[Xizor]

Hi everyone !

As the title says, I'm looking for some concept arts to help define the look of an animated short I'm going to direct.

But first maybe I should quickly introduce myself. I'm a filmmaking student at the university of art and design in Lausanne, Switzerland. For this project I'm currently working on, I have to work with a professional actress to help define a story/script and then actually make the movie.

As I mentioned above, I took the decision to make an animation (3D), since it is the only way within my reach of doing something in an imaginary world. (Which is something that drives my creativity, but I suspect it's the same for most of you guys here. )

Ok, so I've defined what's gonna be the laying ground of the story, but I still have to write a script. (Actually I already wrote a first version, but that was only to start working with the actress - it wasn't very good, although it layed out the main aspects of the idea.)

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The story is about a woman who's had a near fatal accident and now finds herself without a functionning body. The only thing that remains fully functional - and conscious - is her brain. Since she no longer has a body to live in and interact with other people, she has created an imaginary world of her own and lives in it. She has forgotten that her life is a fantasy but something happens in her brain that brings her back to her terrible reality. That's the main plot of the movie.

Her fantasy world revolves around 4 personas, all archetypal aspects of her real self :

- The Adult : Physically, this one is the closest manifestation of the Woman's real self, although there might be some differences (could be hair color/style for example). She incarnates willful ignorance.

- The Child : The smallest of all the personas. Most likely a female, but not necessarily. Joyful and full of energy, (s)he incarnates carelessness.

- The Spirit : A large, bulky male character, who doesn't necessarily have a physical presence : he could be a spirit/ghost kind of figure. (But a concrete apparence is not to be excluded.) He's a silent persona, and never says anything meaningless. He incarnates wisdom, and the fatherly figure.

- The Matriarch : A tall, slender ageless woman. She is very strict, and always preaches cautiousness. Yet she is very caring for the other persona. She incarnates wisdom and the motherly figure.

It must be noted that the Child, the Spirit and the Matriarch all know about the "reality". The main character is the Adult, through which we witness the unraveling of the fantasy world.

Each character has an environment of his own, which befits his personality. Those can overlap when two of the characters interact (yet a character can show up in another environment without bringing in his own). The Adult's environment is the void.

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Okay, I hope you find it interesting enough to consider helping me. Right now I need some simple concept art (sketches / speedpaintings ) for :

- The 4 characters (individually, or as a group) (within their environment - I'm open to propositions, since I have not yet defined anything about the Child, the Spirit and the Matriarch - , or just the character itself).

- A proposition of what the physical remains of the Woman look like. I imagine a misshapen head to which only a bit of spine and a heart are attached, floating in some sort of transparent container, filled with some formol-type liquid. Cables and tubes are sticking out of those "biological" remains, and are connected to heavy machinery outside the container, in a room filled with computers. But I'm definitely open to any other proposition.

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If I choose to keep something, you'd of course be given full credit in the film once it's done. If you are interested, or have any question, you can contact me directly via email : [email protected], AIM : godfatherxizor, or you can post directly in this thread, of course.

Well, I hope to see something soon !

Good day

[Sumaleth]

Can you mention something about payment? It's the first thing anyone is going to ask so it's good to get it out of the way.
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[Xizor]

Indeed, good question. Well, it's a project for school, so there's no budget to speak of. So, no payment. It's totally voluntary work.

Hope that doesn't turn too many people off.

[Joe84]

hah goodluck on that, why dont you look for people who can draw at your art school.

[Xizor]

Because they are all working on projects of their own, and have very little time.

I want to try to assemble a team from people all over, not restrict myself to people in my area.

Of course, only people who have a lot of free time on their hands can join, but it would be exactly the same if I were to look for persons in my immediate vicinity. Except over the internet, people with a common interest are gathered in the same place - in this case, this forum.

Now you might doubt the seriousness of this offer, which I would completely understand. I will have a revised draft of my script by the beginning of next week, so that might help add credibility to this whole thing. But in the meantime, I can assure you, this is not a hoax or anything.

(If you can think of anything I could give you to add credibility to this, then please tell me so, so I can try to get it posted here.)

[eyewoo]

Having a good script is - of course - important, but where I as an artist would want to have a good sense of credibility is in your ability to sell the product when it is finished... otherwise the whole thing just becomes a training project for your skills as an organizer and producer, and nobody wants to feel used in that way, as fodder for someone else's ambitions... particularly us sensitive arteeests...

So, how are you planning to market this project when it is complete? Do you have contacts? Do you have any sort of track record?
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[Xizor]

Well, the way it works at my school is films are sent to festivals, where they might get attention. Someone in the school handles submission to several festivals, but it might be limited to the Swiss ones, like Nyon, Locarno, Solothurn, Neuch�tel. Nevertheless, I am free to submit my movies to any festival I want, which I of course intend to do. I do not want to see this as just an exercise, but rather as a complete project.

Now, to the matter of prices. If the film gets any, my school takes half of it, then the rest comes to me, which could be split between the person who joined on the project.

In any case, it's still a work that can be put in a portfolio, which is always a good thing. And it's a good exercise for the artist as well, not just a training project for my skills as an organizer and producer.