Comedy Short Evaluation

For this comedy project, I wanted to do something based in my own humour. This includes quite a lot of things, but solely revolves around the simple pain infliction. E.g. girl slips over on ice and lands horizontally, child walks into lamp post, and man hammers on fingers. It’s the simple things that make me laugh, but children do it especially. They’re just so naive and stupid, everything they do is funny. Therefore I did a video, based on a child being hurt. That sounds a bit cruel, but it still makes me laugh. I visualised a lot of different scenes for this idea, with different endings and even background characters, but a lot of this became too much, and a lot was cut out.


I removed the background characters from my original plot, because I rightfully thought that I would not have the time to model and animate them in the background. This is a shame, as it would have given more to the story. Billy (no-mates) was supposed to choose Potato Boy over the other children, because the others seemed too childish/girlish (playing with little toys and dolls) to play on the see saw.

I also wanted to visually show his thought processes, but was not sure how to go about it. Texture it differently, or animate it in a dream like quality? In the end I removed it, as his facial features were enough.

Using the cat rig for this project has helped me learn a great deal about it. Such as how each limb moves, which way to rotate it and how far? Which bones to rotate locally or by view? The use of the cat rig has also shown me where the envelopes are, and what range the envelopes affect. This will greatly help me in the designing of characters, due to me knowing which parts will bend better than others. Also I’ll know where each bend/distortion will occur, and how it will affect any exterior/additional clothing, Such as a tie or shirt lapels.

Overall, I’m disappointed, by what I removed from the short, and how much better it would have been. If I had paid attention to physical size and measurements, some of the pushing scenes could have stayed as well. However, the animation is okay, even though sometimes the arms were trying the float free and Billy has a terrible haircut. I did enjoy making it, however I just wish I could have done more.