Before taking the plunge

Right ! new refrence videos shot, picked and edited, New thumbnails done

A good amount of brainstorming all day, gave me a lot to play with. More like a brain teaser, if I dare say! I made loads of notes and filmed loads of references, considering Stewie as a customer, Owner of the shop, Cleaner, Security guard, a kid..... and each had their own stories and motivations to do wot they did in my shot. The one that I thought worked best, was Stewie the Cleaner.

Stewie is a CLEANER who cleans the store after it closes at 6 in the evening.

• He does his job from 6pm to 8pm.
• It's probably his first day at work
• He is about 22 years old.
• Loves his music
• Is a carefree guy
• Works part time, with college.

The shot:

Tentative : [CAMERA: Long shot of a glass door with a CLOSED sign board visible. We hold this for about 10 frames.CAMERA Zooms in after frame 10 till about frame 20, zooming in just a tad, so we go past the door on the inside ]

We see Stewie's Back and a bit of his face in a 3/4th camera angle, and a clock on the wall next to a Bell.

He wipes the shelf and then looks up at the clock as soon as the bell goes off. We see its 8 pm on the clock (time to go home) !

He swipes his finger clean on the shelf one last time before taking a quick turn. The camera can very clearly see that he swipes his finger on the off the edge of the shelf.

He then turns around (Maybe allowing 12 frames for the quick turn), with his profile view towards camera. He then dusts off the dust on his finger by twitching his thumb with the finger twice, (each time taking about 5 to 7 frames). Just then the shelf crashes , and Stewie starts Reacting 10 frames after the shelf hits ground !

Sign on the wall Revealed as objects fall of the shelves.. :

"DO NOT TOUCH, WEAK SHELF"

Thumbnails:

Click on image to Enlarge

Click on image to Enlarge

Good thing I could get this and the video reference to fit well in the 100 to 250 frame limit we are alloted for this shot. Works alright so far!

I think I'm sorted for now and can safely go back to finish my Blocking in maya now based on the new set of thumbnails and planning. It is so important to plan the shot well, Glad my mentor gave me direction on how to think about the attitude and personality of the character before we jump into maya. The timing or the allotment of frames to each action, is based on my perception of how long a task would normally take. Once I get the blocking done in Maya, I plan to play around with the timing of when things happen in the shot, to give it a nice texture! Will work on it this week (what's left of it) and the next !

This is fun! :) Got my next Q n A tomorrow... and I am quite looking forward to it. Might upload what I have so far and discuss it further with Jamie and the class and see what everyone thinks of it so far !

Off to finish blocking this out now ! *Wooohooo" :) U gotta love it!