Jamari Animated UPDATE!

YES!  An update to the Jamari Animated short film!  Did you guys miss me?  Well, life has insisted that I put my film down for a few months and take care of a few projects, logo design for a few businesses and create a video tribute to my grandfather for his church.  You can catch a play for play of what’s made me busy at my personal blog, Chaostoon.Posterous.com.

Actually, I should take a second and let you know… I’m planning on moving this production blog over to Posterous.  It’s easier to use, I can update through email (so, from my cell phone if need be, so that means more often), I can make the blog private for donors only (cool idea I got other Flash projects that were successful in fundraising) and all kinds of other cool stuff.  I’ll let you know when that happens…  probably when I start fundraising more actively.  OH!  And for right now, I’m not actively fundraising for the film so…  hold on for when I throw the big pre-production campaign, which should be very, very soon.

BUT…  Currently I am revising the storyboards for the film as per Karen Lloyd’s suggestions.  I’ve decided to change the story to give Raincoat a little backstory, connect the characters a little better and add more character development… and I’m putting the “deleted scene” back in because I think I can make it work better through Karen’s ideas and help.  I’m also going back through the boards and backing that camera up.

See?  I can back the camera up!

I’ve been roughing everything out.  Loose and rough and fast.  The boards aren’t going to TOO polished in the end… they’re just for me and my friends that will help animate…  but they are going to be clear enough for all of us to be on the same page and work AND for Karen to be able to critique.  Even pulled the lined paper back out.

The Raincoat character is now going to be a random kid who gets fused with an evil coat with the word “Wrath” stitched in it, suggesting that the coat is the physical form of the sin.  You know, from the 7 Deadly Sins.  It will attach to the kid kinda like the Venom symbiote attached to Peter Parker in Spider-Man, to give you an idea of how that will happen.

That way, when Jamari defeats Raincoat, he’s not defeating him personally or specifically.  He’s defeating the sin that held his friend captive.

So, totally redid the intro to the film.  Now, the kid finds the coat and plays with it, only for it to tighten around him, control his mind and give him the weather controlling powers.  I think it works a lot better and it fits in the theme of the film better.

I’ve also been working roughly with the posing of the characters for the boards.  Karen said that the boards needed start poses so the animators knew how to act the characters through the scene.  Well, I’m roughing that out before I compose the shots…  especially for the scenes with a lot of action or scenes that need effects.

I’m not sure I’m gonna hit the 8/17 deadline I gave myself…  but I’m working!  I’ll post again when I’ve got something more finished!  Cheers everyone!