The Man Who Lives in the Zoo - Penguins again!

My main project this semester has been "The Man Who Lives in the Zoo".
We have been working with Edinburgh Zoo creating a short film centered around head zookeeper Darren - 'The Man Who Lives in the Zoo'. We were not given many rules for our film other than it had to feature Darren as a character and not be disrespectful to the animals (such as have them wearing clothes - which is an alright request with me, as I like animals to be animals anyway!). I thought child-friendly was also probably a good idea. Personally I was keen on having an overall conservation message in the film, which could highlight one of the good points about modern zoos - educating and inspiring people about wildlife and conservation issues.

First off, thinking up an initial idea for the film proved quite challenging! There was a huge amount of possibilities at the zoo with all the narratives behind the animals and humans who spend their days there. I went to the zoo numerous times to sketch the animals and gain inspiration. Darren too spoke with us and provided inspiration for the story.
I eventually decided to narrow down my ideas and focus on the penguins. The penguins have a long and interesting history at Edinburgh Zoo; Gentoo and King penguins were taken from South Georgia by whalers and were the first penguins to be housed in the Northern Hemisphere. There is also the famous Penguin Parade, which was created by accident when the penguins escaped one time, and then there's Sir Nils Olav the Norwegian knighted penguin.

Here's a 2 minute clip from the BBC about the Edinburgh penguins:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01c9xc5

 Research sketches of the penguins:

The history of the penguins still proved a wide scope so I chopped and changed my story idea for quite a while. I eventually decided to focus on the Edinburgh penguin's beginnings 100 years ago in South Georgia, Antarctica. I came up with the idea of sending Darren back in time and onto the whaling ship that transported the first penguins from Antarctica to Edinburgh. One of the main inspirations for this was actually the design of Penguin Rock at the zoo - the round windows of the enclosure reminded me of round porthole windows on a ship.

Whalers and penguins:

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/index.php?a=indexes&s=gallery&key=IYToxOntpOjA7czo3OiJQZW5ndWluIjt9&pp=10&viewName=gallerylistpage

The final story idea starts off with Darren locking up the zoo for the night and engrossed in a book about penguins. Suddenly he finds himself back in time and on the whaling ship that transported the original penguins to Edinburgh. Upon seeing the whalers inability to look after the penguins (however good intentioned they may be), he takes it upon himself to show them how to look after the animals properly (as any good zookeeper should!). 

This story went through many different phases! Below are some pages from my development sketchbook that show the development work.  In the end (as can be seen in the last page) I was happiest with the idea of Darren teaching the whalers how to look after the penguins, shown in a sort of quickly-cut 'teaching' montage. Darren gave a talk to us early on in the project where I gained some insight into looking after penguins; such as penguins have to be kept cold all the time and their feet need to be kept in ice when on the vet's operating table.
I'm hoping that the film will convey the themes of the relationship between people and animals; in particular the understanding and bond a zookeeper should have with the animals and the passing on of this knowledge to other people (which is perhaps what zoos should be all about).

The Animatic:



After meeting with Kathy from the zoo, she pointed out that the transition from Darren's disapproving of the whalers' actions to his decision to teach them is quite unclear. So I have made some more changes to the storyboard/animatic. You can see that the animatic is a mix of digitally drawn and post-it-note storyboards - again I did quite a lot of scene chopping and changing! Overall, I think the film could still be more tight in the telling of the story:
- The transition scene mentioned could use checking over a bit more, to make sure it's clear to the audience before animating
- Also the transition from the whaling ship back to Edinburgh (the end of Darren's daydream) could be shortened. Although I like the shots of the penguin on the deck, I feel it may be unnecessary. All I really need from this scene is an image of Antarctica and snow falling from the sky which will indicate the change of location.
- The ending could be more reflective and definite too. I originally had Darren thinking of the wilds of Antarctica fondly, of the penguin's natural habitat, and possibly include a conservation message at the end...
I would now like to start animating very soon, so I don't think I will make another animatic but instead I will use this one as a base and continue working out any improvements in my sketchbook.

I've also started to design the look of the film. I revisited my sketches and photos of penguins, and the photos of Darren we were sent, to help with designing the characters. My plan is to try and draw all the frames on paper with pencil, using the lightbox, and then digitally add the backgrounds and colour (the bottom image is how the finished animation could possibly look).

Next - time to start animating! Although there are a few areas of the storyboard I'd like to develop, most of the scenes are ready to animate. I plan on starting animation before the holidays and then possibly get the backgrounds ready during the break. When I return I will need to finish animating, colour, and then put it all together ready for the zoo in February!