Colour across the ages research

Al and I have decided to emphasise the change over the decades in the advert, Sony Boy himself should change in colour gradually before making the massive leap to three dimensions. So I have researched some adverts to give an idea of what colour Sony Boy is going to take. This first one is the start, the fifties' Oscar Meyer Wiener ad.
This is the 1965 colour version. The colours are a bit saturated at this point.
This is a 1979 Eureka Vacuum Cleaner advert. The colours are brighter but still retain a faded drawn like quality.
This is from a Cadbury's Caramel advert from the late eighties/early nineties. Full blown, vivid colours, ink and paint.
This is from the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. When Sony Boy turns CGI, we thought a cel-shaded look was the way to go. We toyed with the idea of doing full-blown Pixar like effects, but we realised it would be impossible for use to do that. Rather than having a poor Pixar facsimile, we decided to do decent cel shading.

Here are the commercials these pictures are originally from.

Advert Storyboards

These are the actual storyboards, drawn up neat, used to create the animatic you saw in the previous post. I think they come of quite well. However, I know realise that this project is going to be a lot of work. For approximately 30 seconds of animation, I am going to have to draw about 750 drawings. That will take weeks, not to mention working on the showreel for Dan. Then there is inking and colouring in the drawings. Then there is also the Maya animation and the rendering. I hope we get it done in time.

Advert Animatic and Live-Action Reference

Well, I scanned some rough storyboards I did with Al in college and have complied them in a mock advert. I had to be careful of the timing as the advert can only be 30 seconds. It was tough but I think I managed.

I also shot some live-action reference of myself acting through the advert. I compiled this also into a mock advert. This was mostly to help me figure out the timing, but I shall examine it thoroughly to have so reference for the actual animation production. I hope to start that soon.

Enjoy!

List of Sony Products

The list of Sony Products we want to include in our advert.

TR-55 Sony's first transitor radio 1956
Sony Trinitron Television Set 1968
Sony Walkman 1979
Sony Playsation 1994

Sony Boy Model Sheet

A Sony Boy Model Sheet I did for Al, so he can start modelling.

What Mike Said

I wrote a e-mail back to Mike Smith asking him why. He said that he felt the chosen pitches were slightly better and deserved to be green lit.

Sony Boy actual items

http://www.flickr.com/photos/transistor_radios/page7/

Actual Sony Boy items from the 1950's. Found on Flicker.

Nick Results

I know now if I was chosen for the Nickelodeon Contest. Here is Mike's E-mail

As promised I have assessed all the 15 pitches presented on Friday morning. Can I just say how impressed I was by the level of commitment and dedication put into all the pitches. Clearly this competition and project has encouraged some very creative thinking. Likewise the pitching process itself was a fun and helpful way to guide you all towards understanding the importance of your presentational skills.



However, we were only able to choose 10 pitches to be presented to Nickelodeon and although I felt your pitch showed great potential it was not successful at this time.



Thanks,



Mike

Sony Boy Storyboards

Hi, these are the storyboards Al and I are going to pitch tomorrow. I hope the product designs students like them.
Idea 1
In this idea the product becomes a fairy the transports Sony Boy to the three-dimensional future.

Idea 2

This was Al's little idea about showing the transition from 2D to 3D in a twirl.

Idea 3
This idea came from cheese adverts.

Idea 4

This advert was my first idea about Sony Boy finding the product whilst searching through the Sony loft.

Fuyuhiko Okabe: Creator of Sony Boy

http://lambiek.net/artists/o/okabe_fuyuhiko.htm

Fuyuhiko Okabe

Fuyuhiko Okabe was a Japanese cartoonist and comic strip artist, known for introducing black humour to Japanese comics. One of his comic strip characters is 'Baby Gangster'. He is the designer 'Atchan' ('Sony Boy'), the character Sony used in its advertisements from 1956 onwards. (except from website above).

Nickelodeon Pitching to Mike Completed

I have just pitched my Nickelodeon idea to Mike, I think it went well. I made everybody laugh and Mike said he liked the character's and situations. I will have to wait till after Monday to see. Fifteen people pitched which means five will be going away. I do hope that I am not one of those five.

Al and I have got to work on the presentation to the Product design students on Monday. Over the weekend, Al is going to come up with some background designs and models. I am going to draw the storyboards up neat to be presented.

We will meet Monday morning and practice. I hope it all goes well.

Updated Production Schedule

I was just informed yesterday that the day we have to pitch our ideas for the Nickelodeon project to Mike will now be Friday of this week. I freaking out right now. I have updated by production schedule because of this. I don't know how this effects the other dates however. The product design pitch is still on Monday. I worked on the production schedule on the basis that I didn't get the Nickelodeon Project.

Sony Boy Character Designs and Sony Ad Ideas

Here are some rough character designs based on Sony Boy. I got the design from those Sony Boy toy pictures I posted in a previous entry.
Facial Expressions for Sony Boy.

One Idea I had to show Sony had grown up since then was to turn Sony Boy into Sony Man. This was a hard challenge, to aged a character. This initial drawing is to bulky though.

This is more like the end result.
Here are some initial ideas I had for the advert. I will have to go over them with Al. We have to pitch on Monday 21st anyway, so we have to pull this together quickly. This first idea is that Sony Boy has placed a whole lot of old Sony products in a cooking pot and allows to to mature in a cupboard to perfection, revealing the product.


This was just a idea I had to turn the product into kind of a fairy god-mother type character. I don't think this one will go very far.

This one I like but I think it maybe a bit too long. Starting in black and white, Sony Boy is rummaging through the Sony attic, full of old Sony products. Seeing a glowing purple light coming from the device, Sony Boy goes over to look. A swirling purple vortex comes out of the device and sucks him in. Sony Boy swirls in the vortex, passing Sony products old and new and clips from previous Sony adverts. The swirling vortex disappears into the device, leaving the camera to fade the device away.

This one shows Sony offices and the main office of the founder of Sony, Masura Ibuka. Sony Boy jumps out of a picture on the wall to look at a secret envelope which turns out to in case the product. He activates the product and turns into Sony Man.



I will have to pitch these to Al and work on them for Monday. With that and the Nickelodeon pitches to Mike next week, there is just too much pitching.