Two Characters, One Door

At the beginning of semester 2, we were given an assignment that won't be assessed (at least I don't think so), but which would get us thinking and ready to dive into exploring practice in animation: make a rough storyboard for a 15-second sequence, and the only requirement for the story was that it had to involve two characters with a door between them.

I came up with this semi-autobiographical scenario of an uptight university student who's absolutely going to pieces over the fact that he might be late and his laid-back lecturer who couldn't be more chilled out about student attendance. Here's the initial doodle of them and the door between them...

...and some more refined character designs.

After that, I defined the space they would inhabit in the film a little more clearly...

...and created some very rough story sketches, timed out to the first 15 seconds of Kevin McLeod's Stormfront in order to help me fit the actions into the time frame better. By this stage I'd added the additional conflict of the student having to juggle his briefcase, coffee cup and various papers before he can open the door (again, semi-autobiographical)... only to realise that the door is locked, ending the sequence on a darkly humorous cliffhanger.

Sadly, this was as far as I got with the slightly less rough storyboard before I got sidetracked by assignments I'm actually being assessed on and therefore have to prioritize - although I suppose that's not really getting sidetracked. I did have fun with this assignment, though, and I'd love to revisit it someday...