Reflection

For this project I really struggled to come up with a solid idea, it took me a good couple of days for my idea to form. I guess I was thinking more inside the box in terms with this monkey idea, I wasn’t thinking abstract, and I think that’s the best way to go with a piece like this. I then suddenly remembered “Donkey Kong Country” on the old SNES system, and thought about creating a platform game with me dressed up as a monkey, and making my short a live action piece, with a mix of emoticons and sprites from old and iconic games from the 90’s. This idea then changed when I realized how hard it would have been to film in the style of a platform game, as I don’t have access to a dolly of any kind, and by doing it free hand it would have looked too shaky, and would have been too hard to animate in post production. So with that idea being scrapped I then collected a large amount of sprites from the internet, finding some good monkey sprites which wasn’t difficult, as a managed to find some from the “Yoshi’s Island” video games on the SNES. From then on it was creating the scene in After Effects, and using Photoshop to manipulate certain sprites and elements, such as the clouds, gravestones, and the bananas. I would then create the typical platform game look, by having the background scroll to the left, whilst having my little monkey image float up and down, dodging certain obstacles while trying to attain bananas and get through the level in one piece. One of the hardest things about this piece was key framing, every split second the monkey was key framed, as it had to look like someone was actually controlling this character, being part of the video game genre. If I could start this project all over again, and have had a bit more time to complete it, I would have had made sure that my sprites and emoticons were all designed by me, and were not from previous video games. All in all I was very happy with what I created in the time frame we had, and learnt a lot from such a simple idea, which eventually turned into a big process.

Do All Monkeys Go To Heaven?

AND NOW..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPwhAMFUz_8

FINAL LAP!

Here is an obstacle I have designed for the monkey to try and dodge. This obstacle will be the final obstacle in my feature.

SUPER MONKEY POWER!

Like in Super Mario Bro's, when Mario gets a Mushroom he normally changes form and gains power. In my feature when the Monkey gets a multicoloured Banana he will duplicate in size and will be invincible for a short period of time.

Here is an example.

Introduction shot

Here is another screen shot for my feature, this one is a final shot from my piece.
I still have a lot to do, but it's very interesting trying to re-create the look I am going for.

Reset reality

Here is a sample of how things will look.

A sign of things to come.

A New Vision!

A new idea has surfaced!

Since ordering a costume and running around like a Monkey would be quite time consuming, and may not turn out how I had originally planned, I had another wacky idea.
Basically the idea was to do an all animated feature in the same style of a 2d platform game. By using different sprites of 16-bit games and doing the odd bit of Photoshop I would be able to create an environment and characteristics of a "Super Mario"/ "Sonic The Hedgehog" type of game.
This level that I would create would sort of represent Heaven and the “white light” feeling of going to Heaven. The Monkey would be dodging grave stones, caskets, and puffy white clouds in order for him to complete the level. Bananas would also be featured as an item the Monkey can collect for health, similar to the “Donkey Kong County” games.


*I have recently remembered an internet game at school I used to play - http://www.flythecopter.co.uk/. This is another kind of style I would like to mimic.

Pixies- Monkey Gone To Heaven (Official Video)

Formulating Ideas

Our next project is to create a sample clip from a music video.

The Music track you can use is either a Dub Step type of track, or The Pixies track “Monkey Gone To Heaven”.

My idea is based around the old 2D “Donkey Kong Country” platform games. My idea is to film and composite a 30 second side scrolling adventure, incorporating themes and characteristics a monkey would do. If in the Sonic platform games Sonic loses all of his rings he dies, and the whole point of the game is to get your way through the level collecting as many rings as possible, and avoid the many different obstacles that lie ahead.  I want to incorporate that format of play for my video, like incorporate Banana’s instead of Rings, and really pay homage to Donkey Kong.

I’ve Even found a Monkey suit on Ebay which is pretty darn cheap

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Adult-Monkey-Costume-Hood-Fancy-Dress-/180515538894?pt=Adult_Fancy_Dress_UK&hash=item2a079087ce