Around now I got into Cinema 4D all the while looking at reference photos on the Internet. Here is the yet-to-be jointed model of the astronaut:

And here are a number of different unused textures I tried on the dinosaur.

Having refined everything to this point, I got the characters rigged, and could get down to animating. First I had to set up the environment, including basic lights, and the backdrop, which was used for each shot, although each shot got a different Cinema file. Then came the most time consuming aspect: keyframing each movement just right. Finally, I rendered out each file, slightly upped the contrast for each in Photoshop, and imported them all into After Effects. This is always helpful for spotting a few edits (down to the frame) and spotting mistakes. Lastly, I spent a while making the sound effects in Audacity, and added those into After Effects for another render. After receiving some feedback at my critique I went back to make a few small tweaks (like adding the glass “plink” sound). At long last, the movie is ready to be put online, and here it is!

At this point I needed to think in terms of shots for my storyboards.

I thought about it in terms of moods. I needed to establish a calm steady typical moon scene, then build some mystery and suspense in a dark shot from below looking up. Then just burst into the energy of the action sequence with more angles and quick cuts. The crash suddenly stops the action, and so it starts to hold on the struggling astronaut to re-establish the tension. The dinosaur has the obvious advantage, as there are extreme tilts on the point-of-view shots of the characters, but this only serves to confound your expectations when it suddenly cuts to an even profile shot again. The dinosaur, nor the astronaut can get what they want, the climax is the stalemate. Resolve with the logo, and a little tag at the end, to convey a sense of time and persistence. Note that a number of shots in the storyboards have gone through refinement, most often flipping to making sure that the action occurs left to right.

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.