INDIFFERENCE - Animated Short for CalArts Portfolio

Hi guys! So, here I am beginning a thread where I will post everything I do regarding “Indifference” which is an animated short movie I am trying to make in a very short time. I want to make this for my portfolio for CalArts, which is my dream place to go and study 3D animation and someday get into Pixar. I’ve posted about this project before, but through this thread, I’ve decided to scrap all of my previous models and start from total scratch again. So, here is my first picture of the thread. It’s basically a bunch of characters I drew rough sketches of basically because I wanted to plan out my characters before modeling them this time. The features in these pages aren’t the best explained/drawn, but I will commence to post better pictures of each character as I get the time. Criticism, for me, is a must from all of you people. You pointing out my mistakes will only help me get a better and better short for my portfolio, so I will not take offense to anything. That is basically me giving you guys a thumbs up to be as mean as you want.




Thirteen characters is a lot for a short. For a portfolio piece, every character beyond around three is just repeating something you’ve already demonstrated you know how to do. If you take a look at animations done for graphics arts programs at universities, few of them have more than half a dozen characters, and usually a few of them are bit characters. Victor Navone’s viral classic, “Alien Song” only has one character. (Victor Navone, by the way, got a job at Pixar through ‘Alien Song’.)

So, I’d suggest you scale way back. WAY back. Pick a scene with one or two characters, or maybe three, and animate just that scene. If it’s a good scene, it will have a beginning, middle and end, so you can consider it a ‘short’ if you like. One or two characters, animated well, will get you a lot further than a dozen characters animated poorly because of time constraints.

Thank you Orinoco! Well, my whole short is only going to have only Thomas as the main focus. Every other character just appears and disappears in a few seconds. It will have scenes with only Thomas though, which will go on for a while. Thomas is literally the only character getting a lot of camera time, which is why I thought it’d be wise to add characters to make the short interesting. Also, the story I had in mind also called for a lot of interaction which is another reason I made so many characters. But thank you very much!

CalArts, I’m sure, will be much more impressed with polish rather than length. Alien Song, the animation I mentioned earlier, is 45 seconds long. It took Navone 250 hours (his estimate) to finish. Adding a second character for 45 seconds would take an additional 250 hours. Animation doesn’t really have 'economies of scale." If you take a look at crowd scenes in anime, for example, you’ll generally see one or two characters walking through a still life of shop lined streets and people, or crowded train cars peopled by motionless manikens and a couple of animated characters. Why? Animation is time consuming.

Sharpen your story. Figure out what you want to say, and ruthlessly prune away scenes, characters and dialog that does not directly support that one single focused message. Seriously. You’re in High School? So you have a maximum of four years, part time. Don’t give yourself a ten year project and expect to do a decent job of it.

Where’s your animatic? Let’s see the story. :slight_smile:

calarts animation school is whacky/offbeat as a rule, so be sure to play up the whackification factor.

May come across a little hard, but this may help get a bit of perspective for what your in for.

I definitely agree with Orinoco about the number of characters. And especially since you plan on showing them for just a couple of seconds is all the more reason to cut them. Have you ever done much rigging or animating? Because both can be very time consuming. I don’t really know how accurate or current it is, but I have heard it said that Pixar does about 10 seconds of animation a week(or it may have even been a month I can’t remember). So 12 characters that you are going to see for say 5 seconds each plus the main character for say 2 minutes (I can imagine you would like to have it longer than that though) that adds up to 180 seconds so 18 weeks of just animation. If you are familiar with rigging and all goes well you might… get the rigs done in 2 or 3 weeks. But it may take a week or more each. It may seem a bit extreme but I would guess this could take you about year - and that’s full time.

I’ve seen quite a few guys pile themselves up with a huge workload thinking it’ll be simple enough. But at the end of the day it bogs them down and they quit before they get to see it through. And then some even walk away from 3D just because that project didn’t work out. And it’s a real shame to see.

That all said. Go hard bro and all the best for it.

Tommywright, hi! Thanks for commenting! The basic plot of the piece I am making is a satire basically emphasizing and exaggerating how amimatronic humans have become. To prove that, I use robots, so that I can portray how stiff and routined we are these days. To further my thought, I portray daily activities and plan to make fun of a few of them. The base I intend is that Thomas is a special character. He actually has a heart (you can’t see it in the concept art but I plan to draw him soon). In turn, that causes the entire city to despise him, or at least, avoid him. The short will be a combination of scenes that show his experience through his life; the animation starts from his life and ends at his death. I hope I have been successful in explaining my plot without giving away too much or any spoilers! (:

Modron, yes I knoww. Which is why I’m trying to take a very comedic toll on this animation. I forgot to mention it in the paragraph for tommywright, but this will be a comedic satire that will have a very serious message by the time it ends. If I’m not mistaken, haven’t you posted on one of my threads before?

A detailed version of Thomas should be up shortly. I care about that character’s features more than the others so I’ll spend some time on that, so I’d better get started!

