The Strongest Animator [Rebirth]

Should we just go with the flow and finish the graduation project within three months, or take a chance and finish the graduation project within one month while taking a gamble on this year's Eleanor Best Animated Short Film Award?

Shepherd star did not hesitate too long on these two options.

Not to mention whether he can finish an animated short film of the level of "The Little Prince" within a month, even if he is lucky enough to finish it before the deadline, he may not be able to win this award.In a hurry for an erratic award, to finish an animated short film a month ago?

The shepherd star feels that there is no need for this.

however--

He looked at the result of his ten consecutive draws this time, and fell into deep thought.

[R] Energy Potion X3

Take this potion and it will boost your energy.

Valid time: one hour.

【R】Speed ​​Potion X7

Although I don't know why, it can indeed increase your creative speed.

Valid time: 8 hours

Not to mention SSR, this time there is no SR!

The shepherd star covered his eyes with one hand, resisting the fact that he might be a non-chief, and then calculated the total props of the last card draw: 4 inspiration potions, 7 energy potions, 7 speed potions—— The twists and turns seem to be coming out.

He looked at the bottles and cans in front of him, and as he had been adding points all the time, he had already reached level 7 "creation speed", and said sincerely: "013, if you want me to participate in the selection of this award, you can tell me directly I don't need to be so euphemistic."

The system tries to explain: 【There is no guarantee for the drop of the card pool in the system mall. The drop probability of SSR is 2.5%, the drop probability of SR is 10.5%, and the drop probability of R is 87%. There is no possibility of any black box operation. 】

Believe you are a ghost!

If it is to produce long-form animations like "IS" and "My Hero Academia", these potions that are effective for no more than one day are meaningless at all. No matter how fast he can create by himself, it is a huge and cumbersome production team. In the project, it is also a drop in the bucket. Only in the independent animation short films produced by individuals or small units, these potions can play a certain role.

As if sensing the noncommittal of the Shepherd Star, the system was silent for a while, but no longer concealed it, and took advantage of the situation to release a task openly:

Main task: You have successfully proved your talent in commercial animation to the world, now, it is time to temporarily abandon the market and interests, and show your personalized expression to the world.

Task objective: Independently produce and complete independent animation short films.

Limited time: within one month.

Task Reward: Open a new section-Script Analysis Room for free.

"..." Mu Su Xing Fu forehead: "You really are not polite at all."

only……

Moving his gaze down to the column of mission rewards at the bottom, it has to be said that the shepherd star is indeed shamefully moved.

He has always been very aware of his shortcomings.

For animation directors, screenwriting and narrative ability is not a must, just as an excellent cartoonist does not necessarily have the ability to independently create excellent scripts, for example, in another plane, the popular cartoonist Takeshi Obata, his comics The style is unique, the picture is tough and full of texture, but it is undeniable that this manga master's screenwriting ability is indeed relatively mediocre. Popular works such as "Soul of Chess", "Death Note", and "Dream Eater" are all original works of others. What Takeshi Obata is responsible for is only the painting section.

But this does not seem to detract from his excellence as a cartoonist.

As an animation director, although Mu Su Xing's talent in directing is not as good as a real genius, it can be regarded as above-average in the entire industry.

He knows how to express and refine life, exaggerate the refined society and the essence of life to a certain extent, integrate it into the animation language appropriately, and express it smoothly, and also knows how to consider and choose scenes and shooting angles , camera movement, color, montage and long shot and other camera languages, and even change your own painting style according to different styles of scripts...

However, it is undeniable that he does not have the talent and talent to create scripts.

Yes, an excellent animation director does not necessarily have the ability to create scripts.However, all the famous animation masters basically have strong animation screenwriting skills.

The reward from the system just hit his weakness, making him unable to refuse even though he knew it was a trap.

Come on, isn't it just liver, whoever is afraid of whom!

Thinking of this, Mu Suxing no longer hesitates. He has already had an idea for this graduation project, but he has been busy with the first season of "My Hero Academia" some time ago, so he put it on hold temporarily. It is urgent, but with these potions in hand, with his current creation speed, it may not be impossible to complete it within the specified period.

He looked at his various ability tables:

Name: Shepherd Star

Age: 20

Reputation: 10000 (somewhat famous)

Original painting skills: level 5

Knowledge Reserve: Level 5

Audiovisual Aesthetics: Level 6

Animation Rendering: Level 5

Design Thinking: Level 5

Creation Speed: Level 7

Shot Rhythm: Level 6

Screenwriting Narrative: Level 6

Achievement Points: 12100

This time "My Hero Academia" was successfully broadcast, which brought him 8000 achievement points, and the previous accumulation was 12100 achievement points. If he wanted, he could actually spend 8000 achievement points to open the "Script "Analysis Room" section, but in this way, the achievement points of the lower animation may not come out.

