SWITCHTAKE: October 2009

Just so you know, there aren't going to be any more city scape renders, why? Because like a prat I applied a Shell modifier to the city halfway through adding details to the buildings to raise the city slightly to create a curb, this however seems to have doubled up all the walls of the buildings, so I can't add windows. At least not without a lot of un-needed hastle anyway.

Oh well, you learn from your mistakes.

Anyway in other news, here's some initial ideas for the 'Of Bots and Bananas' project:

1. Killer Banana - Starts with the robot casually standing around, zooms to his face when he suddenly becomes shocked, the camera changed to a wide shot and then a giant man sized killer banana chases the robot from end to end of the screen, in a Scooby-Doo fashion. Can't think of the name of the music but it's the cheesiest chase music ever, and that's what will be played during this period. The robot eventually looses the banana, so the camera zooms into his face as he look around, he assures himself that everything is back to normal, then it switches back to a wide shot of the robot happily strolling off and slipping on a banana peel (which is the killer banana idle) at which point it springs up and devours him.

2. Robot Dispute - A robot is in his home, reading the paper when he hears a loud noise coming from the front garden, so he goes out to investigate and sees his neighbour on his lawn running around in a circle going crazy, setting of the sprinkler and generally causing destruction, at which point he confronts him and the neighbour returns to his own lawn. The two exchange a few words over the dividing fence, the robot then turns and slips on a banana. The neighbour sniggers and returns to causing havoc on his neighbours lawn.

3. Testing Facility - The scene establishes with two scientists standing outside of a mirrored window, looking in at a robot in a blank room, one scientist is holding a pad saying collateral, the other saying natural (these are the things the robot is being tested against), there is a vent in the room which starts to disperse various objects, such as sofas, pitchforks and generally heavy things which hit off the robot without causing much damage, then wind, snow fire and other natural forces occur to which the robot also withstands; as he does the scientists tick off objects from their pads. Eventually a banana makes its way out from the vents and absolutely destroys the robot, blowing it to smithereens, Leaving the scientists with blacked faces, pads and pencils.

4. Techin' It - Starts with an old low tech robot (similar in style to Bender from Futurama) walking along a street, he pauses and looks across the street to see another robot which is new and high tech showing off his gadgets to passers by who are all very impressed. The gadgets would appear from various hidden spots on the robots design, i.e. from shoulders, chest etc. The old tech robot walks over also to admire, and in an attempt to embarrass him the more high tech robot points to him as if to say 'your turn'. All the low-tech robot can do is open up his chest compartment to reveal nothing more than a lunchbox at which point everyone begins to laugh at him. He gets mad, takes out the lunchbox and removes a banana from it and hits the high tech robot in the face then drops the banana on the floor and walks away 'humphing'. The high tech robots head spins; he then rolls up his robot sleeves, begins to pursue but falls on the banana and breaks.

5. Big Bad Bot - The robot in this scene would be huge and intimidating, its shell armored and plastered in various weapons, as well as being covered in blood splatters and possibly having some bones hanging from sections of its armor. The mis-en-scene of the scene would reflect the robots appearance, the weather being overcast with dark storm clouds and the whole colour of the scene at a tint of red. For the actual animation; the robot would be on a foreword path of destruction, blowing up buildings, slaughtering anything in its path and having missiles and trajectories simply bounce off of it. Off course as with all of these ideas, the robot comes to fatality when it slips on a banana peel - maybe to a man dropping it as he flees.

6. Robiana Jones - Based loosely on a famous Indiana Jones scene where he picks up a treasure, replaces it with a bag of the same weight and sets of a whole bunch of boobie traps. The robots attire would be similar to that of Indiana's, the hat and the whip would be essentials, not so sure about the rest of the costume just yet. I plan to give the robot more of a role than just running from the boobie traps, for example there will be a gigantic boulder going towards him which instead of outrunning he could destroy with a high tech gadget. Obviously after getting past all of these difficult obstacles the robot will slip on a banana, not hurting himself but loosing the treasure he captures at the start of the scene by dropping it into an abyss.

7. The Good, The Bot, The Ugly - The theme is a wild west shoot out, but instead of cowboys with guns its robots with bananas. The setting would be a typical wild west street, with rows of buildings either side, horses roped up and of course there has to be a big water tower. The scene starts with the main robot walking out of a tavern, the half sized doors swinging behind him and his hat shadowing his face, then there's a pan of the street revealing two dozen robots all waiting to start trouble with the main one. The scene is slow to start, with various pans establishing it, showing both the setting and the props (panning past the holsters packed with bananas). A huge shoot out then takes place with the main robot killing off all of the bad guys, he spins his remaining banana and places it in the holster, then gets on a horse and rides off into the sun, as he does the horse slips, but this should appear as a silhouette.

8. Oops! - The scene starts with a man talking to a robot, who he then offers a banana to, the robot is amusingly offended (as robots do not eat bananas) and hits the banana out of the mans hand, it shoots out of its skin at a ridiculous speed and starts a wave of destruction at which point the camera changes to a rear tracking view of the banana and the trail of destruction it is leaving. It would fly through buildings leaving holes 20x the size it should and through various other objects. Maybe also leaving a trail of fire to represent the speed it is travelling at. The camera switches back to the robot and the man, still with the bananas destruction in view (blurred perspective behind the characters) at which point the robot has an 'oops' like expression on its face, then turns to walk away and slips on the peel, possible down a manhole. The moral of the story? You give what you get.

9. Banana Convention - This idea isn't the best, I'm only putting it on here because it randomly sprang to mind and made me giggle. A man takes his robot friend to what turns out to be a banana convention, the two quarrel and then the robot freaks out as he starts seeing all the bananas. The camera starts zooming into banana objects, i.e. billboards and logo's for stands etc. the camera then zooms to the robots face, his pupils dilate or something similar (head spins) and he then runs off screaming, as he gets towards the exit the camera cuts to being the man looking at him and he slips on a banana.