Orinoco, I’ve realized through my mistakes before that I should focus more on the smoothness and greatness of my animation than how long or how detailed my story is. I’ve narrowed down my characters a lot more than I had first started with. I’ve also set my standards lower than before by not worrying so much about the realism factor anymore. I know this much, though, that along the way, I’ll make more decisions and maybe cut some scenes or characters out for the lack of time or inconvenience of the process. But, no matter which it is, you’ll be able to see it on this thread (:

Thatax, is your goal to impress US or to impress CALARTS? I thought you were inviting us into the back room to help you out and keep your feet to the fire. That’s not going to work out too well if whenever we show up you toss drop cloths over your drafting table, close the curtains and sit in an armchair nonchalantly smoking a cigarette.

It’s like what Modron says when newbies complain about this or that and don’t include any screen shots or a blend file. How can we give you the benefit of our experience or advice if we don’t have complete information?

Look, in addition to being graphic artists and 3D techies, some of the people who post here are also writers. I am myself one of that ilk. So let me give you a bit of advice from the writing world: You are the worst person in the world to critically review your own writing. Sorry if it sounds a bit harsh, but that is a truism, and applies to everyone who writes. There is a reason publishers employ editors to work with authors.

I’m sure you have a wonderful script, and you can’t see any way to remove even a single word without destroying the concept of the piece. I am also sure that within that script, there is a much more wonderful script, about 1/4 the length, struggling to get out. You don’t see it? Yes. I know.

Now, some more truth: No one here is going to steal your idea and make a similar video in competition with you. And if you are hesitant to reveal your storyboards or animatic or script because you really don’t have those things yet, well, you won’t be the first person who has jumped the gun. The essence of animation is story, so that needs to be hashed out first.

You haven’t subjected your story to the writer’s process. How do I know this? Because this

The basic plot of the piece I am making is a satire basically emphasizing and exaggerating how amimatronic humans have become. To prove that, I use robots, so that I can portray how stiff and routined we are these days. To further my thought, I portray daily activities and plan to make fun of a few of them. The base I intend is that Thomas is a special character. He actually has a heart (you can’t see it in the concept art but I plan to draw him soon). In turn, that causes the entire city to despise him, or at least, avoid him. The short will be a combination of scenes that show his experience through his life; the animation starts from his life and ends at his death.

is the current state of your log line.

So: show us what you have currently, and let us work with you to improve it.

I’ve been thinking about what you’d said Orinoco, and actually went over my short. Turns out, it was shorter than I’d thought at first. So, basically, here’s the story:

It starts with a scene of a hospital. Inside, there is the Doctor who is assembling baby robots coming out of a furnace. He screws the bottom on the babies off and place the top half on another conveyer belt and that takes it through a hole somewhere else. Enter. Thomas, baby version. The camera follows him. The Doctor does his job and places him on the belt. The belt takes him to the mechanic. The mechanic, who was previously placing babies in certain other belts labeled ‘Architect’/‘Doctor’/‘Mechanic’/etc., now sees Thomas. He stares at him for a while, before the scene cuts to something falling into a silhouetted trash, something being Thomas. Title. Scene cuts to school. Thomas is a teenager now, in a classroom. Teacher walks by with a bucket of something, walking past each student, she stops. Each students’ head opens, like a trash where the lid curves open, and the Teacher fills the head with the material in the bucket and a scoop. She walks up to Thomas but the lid doesn’t open. Cut to principal office. Scene starts with picture of degree. Then, the camera cuts to Thomas on the outside bench of the principals office with silhouettes of the Mother, Father and Principal. They’re fighting. Cut to their home. Father and Mother are fighting. Thomas is in his room. Morning comes. Robots following lines on the street going the same direction. Recess scene. Thomas alone. A soccer ball approaches. He looks at the robots the ball belongs to. He kicks it but trips and falls. One of the robots start pointing and laughing. The others look at each other and do the same later. Walks up to bench. Opens door in chest and pokes heart. Shuts down for a second and turns back on. Back home studying. Cant study. Goes to library. Chooses a book. Everyone looks at him at the exact same time and he falls back. Goes to park. Passes an antique tree. Walks up to the SolarTree. Picks broken solar panels up and fixes the tree. The same kids with the soccer ball incident show up. They kick the ball to him he falls. They keep kicking it. Cuts to a blunt hit to the side of face. Right eye dims and turns off. Falls to ground. Opens heart door. Pulls it out. Cuts to rainy scene. Funeral home. Coffin going down with ropes. It says Thomas. Everyone is crying. Tone is dark. One of the ropes break. Coffin drops. Scene cuts to black. A tiny glow in the center of the camera. It takes the shape of Thomas’s heart. Camera pulls out. Thomas’s eyes glow. The coffin door opens and there is Thomas sitting upright. Everyone stops sobbing. Stares in silence. Everyone starts walking away. Raining stops. After a while, the kids that started the soccer thing comes back into view through the left, throws a rock at Thomas, and leaves. End.

I will, form now on, try to be as accepting as I can about advices. If any of you think the scene is unnecessary, I can cut it out. I just want my satirical point across, and thought it would be great if I could incorporate as much as I could. But, I have to cut back.