= Blow Into The Wind =

Synopsis
An environmentalist living in a typical Pacific Northwest town challenges the people of her community to actively stand together for what they know to be better for their environment, their community and the world at large.

Dawn, known in the community as Q (for Quixote), battles a system that encourages monster corporations, pollution, exploitation, corruption, and media in order to realize her dream of communal wind farming.

The story, a work in progress - offline for now.


Target Audiences
While making this piece for people of all ages I don't intend for this to be a stereotypical "family-rated cartoon" meant primarily for children. The story and dialogue will be mature, natural, and intelligent yet without objectionable content, not to mention carrying a moral fable that will appeal to cultural enthusiasts, environmentalists, and nature lovers.


Visual Style
This project will be animated in 3D, however I intend to flatten the colours out and still retain depth by colour treatment and exaggerated bold outlines. This toon-render will make it look more like cel animation drawings than 3D renders.

The human characters will be a girthy appealing design with influences of bold modern urban graffiti art. Technological props such as the vehicles, automobiles, and kitchen appliances will have the bold rounded design of the 1940's and 1950's. Homes will be Victorian and industrial buildings of Bauhaus design.

The background style will be similar to some classic Canadian Group of Seven work, also influenced by modern artist Mark Feddes whose North American landscape paintings are featured at the Art Gallery of Calgary ("Paintings From Planet Earth - Places I've Sat And Painted" September 11 - December 4, 2004). Most of these backgrounds will be designed as flat planar elements rather than expansive dimensional sets in order to be able to place (and even separately move) these planes in 3D space for depth as well as efficient mix and match recycling of elements. Examples of background styles.

This animated short is ideal material for majestic high-resolution theatrical film or HDTV.


Animation Style
The character animation movement will likely be the popular pose to pose style (common in commercials and Pixar movies) but with a little less extreme or robotic movement and a little more natural flow.

The forest spirit creature animation will strongly resemble the traditional dances of the First Nations of the Northwest Pacific coast. There may be occasion for the animation to mimic the animal the spirit is derived from.

I intend to define a consistent visual language that includes the movements and lenses of the camera when the storyboard is developed.

I will add more images and concepts to this web page as they develop.


Audio
I have several friends in the music industry that would most likely be eager to score and/or folly this project.
    • Justin Winokur, San Francisco
        - recording artist, JustinWinokur.com
        - audio technician for Apple Computers
    • Wolfgang Webb, Toronto
        - commercial sound, Soundcore
        - rock band, Superhalo
    • Sean Abreu, San Francisco
        - musician scored Drama In The Desert
    • Bassnectar, San Francisco
        - DJ and musician Bassnectar


Inspiration & Funding
The mass media has their 'popular' perspectives. This piece aims to have different agendas, perhaps not on mainstream media but definitely on the world population's minds. I would be happy to write essays or elaborate if necessary, but I believe Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Howard Zinn, Helen Caldicott, and others like them speak far better and more knowledgably than an animation activist.

I have started to compile many lists of links to related sites for funding, support, assistance, or inspiration and there are doubtless ample others.
    • Resources
    • Wage Peace

In addition to traditional distribution opportunities (film festivals, etc.), potential marketing enhancing prospects may arise to showcase this production within other media, commentary, journalist, or activist programs and documentaries.

Initial Production Estimate
- more soon -


Production Planning
Production is never done until delivery date and until then there are perpetual improvements to make it the best it can be. Despite inevitable unforeseen challenges, planning for progressive layered building of improvements achieves consistency of the entire project, rather than stronger or weaker segments due to unbalanced focus. Essentially, the planned goal is to get to a state of completion where you simply continue to add layers of depth and detail. So, after much planning, complete it as quickly as possible, and then smooth out and layer it up thick. It doesn't always work that way, but one can try.

1. Secure Funding
    • distribution ideas
        - networks
        - theatrical
        - film festivals (theatrical and/or online)
        - video sales/rental
        - marketing
        - mass production (video and/or book)
    • funding ideas
        - grants
        - loans
        - fundraising

2. Solidify Concept
    • research + consult
        - wind farmers
        - environmentalists
        - activists
        - First Nations
        - Mark Feddes
    • storyboard
    • record soundtrack
    • boardomatic
    • design

3. Hire CG Team
    • director / animator - Jason Carswell
    • modeller / background designer
    • technical director / rigger
    • renderer / compositor

4. Construction
    • model + rig characters
    • model sets + props
    • finesse soundtrack + sound design
    • animatic

5. Action
    • animation
    • finesse editing

6. Final Completion
    • light
    • render
    • composite