First of all I made an Adobe Premiere document and used titles to describe the action and to gauge the timings of the animation. I had used this method before to try to see how long I actually had to play with. Working with time limits like this is never quite as you’d expect. Doing this text animatic made me realise that I didn’t have the time that I thought I did. 15 seconds wasn't as long as I thought when trying to tell a story. This made me make the decision to have a standby shot. The shot where the man is getting out of the car and putting his jacket over his shoulder is one that I decided wasn’t needed but I could still have there if it felt right. If not, I didn’t want this too feel too rushed by shortening all the other shots and everyone will still be able to understand that he has simple walked to his door. This depends on how it feels when I have finished the storyboard.
Before I could do the storyboards, I had to design the character. I wanted to really show the exhaustion on his face. This is a man who has been in a very tiring and stressful job and isn’t happy about it. I showed this by making his eyes always squinting and having bags under them. Only having a maximum of 15 seconds to communicate this idea means that I have to use stereotypical ideas to show who this character is. This is really a basic trait of many animated characters and is done all the time in order to communicate their person.
I looked at quite a few different references for character designing while doing these sketches. I was struggling to find a style of hair that I felt suited the character. I wanted to make him look very tired and stressed, but I didn't want to make him look too old. I find it really interesting to look at character designs of things that are finished to see what could have been. It is hard to even imagine them as the same characters sometimes. Like the ones below, while you can tell that it is the same characters, they really do look so different!
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