Surprise Crit-

Premise
Ollie Thacker
What am I doing?
I am aiming to create a Children’s Tv show based on my
character design project.
Initially it would have been about a alchemist that makes
things that go wrong and has to fix clean up after them. Each
week/episode would be a different monster.
Admittedly, this was a weak idea and would have needed
a lot of work to fit to the mould that is Children’s TV.
 What I’ll actually be doing
The show will be about a young alchemist in training, called
Simon, and his misadventures learning the ways of alchemy.
His mentor Mary, Grand Alchemist within the castle, often has
to leave the castle on business so she sets Simon work to do while
she’s away. Unfortunately, Simon get bored easily and just
wants to do alchemy, not read all day.
So what he does is open a book straight to the instructions and
heads straight to the lab to gather the ingredients. Because he
did not read the whole book, he missed out all the warnings, the
end product is not what it’s meant to be.
In the episode I will be making, Simon finds the recipe to make
clones of himself out of clay. He does this so the clay clones will
do his work for him while he relaxes. However the clone makes
another clone so it can also relax, and so on. The original Simon
then has to get rid of the clones before Mary gets back.
The Characters- Simon and Mary
Mary- Named after
‘Mary the Prophetess’
Simon- From Greek
who is considered to be
σιμος (simos),
the first true
meaning ‘Flat-
alchemist of the
nosed’
Western World

Temporary designs
The Characters- Simon and Mary
In the same way Bob The Builder and Fireman Sam work
because they are leaders, or “Boy Scouts”, the ones that bring a
group of characters together, Simon plays the role of “The
Child”. He isn’t perfect and makes mistakes, the main one
being that he rushes into things without really thinking it
through.

Mary’s role is that of the mentor or the wise

master, she is the one that is teaching and
knows what’s best.
Jet Pack Jones

Unfortunately, not
much JPJ has been done.
No excuse, I just haven’t
done much of it.
What I aim to submit
- Script, Storyboards and Animatic
- Character Bible for Simon and Mary
- Concept art
- Ideas for title credits, branding and merchandise
- Maya testing- How many rigs is too many?
- Plus anything that would seem necessary
The Plan
- Script up by the end of the week
- Storyboards completed before Easter Sunday (21st)
- Rough Animatic completed during the week after (22nd – 28th)
- Better looking animatic after feedback on rough one, making
changes where needed.
- While waiting for feedback, work on JPJ, concept art based on scenes
from my script and character bible(s).

I’m aiming to do most of this over the

Easter break because I can spend all day
working in my pyjamas
 Maya Testing
- How many rigs is too many?
- Does this affect render time?
- Can this be reduced in anyway?
- What do I need in my rigs? And can
they be made more efficient for my
needs? (may run over into the
summer)
Why do this?
If Maya breaks while
working on the final
animation would be bad.
With this knowledge I can
make changes to my story in
an attempt to reduce the
chance of this happening, i.e
less Simon Clones in one
single scene. Or it might turn
out that it has no effect and I
can go crazy and add as
many as I want.