Treatment

My animation short will be an alternative point of view on drag racing. The theme is motor racing and fits into the genre ‘Dramatic Comedy’. However it will have elements of wildlife and nature. The target audience for this animation is universal; it is suitable for any age but aimed at young adults. This is because there is no violence but parts of it might be a bit too advanced for babies and preschool.

My main inspiration for my animation is the drag racing I attend throughout the year at York Raceway. I chose this particular subject as it is something I have a lot of knowledge on and I have the added bonus of being able to see the cars or visit the track whenever I need to. The intended media for my project is mainly 3D but with slight 2D elements. For example the cars and characters will be in 3D but the environments will be 2D.

Jet, a young owl, has just settled down for a rest after a long night. Unaware she has just sat on the starting lights at the raceway; she hunches her wing and closes her eyes. The cars start lining up down the fire up lane and the front two start up with a roar! She jumps, eyes wide, looking round for the owner of the loud disturbance. Rolling to the start line is the pop and the cobra, she tries to muffle the noise but nothing is working so she flies away (not noticing that she is flying down the track). The cars speed down the track towards the finish line, half way down they pass Jet and send her into a tumble. Feeling disgruntled she decides she isn’t going to put up with it she flies after them at lightning speed. She wins...of course, and then hitches a ride back, blowing on her wings and looking suitably pleased with herself.

The animation will be split into 2D and 3D. The 3D elements will consist of all the characters (Jet and the drivers), the race track and the cars. The environments will be 2D as it is situated on a farm and it would be harder to model it all. They will be flat paintings down either side done on canvas or in Photoshop as vector images.

As explained earlier my main influence is York Raceway and all my friends’ cars. Other influences include the old Milky Way advert featuring the red car and the blue car. Also Wacky Races/Stop the Pigeon with Dick Dastardly and Muttley. I got the idea for my drivers when watching the appearance of The Stig on Top Gear.

I will be using video reference for the cars rolling, the burnout and the actual race. I will also need to study the way owls fly, I don’t want my animation to be picture perfect as I am wanting it to be a cartoon. I will look at what has previously been done in 3D racing but mainly focusing on the burnout as this is going to cause the most problems.

By arranging the 2D and 3D parts the way I plan to, compositing will not be a massive problem, however the actual design of the environments will be time consuming. Animating the cars will be an issue as well to make them believable, as will Jet the female owl. I will leave enough time towards the end for rendering, the report and time for anything to go wrong. I need to make sure I choose the correct resolution and camera settings to show my animation off to the best of my ability. I need to experiment with camera angles to aid the performance but most of all I need to really give Jet a character.