Making of Prehistoric Park (part 1)
I thought it might be fun to show some of my process work, so let’s delve a bit deeper into my video piece, Prehistoric Park. I had come up with what I felt was a good gag one day, and had kept it written down in my pad of concepts. Knowing that it would be action-oriented, fairly quick, and carried by a big reveal, I decided it would work best as a 3D animation. It needed carefully controlled lighting to not reveal the joke beforehand, it had fanciful characters (astronaut, dinosaur) at a location not readily available (the moon), and the overall tone seemed a bit like it could have been a movie spoof on the great cartoon The Critic.
First things first, I began to flesh out the idea, here is my very first write up:
Idea Description
Fade from black to reveal an astronaut. He hops along, and plants a flag into the ground. There is an odd rumbling noise behind him. He turns around to reveal from the bottom up, a towering beast. None other than the king of the dinosaurs… a tyrannosaurus rex is standing before him! The astronaut hesitantly begins to step back. The massive dinosaur roars, although the sound is slightly muffled. A chase ensues, with the astronaut speeding away in his moon rover, but alas the dinosaur’s stride is too great, and it manages to flip it over with a flick of its tail. The astronaut, now pinned under the upturned rover, sees the dinosaur towering over him. It leans down, opening its jaw with terrible ferocity. Cut to a side view, the tyrannosaurus is not able to get the astronaut into its mouth, as it has a gigantic glass bubble around its head. It stretches its head as far as it can and continues to snap its mouth forward, but it is obviously of no use. A logo appears, “Prehistoric Park 8: Even I Can’t Believe We Made This!” The dinosaur picks its head up, apparently annoyed by his lack of progress… but then tries once more, snapping its jaw repeatedly.
I also began to do some concept sketching, trying to pin down the personalities of the characters.