For now, let's find a way to finish the graduation project first and complete the main task of the system release.

"013, help me redeem O-Henry's "Gift of the Magi."

[The exchange price of "Maggie's Gift" is 2000 achievement points, and it is being exchanged... Ding, the copyright of the target novel has been successfully exchanged, please pay attention to the host to check it. 】

As the system's voice fell, an extremely thin book soon appeared on the solid wood desk in front of Shepherd Xing. The woman on the cover had curly and short hair. The color was really shiny and beautiful, but somehow, There is a faint sense of roughness that seems to have been cut indiscriminately.

There are a lot of novels and comics resources with different styles and cultures in the system mall. In order to ensure that I am familiar with the specific articles in the system mall, apart from seeing Lie Xinxi at the beginning and reading several comics in a row, in the later time, Musu Hoshi spends his time reading about the general history of otherworldly culture and entertainment.

There are not many novelists and cartoonists who have impressed the Shepherd Star, and the author of the present "Magi's Gift", O-Henry, is one of them.

As one of the three famous short story masters, O-Henry's greatest feature in artistic treatment is the unexpected ending of the novel——the plot of the novel is obviously developing in a certain direction, but when it comes to the ending, it suddenly surprises. Short stories with dramatic coincidences are undoubtedly suitable for adaptation.

The same goes for "The Gift of the Magi".

This short story tells the story of a poor couple who reluctantly give up their love at Christmas and prepare Christmas gifts for each other.

The heroine sells her long, beautiful, lustrous hair, which she is proud of, in order to match her husband's high-end gold watch with a platinum bracelet, and the hero sells it to buy a set of beautiful jeweled combs for his wife. He bought a gold watch that he regarded as a treasure and passed down from three generations of ancestors.

It's the worst gift ever, and it's also the best gift.

While his thoughts were racing, the mobile phone that was casually placed on the table suddenly lit up. Shepherd Xing raised his eyes and glanced at it, then stretched out his right hand, ready to adjust the mobile phone to airplane mode.

【Question and Answer Meeting on Calculus Probability Theory】

Fang Lian: The premiere of "Life and Death" is said to be very good tonight. Are you going?

Wen Feihang: Fatty, are you reliable? You were the one who said that "Biological Battleship" was good last time. What happened?I was almost bored enough to fall asleep in the theater!

This chat group under the guise of "Questions and Answers on Calculus Probability Theory" is actually the dormitory group of Musu Xing, Fang Lian, and Wen Feihang. I also have a little impression that this is an action movie that was quite popular back then. He used to go to the theater to watch it with the two of them.

But now...

Mu Suxing looked at the two people in the chat group who were happily blowing water, and then looked at the densely packed notebooks in front of him that were filled with inspiration and ideas, and the notebooks that he tore off because of waste of writing, crumpled up and then piled up into a small piece. paper ball lost in thought.

He couldn't help typing: Have you finished your graduation project?

Wen Feihang: I just finished it last week and handed it over to the professor.

Fang Lian: Fat Lord, I am better at it. I finished it last month. [sunglasses]

Wen Feihang: Amu, where have you been?Do you want us to help?It just so happens that there is nothing wrong with Huaying recently, so I can help you.

Fang Lian: I remember that Amu's speed has always been very fast, and he should have started drawing and sub-camera by now, right?

Shepherd star: "..."

The Shepherd Star didn't want to talk.

Different from common commercial animations, independent animation short films can basically be called artistic animations. This kind of animation pursues individuality and niche, and its biggest feature is "freedom", which is exactly the charm of independent animation.

Unlike "IS" and "My Hero Academia", which can immediately write animation scripts after getting the original manga, "Magi's Gift" is the same as "The Little Prince", the original work is a novel, which means , except for the animation theme and the general plot, all other frameworks need to be designed and filled by Shepherd himself.

Don't talk about drawing the sub-camera right now, he hasn't even had time to start the most basic modeling design yet.

As the saying goes, if there is no comparison, there is no harm. At the beginning, Mu Suxing didn't think it was worth completing the production of an independent animation in a month. Now that there is a comparison between two big idlers, he suddenly feels a little bit stuffed.

Seeing that Mu Su Xing did not reply, Fang Lian sent several question marks: "Hello? Brother, are you still there?"

Shepherd Star: Yes, still stuck at the beginning, there is something to start, ignore the retreat. [manual bye]

In order to prevent his thoughts from being disturbed by the outside world, Shepherd Xing put down his mobile phone decisively and stuffed it into a drawer, out of sight, and forcibly turned his thoughts back to the current right path.

