The Man Who Lives in the Zoo

I think the best thing about this project was that i got to visit the zoo multiple times for free.
We were to meet Darren, the Head of Collections of Edinburgh Zoo to discuss his role in the zoo, his history, his life so we had a better understanding of who he is and what he does. Our initial trip, i drew whatever caught my eye, as i had no real plan of what i intended to do.

At this point i was still unsure of the film i wanted to make, but i knew i wanted to animate several animals, the ones with the most intriguing motions, which to me were, the penguins, for their clumsiness on land yet grace in water, the gibbbons for their comically long arms and energetic swinging, and the kudu for their grace and dancerly movements. I tried filming them all moving, but was unable to see any kudu on the day...

an extra video of some basic Kudu movement...

The basic thoughts of a story soon occurred to me, i wanted to make a film wherein the man who lived in the zoo clocks off for the day, and once the animals realise he is back in his home, they all have a party.

This very rough draft shows a quick rundown of imagery, people leaving the zoo, Darren going up the hill in the zoo, and arriving in his home, the penguins squaking alerting the other animals, divign in the pool, the monkeys swinging on a chain, the kudu jumping over the fence, Darren being alerted and checking outside, the animals falling asleep and darren returning to his home.


At this point, i began to think more in-depth about the environment the film would take place in. I liked what i had produced for the rough storyboard so decided to take those as rough sketches. i sketched a few locations that didn't exist, but also took photos of those that do exist, which will inform the environment of the final film

I elaborated on the story at this point. I thought about the target audience - i wanted this to be a film for kids of many ages, younger ones who would enjoy the shapes, bright colours and movements, kids who could enjoy a funny story, and grown ups who could appreciate a comical story but a visually nice piece of animation. Another of my aims was to create the zoo, but not to make it an exact replica of edinburgh zoo. It would have recognisable elements to it, such as the penguins (a famous zoo staple) but could also be indicative of any zoo, making it both a product of ednburgh zoo, and an enjoyable film about zoos, humans and animals.

At this point in the project, i brought in a collaborator, my classmate Vera. I was struggling to think of an aesthetic for the peice, and her inital sketches of character and colour were really interesting, so i asked her to join me. I would be in charge of story and animatic, while she would be responsible for colour, character design and aesthetic.

With this in mind I started Storyboarding

Here, i went more in depth into each shot, giving mroe detail into the motion and actions of all teh characters. I added a second round of more intense, faster movements for all the animals to really make the animals exciting, and i changed the ending to make darren notice the animals, and decide to go party with them.

Then, as a group, we annotated the storyboard to figure out rough timings by seconds (Blue Post it notes) and rough sound effects we wanted to use (Orange Post it notes).

I also produced a rough colour board that Vera Could Work off of to give a rough idea of the colours we wanted in the  film

With these decided, i made the animatic:






Sound played an important part in teh film, the way that it becomes softer and muted underwater, or indoors, i wanted to give it some dimensionality to make the film seem more dynamic and alive. The music was important too, as it gave the film more atmosphere, gentle and calm when darren walks to his home, but lively and hectic when the animals come out to play.

As of now, Vera is finalising some character sheets. After that we will go into production. We will be drawing the motion, and colouring the characters and the backgrounds digitally.