Apex Hotel Project

I'm halfway through this project already so here's a (sort of) quick synopsis-


The brief is simple. Create a one minute video with a spring, summer, autumn or winter theme featuring the Apex Hotels rubber duck mascot. 


My instant reaction to the brief was that it would be far more interesting to explore all four seasons rather than sticking to one. The changing seasons with their varied aesthetics throughout the course of a full year struck me as a theme well suited to animation, a medium of change. 


Firstly I sketched out a few versions of the rubber duck to get the creative juices flowing. I was altering the character in varying degrees away from a representation of the real, plastic version to get the best happy medium between creating an expressive and malleable character and having something that was still recognisable as the Apex duck.    


The first rough storyboard I sketched out went against my previous instincts as it involved just one season: winter. I was unconvinced by the idea which cemented in my mind the desire to incorporate all seasons. Rather than having to pick a season and come up with a story for it, I decided that I should let the changing of the seasons themselves drive the narrative.     


A fundamental and unavoidable fact is that the seasons are cyclical and never-ending. This is something that I thought could form the basis of my animation. It is particularly the word 'cyclical' that I latched on to and so I developed the idea that my duck would simply take a walk through the seasons as if on a treadmill which would be represented by a revolving wheel, split into four for each season, that the duck would 'inhabit'.


I liked that this meant the duck would seem to be on some mechanical season machine so I felt that I could further the idea by having a reveal at the end where you see a Father Time figure power this machine by pedalling an exercise bike! I also thought I could add Mother Nature sprinkling the seasons onto the wheel from above.    

The storyboard for this idea was put together and pitched to representatives of Apex. They seemed happy with the idea but suggested that my duck should indeed look a little more like the actual rubber duck. So I redesigned the duck and I think they were right: it is better now.


As far as the execution goes I plan to actually create the wheel and shoot it in stop motion, revolving as the background for most of the film. The characters will be hand drawn or computer drawn and superimposed onto the stop motion background of the wheel. I want that definition between a hand made, built world and the world of Mother Nature and Father Time in which the wheel has been built.