The first thing to determine is the theme of the animation shooting and the film and television style of the animation.

Needless to say the theme, "The Gift of the Magi" mainly expresses the most important aspect of "the beauty of human nature", that is, "the selfless dedication of love".

Then there's the film and television style.

There are four common film and television styles: comic style, realistic style, virtual three-dimensional effect style and experimental painting style.

The manga style can be directly ruled out - this style is relatively too simple in the animation drawing process, and it is correspondingly more difficult to make colors.The virtual three-dimensional effect style is also not considered. The background of "The Gift of the Magi" is set in the poor and difficult past. The life pressure of the people at the bottom.

His eyes fell on the last two styles.

Is it a realistic style, or an experimental painting style?

In terms of production difficulty, the realistic style is somewhat simpler. As the name suggests, this is a film and television style that is as close to real life as possible. The experimental painting style is more difficult because it does not represent a specific film and television style. It is all "new styles" other than the above three styles that are created by different independent animation directors in the process of exploration, with a strong personal touch.

After much deliberation, Shepherd Xing finally chose the latter.

Although there is no explicit requirement, it is indeed an unwritten unspoken rule of independent animation to create and adopt unique animation works.

After spending a whole day exploring and determining the overall film and television style of the animation, Mu Su Xing finally pushed the progress to the part he was most familiar with, used to be the best at, but now is the most difficult link——

Screenplay research.

This is a problem that Shepherd Star has never encountered since its rebirth.

The reason is very simple. "The Little Prince" is a fantasy theme. It is not too difficult to grasp the overall style or character design, let alone commercial animations such as "IS" and "My Hero Academia". No it doesn't really matter.

But "The Gift of the Magi" is different.

The original author O-Henry claims to be a representative of the poor, and his novels basically reflect the hardship and bitterness of the life of the people at the bottom. In short, the story should take place in a poor and backward town.

So far, it is not something that Shepherd Star can take for granted.

The heroes and heroines in the story have extremely poor financial ability, and their life is so poor that they can’t wait to break into flowers. These are completely opposite to the environment of Mu Suxing. The Mu family has been a rich family from the beginning. As far as the cost is concerned, if it is slightly worse, it will not be placed in front of the shepherd star at all.

For Shepherd Xing, the life of the hero and heroine in the story is beyond his imagination.

Under such circumstances, it is not self-confidence but ignorance to rashly start in areas that one does not understand.

That being the case—

He took out his mobile phone and clicked on the dormitory group of the three of them.

Shepherd star: @all the staff are in?

Fang Lian: I suddenly remembered that I didn't deal with the end of my final project, and now I need to deal with it urgently. What's wrong?

Wen Feihang: The professor also called me just now, saying that there is something for me to change, is there anything wrong?

As for the little tricks the two of them used to tease him in their daily life, Mu Suxing calmly replied: "It's nothing, I just need two coolies for something, please help me to ask if Huaying can come, I will pay overtime by the hour fee.

Fang Lian: Huh?What are you talking about?If you have something to do, can Hangzi and I ignore it?

Wen Feihang: That is, with the two of us here, do you still need to find outsiders?

Shepherd Star: Alright, I won’t be poor with you guys. I’ll see you at the North Airport of Xingning City at [-] o’clock tomorrow morning, and I’ll treat you to dinner later.

Fang Lian: Airport?where to?

Wen Feihang: What exactly?I will prepare it in advance.

Shepherd Star: Zijing Town, go out to collect materials, the camera is too troublesome, you just need to bring your mobile phone, try to wear plain clothes, it is best to look like a poor person.

When Mu Su Xing said this, the two of them understood in seconds.

Fantasy commercial animation is fine. If literary animation involves the blind spot of the director and the production team, in order to ensure that the details of the animation are rigorous and real, the production team usually works as a team to go to similar scenes to familiarize themselves with the environment, experience life, and even live on-site. Carry out character dynamic sketching and scene sketching.

Take The Gift of the Magi, for example.

As people at the bottom of society, what is the daily life of the hero and heroine like?What do the towns and houses they live in look like?What is the street like?On weekdays, when you go to the street to buy vegetables and bargain with vendors, what are your language, movements and demeanor?

No director can casually convert words into pictures based on a few lines of the original work - that is a fantasy.

As an animation director, before officially writing this animation script, Mu Su Xing must first construct the details of the life of the hero and heroine in his own heart, and understand all the mentioned, unmentioned, and unfinished things in the novel. , are all clear to the chest.

Only after he has thoroughly studied the original novel can he start writing animation scripts.

And these, in the entire tedious and complicated production process, can only be counted as the beginning of the preparatory stage!