SWEET TOOTH 3D environment

Sweet Tooth takes place in a nice, modern, but still rustic cafe. To use for reference, our 2nd year crew member Flo Green made this really nice and really helpful 3D model in Maya, by using my overlook sheet and some pins from my Pinterest board for Sweet Tooth.
By using the view finder and take screen shots, we can get the angles and perspective we want for different shots, so sooo helpful.

I've been working this way on some other projects I've storyboarded. Making a lot simpler 3D model in Maya (I'm not an expert in Maya, but I know basic stuff, and especially if it's only for my own reference use), makes it so much easier, and it is really helpful to find new angles by playing around with the camera. I then take a screen shot and just trace the picture, or the details I need, in Photoshop. It's not only helpful with angles and perspective, but also to realise the space you're working with. When I started to try some storyboarding for Sweet Tooth, many of the scene where lacking the feel of space, and the cafe often got the feel of a football field than a cosy cafe.

SWEET TOOTH The Story

After lots of brainstorming, discussions with tutors, guest lecturers and other students, a plan had finally started to slowly develop.

A quick summary:
Peaceful french cafe, were people are munching away. Suddenly, a cake had enough of this and screams, waking up his fellow cakes. Attack. One by one, the people in the cafe get eaten by the delicious cakes. The end.

Sweet Tooth has been an idea of mine since pre-production in my second year. In one of our assignments, we were given four cards with setting, character, type for film/show and art style, and had to come up with a concept and make a pitch bible. I was given horror film, patisserie, health inspector and a local artist of my choice. Luckily, these cards strangely fit together and a story of two rival bakeries and some infected flour was created. For the pitch bible project, this film was about 5 minutes long, but for my 3rd year film I wanted to make something that was only 2 - 2,5 minutes.

The idea of Sweet Tooth escalated quickly with trying to explain why do these cakes come alive? For me personally, I understood why the question of living cakes was brought up, but I thought, and still think, that in a short film the magic of animation can bring them to life, and it doesn't need an explanation of infected flour or aliens. Sweet Tooth is a simple idea, and it has been since the project got through, a struggle to keep it simple.

Cakes come alive, they eat everyone in the cafe, the end.

My purpose with this film is not to make a brilliant story that will touch people or an ironic look at society (if anything, it's probably leading more into that direction), it is suppose to be a fun 2,5 minute with good artwork and good animation, that will leave the viewer with thinking "Not really sure what I just watched, but it was really well made".

I'm not a script writer, I don't want to be a script writer. What I want to do is make an awesome film, that looks awesome. I chose to make a film with a fight scene, because I want to become an storyboard artist, and a fight scene is something I haven't storyboarded yet (and I find it really really complicated), but I like the challenge. I also want this film to focus on the art work; colour and lighting. I want this film to challenge and improve me and my crews skill set as animators.
And the most important point, I would rather complete making a 2 minutes film with impressive animation and artwork that might not have a story, than a half done 4 - 5 minutes short film with poorly animation and art, because it only focused on the story. Lets face it, I got one year, not even a whole year, and I want to graduate with something I can be proud of.