Shot Composition

Towards the end of the film the shot composition becomes a lot darker so I looked at thriller films and film noir for inspiration.

Using my moodboards for inspiration I drew some shots. The first one is from the original storyboard where the woman would meet her demise by a bowling bowl falling on her head.

The last two are from the later storyboards where the tone of the film becomes a lot darker and twisted. 

The group also made an animatic out of the storyboard panels.

3D Shading/ Colour Scripts

Using a shot from the new kitchen design I made in Maya I painted over it in Photoshop so that I could get a sense of the lighting and colour. I picked a shot from the animatic that would still be coloured pink and well lit. 

Revised Layouts

Then the motivation changed for the film and I made a new layout based on a floor plan that someone had drawn. I made it quite simple so that in production details could be added.

The layout will be simple and we will use cell shading or a cartoon shader for the final version similar to the game “Wind Waker” so that the film looks happy and cute making the darker side of the film that more unexpected.

I also did a rough design of the outside of the house because the end of the film the camera pans out so that the audience can see that the world has been taken over by the cats, for this the woman had to live in a residential area. The house itself would be situated on a street of similar houses, as this was set in an England I had to think about how town houses are designed.

I then tried to model it very simply in maya to get an idea of what it would look like in 3D.

Motivation change

There is a cat lady who loves the materialistic side of a cat, she has it for show an  to dress up. She doesn't really care much for it's happiness and it is obvious that she has the power over the cat. The cat is cute yet elegant. Cute as in appearance and elegant in personality. No matter what though it isn't obvious that this cat has evil intentions which will make the murder that more creepy and unsuspecting. After the murder the cat shows no remorse and turns itself into the human therefore gaining the power that she had. It then shows that she wasn't the only cat who had thought of this and they are all now trying to live as humans did and taking over the world. As the viewer sees the films plot change into something darker the colouring, lighting and mood will become slightly darker as well. Almost film noir lighting. 

The cat owner doesn't bother with cat, in fact she can be quite horrible to it, it is unclear why she has the cat, it's left open so that the audience can decide for themselves. It could be that she got it as a gift or maybe she had it as a kitten and when it grew up she had no interest in it any more, either way the cat's life is miserable. The cat is fed up of this woman having power over her and decides that it's time to get rid of her. It commits the murder and then tries to turn itself into the human gaining the power her owner had.

Prop

Prop

I started designing props for the film based on what I thought was the original motivation.

As the woman was obsessed with cats I created a moodboard of props that I thought a stereotypical cat lady would own.

As a cat lady I would expect she would buy her cat toys so I designed a simple mouse toy lying around the house.

Based on the moodboard I made a cat mug in the shape of a cat face.

I also made a simple cat bed and food and water dish to be put in the kitchen so that the woman and cat would eat together.

As this woman would love to dress her cat up she would have an entire wall dedicated to framed pictures of her cat in embarrassing costumes.

Layouts

As we are making this film in 3D we wanted the design to be very simple and stylised. The colour and lighting at the beginning of the film will be pink and yellow and as the film turns darker it will become blue and purple.

At this point the narrative of the film followed a crazy cat lady and so I designed a kitchen that I thought best fit that character.

Narrowing Cat Designs

We then decided between 2 character designs as a group and had to try and combine them to make the final design.  It had to be simplistic and not obviously evil so that  it was more of a shock for the viewer when the murder happens. We decided to give this cat features that would symbolise that it has evil nature without making it obvious for example we decide that it could have markings on it's face that look like a robbers mask and that it's ears can look like devil horns in the shadows. 

Based on the sketches I did in my book I did some designs on Photoshop.  I also coloured them with dull colours so that it would stand out against the bright background at the beginning of the film.