Plot for animated series revealed

[neeters_guy]

I'm not gonna argue, thank you for the advice, I will make another plot later. If anyone has advice I will gladly take it.

That's the right attitude. This community is helpful, even encouraging, but it's not a safe space. Opinions are bluntly given because, well, it's the internet and not facebook. Developing a thick skin is a quality that will hold you in good stead.

Some really useful advice here. Looking forward to see what you do with it.

[Ianafle]

Thank you for the advice, and I love your YouTube channel neetersguy

[Ianafle]

While I am working on this project I am after all still just a teenage boy who still has to go to school and do chores so my animation may not be the smoothest and my characters might not be what you expected but I'm still learning, besides it's the thought that counts, right?

Hopefully I can release this project by Summer of 2020, but we'll see for now.

[hayasidist]

… still just a teenage boy who still has to go to school and do chores

Ask yourself "why am I doing this". What do you hope to get out of the work you're going to put in. You don't need to explain yourself here or, indeed, to anyone except yourself. But if you don't know why you want to commit to such a task the chances are it will fall by the wayside when the pressures of your daily life squeeze you into making choices about what to do with your otherwise "free" time.

… Hopefully I can release this project by Summer of 2020, but we'll see for now.

That's a realistic schedule! Decide if that's for a pilot episode or the whole lot. A pilot will attract feedback (positive and negative) that you should heed; if you go for the whole lot, and the first released episode bombs, you'll probably have no real audience for the rest. But do write the treatments for the whole lot before you start getting into details for the pilot or series ...

These days, I try to keep my own projects under-wraps as much as possible until I'm ready to release it..

Sound advice there … no point in saying too much in an attempt to "copyright" an idea (hero morphed into monster by experiment that went wrong) that has been done in so many ways before - just look at the list in this https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... abAccident Find something new and stay quiet about it (outside a few trusted confidants) until you have something unique and copyright-able to share -- that might be treatment, artwork...

[Ianafle]

Ok

[Greenlaw]

While I am working on this project I am after all still just a teenage boy who still has to go to school and do chores so my animation may not be the smoothest and my characters might not be what you expected but I'm still learning, besides it's the thought that counts, right?

What counts is getting it done. Try not to worry too much about making the animation 'amazing' and pleasing others, especially when you're starting out. Just do what you reasonably can in the limited time you have. It's a learning process. Along the way, you will make mistakes and hopefully learn things that will make your next project better. And after that, you'll know more new stuff and make the next project even better. And so on.

My former boss at Rhythm & Hues used to tell me "Perfection is good but done is better." I try to remember that and prioritize only what's essential to complete the project. If there's any time left over after that, then I can work on making it look better. With the 'B2' project I mentioned earlier, I totally failed to take that advice which is why it's still not done. But I've been much better about this with my other projects...someday, I'll apply what I've learned from the animation projects I've completed since 'B2' and figure out how to finish that one.

An important key to getting an animation project done is to plan all your scenes before you animate anything. At a minimum, this means creating a storyboard. The next step is to make an animatic, which is the storyboard edited on a timeline and cut to an audio track. For an animatic, temporary audio is fine. This serves as the blueprint for your project, so work out all your scenes and timing here. Once you have the animatic ready, you'll be amazed by how much easier it becomes to finish the project.

If you're not sure how this process works, I have some comparative examples on my website. The links on the left are storyboards, and the ones on the right are the final versions of the shorts.:

HLF Storyboard | HLF Designs | HLF FInal Animation

Hello Frankenstein Storyboard | Hello Frankenstein Final Short Film

If you're uncertain about how your project is developing, posting the storyboard or animatic for discussion might be helpful. If you're not sure about how you want the art to look, put up some designs for feedback. Just be prepared to accept negative as well as positive responses, and try not to take any of it personally. Some comments will be less than constructive, and you can ignore that stuff. Some comments may open your eyes to possibilities you never considered. In the end, you only need to please yourself and the FINAL decisions will always be yours to make.

Good luck!

[Ianafle]

Thank you for the advice, I will keep this in mind. And I saw your B2 project and it looked good.

[hayasidist]

... and just to add to Greenlaw's good advice - the treatment (synopsis) is a bit of a one-time thing to get your ideas straight and is the starting point for the script and visualisation; then my way of working is to evolve the script in parallel / iteratively with the storyboard. Once the words and pictures have a good feel of balance and complementarity then I move on to the animatic...

good luck with this.

[Ianafle]

Thank you for the advice.

[Ianafle]

Hello everyone I've been pretty busy lately designing the characters and making their rotations and developing the series and I want to thank you all for the advice and the information that I have gotten from you guys I know I have been sensitive to your comments but thank you.

[Ianafle]

Sorry for my bad punctuation, it's summer vacation and I'm lazy.

[Ianafle]

Hello everyone, it's been a while since I've posted anything about the show, so in this post I'm gonna reveal something new about my series and make another plot, I hope you guys like.

The Name of the series is: Freaky Phil.

This Coming of age Comedy and drama series tells a tale of Phil Jones, an average ordinary teen who's life turns upside down when his Father( who happens to be a scientist) creates a Machine that turns him into a Freaky monster, now he must deal with his new appearance while dealing with life's issues.

[Ianafle]

Let me know if I did a better job with my second summary/plot thing or if I need to make another one.

[synthsin75]

Better, but still kinda lifeless and vague. What kind of monster? What kind of problems does that cause? Is it a metaphor for a kid dealing with puberty, social life, or parent's divorce? There's just still no hook. Something to hook the imagination of the audience, whether visual or emotional.

[hayasidist]

You'll probably need a different title - there's already a Freaky Phil character http://chibirobo.wikia.com/wiki/Freaky_Phil and it's also a name used by a dancer - but that may be of less relevance should it come to a copyright / intellectual property issue. However, if you have any success, expect a challenge to your use of the name. Best approach to naming is to do a few google searches to check that your chosen title isn't in use before committing.

Take another look at my earlier post on creating a treatment. As Wes points out, you've not really hit any of the points with enough to capture the imagination of your target audience or, from what you've presented, even to stimulate and direct your own creativity when it comes to ideas for the individual episodes.

For example -- does the "monster" appear and disappear (e.g, night-time / full moon / hot days / when he's near a certain person ...???) Is there a clear visual difference or is it just behavioural? What sort of behaviours? (e.g. Aggression / depression / passion / stupidity …) How is that going to be funny? (Phil's action? The others' reactions? )

As I said before, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the basic idea - it just needs enough elaboration to show that it's a unique and compelling (visually and storyline) variation on a well worn theme.