AO Render of the evil ship from Luc

AO Render of the toy ship from Luc

More thoughts about the space sequence

First, you should take a look at the latest concept designs Shaun drew up for the transformed, "evil" ship. It is really funny, and has a ton of massive engines, huge guns, missiles, etc. When the kid goes blasting toward the asteroid field early on in his space trip, we should probably have a couple shots where the ship looks as if it is going to crash into various giant space rocks, and suddenly sprouts some crazy gun, spinning saw, or missile, and blasts a path free at the last possible second.

Also, I thought it might be fun when the kid is on the alien planet to lengthen the alien chase a little. We still want to try to keep this entire space sequence down to about 1.5 minutes, but a chase scene could be a lot of fun. Koty Juliano created that fantastic little test animation of the kid slipping, and it would be great to find a way to use it. He could probably get up after the fall and scramble around, but the motion looks great, and it would be fun to squeeze it in somewhere. I was also thinking that at the end of the chase, just before the ship comes and grabs the kid to bring him back to earth, it might be nice to have a moment where the kid is completely cornered and all looks hopeless. Maybe he has just tripped, and is lying on the ground with a huge toothy, wormy alien looming directly above him. Certain he is about to be eaten, he covers his eyes, while holding the toy raygun in his hand. Suddenly, there is a huge laser blast, and the alien creature is burned to a crisp. The boy looks up shocked, and is at first convinced that his toy gun was accidentally triggered and has saved him from certain death. Then, he glances over his shoulder to see that the laser beam actually came from the rocket ship, which is shooting toward him with grabber arms extended. The ship picks the boy up, stuffs him back into the cockpit, and begins rocketing back to earth. This might be a nice way of tying the toy gun into the action, and would probably be a bit more tasteful than my original idea of the ship blasting down the alien's throat and out its ass.. heh.

Cool slip sequence from Koty

Transformed Evil Spaceship design by Shaun

Storefront design by Shaun

Space travel segment (outline)

• point of view of the character as rocket blasts away from earth, rapidly shooting past the planets in our solar system
• as the ship approaches an asteroid field, cut back to a view of the kid's face looking panicked
• cut to a close up of the kid's hand shaking as he attempts to grab the navigation stick and take control
• cut to a close up of the dashboard which immediately changes from a simple, children's coin op toy to a ridiculously complex space craft interior, hundreds of knobs and switches everywhere. A readout lights up saying "manual override engaged".
• long shot of the ship wobbling and bouncing around madly as it nearly collides with several asteroids
• in total confusion, the kid tries to steady the craft with the control stick, then throws a few knobs and switches
• craft exterior reveals huge booster rockets springing out of the body of the rocket, giving the craft a series of enormous turbo boosts
• the craft accelerates faster and faster, leaving our solar system, and before long appears to be headed straight toward a large new planet with several rings and moons.
• on a collision course for the strange planet, the kid frantically begins pushes more buttons, looking to save himself from the impending collision. Dozens of strange, ridiculous, and exotic gadgets pop out of the ship (horns, drills, lights, etc), but none of them slow the craft down
• the ship rockets past the camera as the boy screams in terror
• at the last possible second, one of the switches spins all of the engines into full reverse, bringing the ship to a screeching stop just inches from the ground.
• the boy breathes a brief sigh of relief when suddenly...
• the ships cockpit opens, and the boy is ejected onto the ground, landing flat on his stomach. the cockpit abruptly closes again, and the ship blasts out of the atmosphere, leaving the boy stranded in this strange new land.
• the boy's mouth hangs open as he watches his ship fly off and vanish.
• suddenly, the boy turns around to see three wormy alien creatures breathing behind him. He jumps up and screams, and begins running.
• the aliens follow along, eager to probe the new human discovery
• the boy darts around a corner and ducks into a deep dark cave, only to realize that it is actually the mouth of an even larger wormy alien.
• as the mouth starts closing, he darts out and sprints for his life as the giant wormy alien follows along in hot pursuit
• the alien mouth is just about to close around the kid, when suddenly the toy rocket ship zooms back into view, with a pair of metal grabbers outstretched.
• zipping forward, it grabs the kid, blasting into the mouth of the alien worm, and out its ass. in no time, the ship is headed back toward earth.
• reaction shot of the kid (back inside the cockpit) breathing heavily in disbelief, then looking out the window in shock to see...
• several other earth kids, in toy rocket ships screaming and banging on windows as they dart past him, on their way to various similarly terrifying experiences
• the ship accelerates back toward earth, entering the atmosphere in an absurd high speed corkscrew
• as the ship nears the ground level, a small parachute opens, and the craft gently drifts directly onto the coin op platform where the adventure began.
• immediately, the parachute, and the various engines and gadgets retract, and the craft once again assumes the appearance of a harmless toy.

Animatic - version 1

Here's a rough animatic to get us started, minus the space sequence (6MB quicktime movie)

Station Wagon Rendering by Shaun

Rocket rendering by Shaun Keenan

Screenshots of models

Mom, by Merritt Filbin


Kid, by Kyle Hug

Concept Art by Shaun Keenan

Cool retro website (courtesy Russell)

http://retro-matic.com/

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