Here is a production still of The Greedy Caterpillar

I’m working on a linear narrative animation of around 2 minutes for my minor project at RMIT AIM. The working title of the piece is The Greedy Caterpillar. Here is the script:

EXT. VINEYARD MISTY MORNING

Close-up of a grape leaf with a caterpillar egg on it. Titles fade in, the egg gives a little shake and then the top cracks open as the titles fade out. The oversized head of a caterpillar pokes out of the egg, thrashing about trying to get its bearings. The small caterpillar gets out of the egg and exits left.

As the caterpillar is exiting, the camera dollies up passing a bunch of grapes which send out shafts of light in the morning sun. Golden browns, warm colours. The camera stops on another grape leaf, the little caterpillar can be heard in the background. Credits fade in as the sounds of the caterpillar get closer.

CRUNCH, a big bite is taken out of the leaf with the credits on it, revealing the head of the caterpillar. It eats more of the leaf before leaving it half-finished and exiting to the right.

Caterpillar enters from the left and starts to eat another leaf. Cut to long shot of the vineyard with the Dragonfly sitting on a leaf drying its wings. Cut back to the caterpillar leaving the leaf half finished, exit right.

View from under a top-lit leaf. The shadow of the caterpillar can be seen chewing the leaf as it inches along. The caterpillar’s cut across the leaf causes a big chunk to float down towards the camera, creating a fade out as it lands on top of the camera.

Mid shot of the caterpillar, which is now fatter. The caterpillar enters the frame from left and travels along a branch. A grape leaf hanging from the branch above blocks the path but the caterpillar simply opens its mouth wide enough to swallow the whole leaf without slowing down at all. He exits to the right.

Cut to mid shot of the dragonfly. Hints of purples and violets can be seen in its body and the wings. Some drops of water can be seen on the wings.

Cut to close-up of caterpillar holding a leaf like a slice of watermelon and mechanically eating around it before losing interest, throwing the leaf over its shoulder and picking another. Cut to a closer view of the caterpillar’s head munching on the leaf.

A close-up view of the caterpillar’s fat legs moving along wipes the old shot and reveals a new shot of the caterpillar with it mouth wide open and dangling a great bunch of grapes in his gape roman-style. He greedily bites down on the bunch sending much of it flying around. Messy. Cut to extreme close-up of the caterpillar’s teeth biting down on another leaf. Fade out.

Long shot of the vineyard now devastated, broken vines, no leaves, monochrome, cold. Large menacing rain clouds in the sky. Pull back to reveal a mid-shot of the dragonfly. The only colours in the frame are from the purple and violet hints on the dragonfly.

Cut to extreme close-up of the dragonfly’s eye. A big shadow moves over the scene. A reflection of the now giant caterpillar can be seen in the dragonfly’s eye.

Up shot of the fat caterpillar towering over the grape leaf and the dragonfly. The caterpillar is about to pounce on the leaf when the dragonfly flies into the air. Super slow-motion, drops of water fly off the wings of the dragonfly and catch the colours of the light, the camera follows a drop as it falls towards the head of the caterpillar below.

The camera circles around the caterpillar as the drop hits him on the head and flows down to his eyes. The water pools in around the eyes and magnifies the caterpillar’s pupils.

Normal speed. The caterpillar blinks and its expression changes to one of shock. Blinks again. Over the shoulder shot, showing the devastation of the vineyard. Cut to a panning shot of the ruined vineyard.

Close-up of the caterpillar’s shocked face, he starts to scream in horror. He draws back while still screaming and then the screeching stops as he bites down on his own tail and starts to eat himself.

Cut to shot from above of the caterpillar eating itself, coiling tighter and tighter as the camera zooms in.

The image of the caterpillar fades to an orange red disk. The camera slowly pans down to show the sun shinning down on the earth. After a moment a bit of earth shakes and moves out of the way as a young vine shoots out of the ground and spreads out its tiny leaf.

The End

I haven’t been posting much on the blog lately because there has been so much going on at school, it’s has been unbelievable, not really a moment to spare since I started the web portrait assignment.

I am the engine team leader for the collaborative project which has meant working from the start of the project so that we could tell the concept people what can and can not be done and then make prototypes of various elements in the game while the production team created all the assests and we have to carry on right through to the end. I am pretty impressed with my team they have been really great sacrificing their own time for the good the team.

In the midst of all this I had to find time to think about my minor project and the practice pitch which was today. Overall it went well but that could have been because everyone was so tried by the end of the session. The actual pitch will be on the 21st of May hopefully I will have to find some time in the middle of finishing the collaborative exercise to work on getting material together for the pitch.