Imagine That Test Animations

Wordplay

"Imagine That" Boards

Scratchfilm Project

Imagine That Boards

Treatment for Imagine That

In translating the dialog of Imagine That into visuals, my choices were motivated by the absurdist and non-sequitur language of the sketch. Rather than following a literal approach of representing a gameshow, I opted for a piece that was part of a surreal landscape inspired by some of my favorite directors: Terry Gilliam and his cobbled together animations, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and his dark fantasies, and the gothic humor of Tim Burton. Using these inspirations, I have turned Imagine That into a darkly humorous mad tea-party, a gameshow with an imaginary audience and delusional contestants, presided over by an ominous all-imagining brain in a tank.

BBC Project Development

For this project I am animating an audio clip from That Mitchell and Webb Sound. The sketch I have chosen is Imagine That, a panel show full of non-sequiturs and general ridiculousness. Though the rapid and colorful language lend themselves well to kinetic typography, I want to try my hand at character animation, something I haven't yet attempted.
My challenge is to bring something new to the animation that works on a level beyond the pure spoken language. How do the visuals expand on what is already there as opposed to simply illustrating?
My ideas at this stage are rather straightforward characters for the non-descriptive segments, and Terry Gilliamesque sequences for the sound descriptions, which may or may not, include kinetic typography as a device.

Character Designs:

I'm fairly pleased with this character.


I'm trying to decide whether or not to give June some eyes. I kind of like the look of the Muppet's Dr. Bunsen Honeydew:




I'm still deciding whether to make the host a human being or a brain floating in a tank, a la The City of Lost Children:


Further Ideas:
I am also thinking of the word IMAGINE and how it is described as taking the GIN from Gin and Tonic and putting it between Ima and That. I like the idea of the entire show being imaginary in a sense full of labels such as

IMAGINATORIZERS
IMAGIDESK
IMAGINAUDIENCE (A phonograph that plays laughter.)
IMAGISTUDIO
etc.

I imagine the piece could be quite dark, actually. I like the idea of these 3 crazy people being asked questions by a brain in a giant empty room, with only a laugh track. I got a bit worried that it might be too gothic, but after watching their comedy, some of it is kind of twisted. After I started my designs, and thought about the aesthetic look, I found the credit sequence for That Mitchell and Webb Look and it actually has a sort of dark look to it that I really like. Unfortunately I can't embed it, so click here.


Further Inspiration:

I like this as inspiration for "the soft patter of angels' tears falling into a slurry pit."