Notes from September 14

So here's a brief summary of the notes that I took last Tuesday.

We decided to add a group of female birds, that are chatty and such. We're going to add them in the intro, in one of Nick's scenes, and in Angela's scene.

I didn't write down what we critiqued to each other, but here's what Dave had to say about our stuff:

Too much time between the jelly fish falling and the bird using it. So perhaps have other rubble falling to connect that the jelly fish was from the plane.

He likes the sunrise idea, but he thinks we can stage it better.
His idea for it:
Some of the birds spiral up as the camera trucks up with them. The camera then goes back to the sun, and there's a sun flare that wipes the screen. The sun is then upside down and the octopus is looking at it.

The idea of the octopus being an outcast needs to be played up more.

Having a character being stuck up is not appealing unless the character changes in the end. (Which ours does). So....

• Things we need to consider with the bird personality. Why is the octopus attracted to her?
• We Need to make her really repulsive at first.

Maybe have him taunting him with her female bird fiends. Have her point at him and make fun of him.

• Have her hurt him at the end
• Have her feel really guilty about it.

What is the point of the starfish in Nick's scene?

• Is she eating it?
• If so, we can use the same starfish in the middle scene, where the octopus is going to go up in the puffer fish. Have him bring the star fish up as a present.

With Nick's scene, a good transition was to use the splash to cover the camera, and then wipe out to the next scene. He also suggested that it wasn't necessary to have him thinking, and to just show the next stunt right away.

A suggest for the rock launching scene was to:
Have the octopus grab one rock, and then the other. Then the octopus gives a nod. The same dolphin from before then pulls him back. We zoom out a bit, to reveal what's going on. The octopus gives another nod, and the dolphin lets him go flying.

He also thinks the whale scene could be faster. Just have the two talking, Then cut to the surface with a bunch of seagulls flying over. Then have the whale emerge. Looks up, and blows. The octopus comes out, and says "taa-daa!." (Even though he suggested it like this, I really like the way you have the whale swallowing the octopus.)

With the scene of the starfish hook, and the puffer fish:
He suggested to combine the two. Perhaps have the star fish (the same one from before), be a present he brings to her. He can put a bow on it to make it look like a gift.

Instead of having the bird take the blow fish away, the main bird comes up and is about to eat the blow fish, but the blow fish becomes too scared, and farts, which releases all the air. We can have him either flying across the screen in spirals, or have him skid across the water.

He then asked if he needs to get knocked out?
I personally think it adds to it, so I prefer it if we keep it in.

With the different devices, he thinks we can cut out the turtle crane. With the stingray scene, the thing he crashes into could be a boat, or something other than a random tree in the ocean.

The main bird tries to get the clam, and then she realizes what she's done then tries to save him.

The main things we need to work on is:

Character (Pushing their personality),
Pushing the Humor,
and Connectivity