The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, Moonbot Studios
Expanded Interview with Brandon Oldenburg and Adam Volker (PDF Download)
Countin' on Sheep
Countin’ on Sheep: Case Study
The film included here augments the written case study in Chapter 10 of our text. This is an in-progress reel (or Leica Reel) of Aubry Mintz’s film Countin’ On Sheep. This reel will show you all of the steps of animation production, including storyboards, rough animation, clean animation and final color. The reel is continuously updated and scenes are replaced as they progress down the production line. As you will see, the characters and backgrounds evolve at each step. For example, in some of the earlier storyboards, the main character, “Zee,” is wearing pajamas, while in the final versions he is in a nightshirt and has different hair. Scenes are animated out of order so the reel will be a mixed bag of black and white drawings and colored scenes. If you are working on a short animated film, hopefully this can help you understand how your Leica reel will develop. Enjoy!
Credits:
Writer/Director/Producer
Aubry Mintz
Co-Producer/Production Manager
Dori Littell-Herrick
Art Director
Doug Post
Story
Aubry Mintz, Lennie Graves
Score
Charley Sandage (songwriter)
and Harmony: Dave Smith, Mary Gillihan, Robert Gillihan
Joe Jewell (sound engineer/producer)
Editor
Aubry Mintz
Production Design
Visual Development Artists
Robin Richesson, Jarvis Taylor, Kristen Houser, Melissa Devine ,Ryan Richards, Jennie Cotterill, Erik Caines, Cuyler Smith, Doug Post, Alina Chau, Cassandra Siemon , Ivaylo Anguelov
Layout
Lennie Graves, George Fleming, Alex Rico, Steve Eat, Chris Wagner, Kevin White
Background Painting
Jarvis Taylor, Kristen Houser
Character Design
Lennie Graves, Aubry Mintz, Dori Littell-Herrick, George Fleming, Doug Post
Prop Design
Lennie Graves, Erik Caines, Cuyler Smith, Kevin White
Animation
Aubry Mintz, George Fleming
Supervising Key Assistant Animator
Dori Littell-Herrick
Key Assistant Animation
George Fleming
Assistant Animation
Jesse McClurg, Mona Kozlowski, Sarah Keokanac, Dave Coyne, Karen Amit, Alicia Young, Aaron Rademaker, Whitney Brown, Ilene Kim, Kristen Allen, Vincent Lee, Rachel Greenberg, Mike Morris, Aileen Ung and Angela Walker
Titles
Lennie Graves, Dallas Worthy , Paul Yula
Effects
Paul Yula, Frank Lima
Ink and Paint
Dallas Worthy, Jacob Hanover, Cindy Cheng, George Fleming, Karen Aquino, Jamie Ludovise, Jennifer But, Jesse McClurg, Ben Lin, Robbie Eich, Stephanie Tsui, Antonio Bozanic, Preston Do, Chelsea Bryan, Lynsay White, Preston Do, Monica Hernandez, Ana Hernandez, Aubry Mintz, Lynn Barzola, Raul Oregel, Aaron Rademaker, Karen Amit, Kathleen Derby, Alicia Young
CG Development
Rigger
Eric Pierce
Environment
Asako Miyamori
Models
Joshua Mayle, Roja Huchez, Daniel Lindsay
Lawyer
Paul Husband
Stop Motion Maquettes
Dallas Worthy
Special Thanks
Chris Roman, Eric Goldberg, Susan Goldberg, Lennie Graves, Ric Heintzman, Sue Kroyer, Bruce Kuei, Sarah LaPenna, Arno Kroner, Karen Sullivan, Ellen Besen, Paul Husband, Dallas Mintz, Ron and Ricki Mintz, Tevye and Kohel Mintz
A Good Deed Indeed
Ahoy a-Head (Preproduction notes PDF)
Script
Characters:
The crab couple: Herschel and Evelyn
Pirate Captain
Theme:
A good deed is still a good deed, even the best of intentions lead to the worst results.
“Our intentions may be very good. But because the intelligence is limited, the action may turn out to be a mistake – a mistake, but not necessarily a sin, for a sin comes out of wrong intention.” Dr. E. Stanley Jones, Methodist missionary.
Premise:
A pirate has been buried up to his neck in the sand by his mutinous crew and left to die. Wrongly believing that the pirate is a squid, two crabs try to help him.
FADE IN.
EXT. EARLY MORNING ON THE BEACH OF A DESERTED ISLAND
The beach is littered with empty rum bottles, broken sword blades, scattered gold doubloons, and a few shovels. Buried up to his neck in the sand is a bearded pirate captain, left to die by his mutinous crew.
The pirate’s beard is braided or in dreadlocks giving it the appearance of several separate tentacles:
PIRATE
Aye! So this is how it ends! Argh!(Pirate groans and passes out face first into the sand.)
The wind begins to blow covering him lightly with sand, camouflaging his humanness. The crabs spot him and scurry into the scene to see if he is okay:
EVELYN
(Climbing onto his head)The poor thing!
HERSCHEL
(Picking up a braid/tentacle)Is it alive?
EVELYN
(Checking his condition)Yes! But he’s drying out!
Worried, Evelyn scampers down the back of the head and returns with a partially filled bottle of rum, which she pours on the pirate’s head:
PIRATE
(Momentarily regaining consciousness)Arrrgh! Not the rum…!
EVELYN
(Panicking)He’s not going to last long. We’ve got to get him back to the water.
HERSCHEL
(Snapping into action, he grabs a “tentacle”)Pull!
PIRATE
Groan!
Evelyn scampers down off the head to help! She looks for something to grab onto. She grabs a nose ring and pulls. She pulls it completely out of the nose and tumbles backwards. She looks at the ring, then at the pirate and declares:
EVELYN
We have to hurry! He’s falling apart!
HERSCHEL
Pull!!!!!!
EVELYN
(Looking at the nose ring)I’ll push!
Evelyn disappears behind the pirate head.
Evelyn has been trying to push from behind. She scampers back on top of the pirate’s head:
EVELYN
It’s not working. What do we do?
Herschel begins to pull with all his might. As he does so the traction from his feet begins to dig a trench in the sand:
EVELYN
(pointing)Gasp! Herschel!
Herschel stops, wondering what Evelyn has seen. He looks at the trench, then at the sea, then back at Evelyn:
HERSCHEL
Oh yeah! I gotcha!
The crabs scurry down, disappearing behind the head of the pirate:
PIRATE
Good riddance, you scurvy little sand rats…
They reappear digging a trench around him. The pirate now also sees the trench:
PIRATE
Aye! They’s digging me out! Holy Jehoshaphat! Keep going! Yeah! Yeah!
The crabs dig around him, but then head out toward the sea.
PIRATE
Hey, where are you going? Keep digging’ me out.
Suddenly the pirate’s eyes widen and he screams:
PIRATE
AYYYYYYYY!
PIRATE’S POV
Water is rushing up the trench.
It wipes the screen.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. ON TOP OF THE PIRATE’S HEAD[em]SUNSET
The top of the pirate’s head is just breaking out of a pool of water. On top of the head sit the two crabs:
HERSCHEL
How is he doing?
Bubbles break the surface of the water. Pop. Pop...pop…pop…pop.
EVELYN
(Patting the top of the pirate’s head)Good. He’s going to be just fine now.
HERSCHEL
Oh! He looks much happier under water.
EVELYN
He sure does.
HERSCHEL
Digging that trench was such a good idea. You’re a genius.
EVELYN
We did a good thing!
FADE OUT.
Text comes up on the screen:Aye! So this is how it ends!
ROLL CREDITS
Click here to download the Shot Analysis