WWF Project: December 2013

First person perspective and tests

In order to create the rhino point of view within my animation, I wanted to do some research on real footage from an animals point of view using a camera attached to their bodies.

I found that National Geographic actually have project for this exact purpose. It is called Crittercam and another set up called Wildcam. Crittercam is from the point of view of the animal, where as Wildcam is a camera set up within the animal’s environment so they can act as natural as possible without being disturbed by human interaction.

I need to be able to create the illusion of a rhino so that the audience can believe the first person perspective. The focus on weight and movement is key to make this animation believable. However, I do not want to move the camera too much otherwise it could throw off my audience.

Here are some simple tests I created in Maya. I used a simple block environment to create some perspective and depth and then animated the camera.

Final Storyboard

Storyboard and colour script

I firstly created the storyboard in block colours with minimum detail.

After making this storyboard, I was able to create a colour script to see the overall colours within the animation. This allows me to identify the mood and atmosphere created from the colour palette.

Improvements to storyboard

For the beginning of the animation, the rhino should be introduced to the audience so that they can relate to him. Perhaps it could be a close up of the characters face and an establishing shot of him in the environment.

- Reduce the amount of environments

- Emphasise the shot of the dead rhino carcass and make it more graphic, the audience should witness the harsh reality of rhino poaching!

- Explore the different times of day... the journey of the rhino could just be over the span of a day instead of several days.

- Silhouettes for poachers, helicopter and establishing shot of dead rhino carcass (silhouettes should come in 3's)