'Bliiink' by Lucy Dobin

Lucy's story developed from two drawings made at the Jersey Museum, one of a stuffed, staring rabbit and one of a stuffed, staring owl. Of course this developed into a staring contest as a Mexican Standoff, with a Cactus judge. You can see the development of Lucy's drawings and her first test animatic on her Flickrstream here.

Her intended audience was older children up to OAP's, this is such a funny story that I'm sure most people would enjoy it. My favourite part is the withered, drooping cactus at the end. Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

1. Rabbit walks down the road (footstep noise) (3 seconds)
2. Owl walks down the opposite side of the road (footsteps) (3 seconds)
3. Rabbit stops and turns to see Owl (camera looking over Owl's shoulder to see from his point of view)
A tumble weed rolls past (whistling wind noise) (3 seconds)
4. Swap sides to see Owl on the other side of the road (camera looking over Rabbit's shoulder to see from his point of view) (2 seconds)
5. Zoom in on the eyes (2 seconds)
6. Both characters jump off the boardwalk and just stare. The Cactus judge appears (camera pans out to show the whole setting) Sun slowly sets (5 seconds)
7. They get a bit more angry with each other, Cactus looks worried (camera pans in even further, close-up on main characters) ( 1-2 seconds)
8. Owl and Rabbit start to shake their eyes start to water, (camera pans in more to show how much they are trying not to blink) (3 seconds)
9. Rabbit gets very angry and shouts "BLIIINK" Owl and Cactus look shocked. Sun continues to set. (3-4 seconds)
10. Night time, moon rises, Cactus falls asleep. Rabbit and Owl keep staring. (3 seconds)
11. Buildings start to crumble and fall down (keep switching from day to night, very fast) (7 seconds)
12. Clock hands moving around fast, pages flying off the calender (wooshing sound) (4 seconds)
13. Owl and Rabbit old and bearded now. Buildings keep crumbling. Keep switching from day to night (6 seconds)
14. All that is left of Owl and Rabbit are skeletons (fade to black after 7 seconds)

The animation is set to the music of 'The Good, The Bad & The Ugly'. View Lucy's animatic here, I defy you not to be humming this music for the rest of the day.

the animation brief

"You are asked to develop ideas from your illustration project to make a short, digital 2D animation piece lasting between 15 seconds and 1 minute. Your animation must be set to a soundtrack and be carefully planned with drawings, designs, a storyboard, a script and a production schedule.

The animation must be digitally produced, it may be a stop-frame animation, time-lapse photography, sequential photographs, collage, cut-out animation or an animatic. Your choice of style of images and animation should reflect the story that you are animating (based on your mixed media illustration project) and the audience that you are choosing to target. Your choice of style should also be informed by critical research of past and contemporary animation styles."

Watch this space to see what happens next...

Joanna