Bulbio part 3

As part of the D&AD competition with Disney, i was required to enter a 30-60 second animation showing how my character would move, interact and generally come to life.. however.. i am not an animator.. i instead created a rough story board and mocked up my animation using that..

the story goes: My bulb character, wakes up in the bin...after having various pages of rejected ideas thrown towards it...*could be cut to save time*....he realises where he is and promptly escapes.. as he lands on the floor of the room he loses his balance and falls over. regaining his balance he walks out further into the room.. there we gain a sense of scale of the bulb and his surroundings.. but also he spots that one of the lightbulbs is out and the artist (human character) is busy working away.. so the bulb has the idea of replacing the broken bulb thus helping the artist. he makes his way over to the bookcase which he has seen is his only way of gettin to the height of the light fitting. once at the bookcase he again marvels at the scale of what he has to overcome but begins his ascent of the books and obstacles on the shelves....

*this next bit might get cut*... climbing over some books he arrives at a particularly large one and has to launch himself onto it.. which topples it like a domino and throws the character into a box. as he checks himself and regains his composure.. he realises in this box there are 2 spare bulbs, he checks to see if they are alive but it looks as if he is the only bulb alive (with personality)... he continues with his journey climbing to the next shelf where he finds a rubber band and some paper clips (in the background we see the artist stressing as he hangs his head and throws more paper away).. the bulb looks up to gauge the last stretch of his climb..

as he hauls himself up to the top of the bookcase and rolls onto it.. he catches his breathe.. gets up.. and heads over to the odd gathering of bits on the top shelf.. there he fashions a grappling hook. returning to the end of the top shelf which is closest to the light fitting... he places his rope on the floor and launches the paperclip end towards the light fitting. it lodges into a hole in the back of one of the lights and the bulb no weighs up what he's about to do.. looking over the edge and psyching himself up.. he lets fly and swings to underneath the light fitting. as he starts to climb, the paperclip gives a little and he slips down to the bottom of the rope.. as he hangs there.. the artist suddenly gets his bright idea and it scares the bulb into lighting up.. (but we view it as if the bulb is hanging above the artists head)...

he has now become the bulb of inspiration rather than a basic bulb.. he was an idea that refused to go away, crawled his way out of the bin and back to life! :) I like the idea that the bulb has no mouth.. he doenst need to talk after all.. but i kept trying to think of how i could animate him.. and what style i could draw it in..

everyone thought i was being a little adventurous with choosing an animation brief (which is partially true).. but I always thought of drawing out my elements.. say a body for the bulb and various faces or arms that could be moved with each frame.. this would keep some of the animation rather jumpy and somewhat flat/2D but i've seen it done rather well with Bob Shea's work...







the only problem is the sheer amount of time it takes to actually animate :s i've tried it before..