YES! So, as I mentioned previously, I’m starting up a new Precinct short animation, the goals of which are:
- to give viewers a bit more of the story we’re dealing with in the series
- to reveal a bit more about Det. Ackersley’s personality
- to show lots more ACTION and fast cutting
- to shamelessly wallow in my John Farnham love and persuade him to get involved with the show
Since the production of Precinct episode 00a, “Good Friends”, was short and fast, and I was planning for MIPCOM and working a full time job then, I didn’t blog about the process at all. This time I want to post a lot about how it’s going, to (a) get the word out about The Precinct and (b) keep me motivated to finish.
Since I knew the point of this cartoon was mostly to show a little animated Farnham singing, the first thing I did was decide which of his songs I’d use as backing (yes, this cartoon will be packed with delicious copyrighted music, so I probably won’t be able to legally put it online).
I sat down with my Farnham collection and decided on a montage of the Precinct theme song with “Break The Ice”, which Mr. Farnham sang for the movie RAD, and the Little River Band chestnut “Playing to Win”. The three tracks are all synthtastic and in the same key, so they mix well.
Once I’d sequenced the backing music I wrote the opening scene, a short bit set in 1986 which features Ackersley getting yelled at by his angry boss. It concludes, slightly cheesily, with the words “playing to win”. At which point the song bursts forth.
After doing a few thumbnail panels on the tram, yesterday I started the storyboard/animatic properly. Here’s what I have so far!
[kml_flashembed movie="https://nakedfella.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/0b-Playing-to-Win.swf" width="512" height="288" allowfullscreen="true" /]
I haven’t “written” the whole “Playing to Win” sequence that’s coming up, because it has no dialogue. Instead I’ll just keep doing thumbnails of the montage images.
More soon!
EDIT: I worked more on this today. Now we’re almost up to the “Playing to Win” bit.