of ideas. I really don't want to have folks not joining in on the project as its not their more "fun" to work on scheme. Its such a undertaking--we cannot dilute and expect special things to happen easily if we divide up in two.
Mcguiver and I even had a little short discussion in the forums on a possible melding the two leading stories as one and he came up with plausible story to maybe make more folks happy . Which really speaks on the creativity opportunities of which always exist I suppose but still maybe not the best way to come up a special story.
If it was not so important (the story) these things would not be as concerning but I also believe that no matter the story ---the effort on developing good characters and emotions can carry one far but with a great story these things seem to take care of themselves a little easier.
I think it was Mcguiver who said he believed that this movie project had to be something unique and make people take notice and to comment how well thought out it was. Someone else commented that it would be most likely compared to the some of the Blender open source movies. I share these comments as well. We really do not want to put in hundreds of hours of work for something that is --well average.
Despite my musings here on story ----I have been pleasantly surprised by the active participation growing here and with each day seeing our possibilities grow a little more. Maybe Carrara will be the little engine that could after all.
looks like a close race
yes bigh indeed ---but would be nice to get even more votes and participation. Smiles
I am sure with some creative writing you could mix the 2 stories together.... then more people may participate, just have to make a good story.
Mike
I agree Mike -it could be done.
For me , when I look at a good 3d animated movie what catches me most is the emotional impact the characters convey to the audience. This is done by story but also can be aided by the look , emotions , movements , dialogue etc of the characters. A very simple story in effect can have amazing characters and if they look good and if the audience can connect with them ----in many ways they supercede the story and become a story in and of themselves.
But if you want to really hit a home run ---------you really do need a compelling story that captures the audiences imagination from start to finish.
Make the Ducks from Mars.
Smiles ---well Mcguiver actually came up with a cute amalgamation of the ducks and aliens --and that might be worth discussing .
I once made a very bad 1-minute animation and when the Lotto smiles on me and I get a more capable PC, intend to re-make it.
It is set in the Victorian exploration era, narrated in the style of Baron Von Munchausen. The intrepid crew sets out in a steam-powered river boat to explore Mars.
The narration went something like this-
Donning our protective clothing against the poisonous vapors rumored to be found in Space, we set out at dawn, intending to reach the Red Planet by sunset, so as not to be burned to a crisp by the Fierce Tropical Sun said to exist in those parts.
We had to complete our journey before that dastardly Newton's Law was passed by Parliament, which I predict will make leaving this Planet impossible.
Passing close by to the Moon, we found it was actually not made of green cheese, but a rather pleasant Stilton.
The journey took longer than expected - three days and fifteen nights - time being measured differently in Space, as I later explained to Mr. Einstein. It was all relative. Etc, etc. - it ends with him waking up and finding his coffee gone quite cold:)
Alien ducks is a cool idea, and one that lends itself very well to humor. I think however that at this point in time we don't need to try to make every possible movie at once. If this year we make a space themed movie them next year maybe we will do ducks. Or if we do duck this year then we can do robots and outer space next year.
Put it this way. To my mind the only real reason to set the ducks in space is if it will provide some sort of increased interest for the storyline, in that setting it in space results in a better story than setting it on Earth.
This could well be possible, so I dont want to say setting ducks in space is a bad idea...its probably a fantastic idea. It just needs to make sense logically.
Slowly, we are getting more votes. But to avoid losing too much momentum I will discuss with Mike closing the voting in the next few days. It's about time to start getting some real work done. Fun Fun.
No one has mentioned that it would be nice to write whatever is chosen to be expandable, (or shortened). By doing this, the movie can start out short, but scenes can be added to lengthen it. More scenes as time allows, but not start out as an overwhelming ,(huge project).
It has been mentioned. The first story of the Alien Visitors lends itself very well to this ideal of chapters and was the original CCMP idea that first came to me. Because the visitors arrive at all different sorts of locations on Earth, chapters could be built independently and compiled and recompiled as more chapters are completed.
The Duck story on the other hand is more linear, following particular characters through their adventures. Such a story lends itself much less to chapters, but would probably be more interesting to watch.
