Week 2

I emailed the storyboards to Joseph Mandziuk, the director/ producer, and asked for his feedback. I had created the storyboards in a style I hoped would minimise the amount of full animation required. Because bags would be animated opposed to humanoid characters, there was little that could be done in the way of symbol or cut-out style animation. The other problem faced was my lack of understanding as far as the rules of American football go. I watched dozens of plays on YouTube.com, as well as a number of movies I had hired from the video shop. I found I eventually had to resort to a children’s NFL coaching site just to get a basic understanding of the rules.

I found myself watching tackles, passes and catches frame by frame trying to study the movements and ways I could cheat my way out of using complicated animation by instead using quick shots and snappy animation. In the end the best source for reference was the EA games series, Madden, as I could replay and zoom in and out of moves throughout the game. Unfortunately the limited animation was not what Joe was looking for and wrote back with a treatment of what he had in mind. This was much more complex than I had anticipated.

The treatment was as follows...

The two teams walk up to the starting line and take position.

A Doritos bag passes the ball back to the Quarterback.

The two teams scuffle as the QB throws the ball to the Line Backer.

The Line Backer jumps and catches the pass, turns and continues to run up the field.
A generic chip packet attempts to intercept the Doritos bag, but fails as the Doritos bag dodges it.

The Doritos bag makes it to the touch down, spikes the ball and dances the “funky chicken”.

The commercial was now looking as though it would be over 30 seconds, much of which would require complex and full animation. I requested I be paid more for this increase in workload.