The Alien Visitors is basically a contrived mode for doing a Carrara environment showcase. Ducks, more of a traditional story. Both have particular benefits and challenges. Alien Visitors would be "easier" to pull off. In the Duck story the audience is expected to "care " about what happens to these birds. In the Alien scenarios it is unclear how much connection the viewers are expected to have with the visitors.
Rashad---
I agree with your comments. And in many ways to me ----if one can get some sort of connection with the audience with a character or two --you really have something. I would think it might be easier with ducks and geese for instance than an alien but obvious there are examples where folks have made even aliens "lovable" .
Rich
It would be nice to see a few more votes. Smiles .
Rich
I really think we could try and mix the alien story line(12votes) with the Ducks go south story. We would probably have more interest from volunteers by the looks of it and that would be nice to involve more people. I do have a bit of an idea to tie the 2 story lines into one , I will post a Storyboard sometime in the next day or two.
Mike
Hey ,
Here is my attempt at mixing the 2 stories together in storyboard form. I am far from a creative writer but I think this works , let me know what you think.
what's up - no ones voting - 12 to 18 - guess the ducks WIN
Hey Mike
---nice story board and effort to try and mingle the space aliens and duck stories as one . I am not sure about the participation to date with these (33 votes) ....maybe its both stories are not compelling enough to draw a bigger crowd.
Although ----I think one could detail what you did above and make something pretty decent --- I am not sure it drags more folks though which was the point of trying to merge them.
What I do know now is ---Seeing some of your skill and some others with Carrara -I am more confident than ever to think that nearly any story might be made into a pretty good looking movie. I think the production could match the stories.
Seeing that we have the "easy come easy go " short --to work upon as a practice as it were -----maybe we should entertain more story ideas --I know this took you some time with this above but-- just thinking to try and garnish a bigger crowd of folks maybe we need something else . I have time this weekend to try and if not for here a good story is always handy to have if you can create one.
rich
Bit of a concern here - the easy come easy go test now has all the assets required, yet no animator has volunteered to take it further. If we don't get animators on board, this whole concept will fade away.
Come on guys - there must be someone who is capable of animating a Carrara figure in Carrara:)
Hey ,
I could take a crack at it but it will be a big learning process as I don't do animation , although I know the basics. Maybe I will start a "learning" thread and that could generate interest.
Mike
except crappy ones %-P
I see no-one has downloaded the rigged figure with facial morphs yet to see if they can pose it https://www.box.com/s/8o4idk888bxnpzcmfq7w
Hey, Wendy, I just did:) - I never got an advice that you had uploaded an update.
Mike - yes, it would be good to get some interest going with an animation learning thread. Iv'e made a few really bad character animations before I came to the realisation that this simply isn't my thing and started concentrating on modeling.
If we are wanting to make a seriously good movie that showcases Carrara, we need to do it the way studios do - there are specialists in each field - modelers, colourists, riggers, lighters and animators. Each of these requires a different skill set and even, possibly, a different personality. In this community we have some serious animators, but they do seem to be mainly using outside, pre-made moves - BVH, Poser walk designer, Aniblocks, etc.
Now if an old fart like me, who has never done any serious modeling in Carrara is prepared to take a couple of days to get familiar with the VM and even have a god at rigging, surely the good animators among us could take off some time from importing pre-made and have a stab at doing some good, old-fashioned original key-frame animation?
What is actually required to get this going? A walk cycle or two, some bending down and picking up, maybe some facial expressions. Surely not beyond the skill-set of folks who do (or say they do) a lot of animation.
The idea of doing this test short is really good - this way we can judge whether we really do have the depth of interest and reserves of skilled volunteers to make a go of a much more involved story.
Mike -- I think that would be a good idea a training thread for animation or at least a place to help folks get going. And Roygee -----I think trying is learning. And yes to make a cool movie we need a number of pretty good specialized souls and maybe a good number of super generalists to boot. smiles.
Getting more folks to try things is definitely another plus for the test shot.
You want me to mess with some animation work? Tell me what you need.
I must say... I didn't think I'd care for animating a duck. But this is different - and I've reconsidered. When it comes down to it, I'm friends with all of our local Ducks. Well, all the birds. I love Ducks and would love to help make your story come alive. I don't always have a lot of time - many things in the fire... but I could probably turn out an impressive amount of recording in a week. But someone would have to tell me what you want and what models to use. I haven't been watching, could someone give me a link to the files and story?