Just thought I'd post my quite hagged storyboard. It's been on a journey these past few months from being crumpled and sat on, falling between things and paint dripping on it. But it helped me stay on track and this was the major point on improving the story from the last storyboards.
Firstly, I added some sequences to try and set up the mood and also indicate this creature was created and has lived here for some time. Not much changed from the final version except I did decide not to add the book sequence, the books I had set up made the intent a little confused, I had mythology books set up and it just wasn't working.
These next scenes show Quolger interacting with the TV. I changed the angles a little for some of these shots, but I used all these actions – making the last sequence a little more desperate rather than excited.
These boards just timed out the action of Quolger jumping off the desk and to the floor. Nothing much has changed here either but I made the camera angels a little more interesting.
Again, just simple shot changes happened in these sequences.
Now this layout I decided instead to have him circling around, just to eagerly shoot ahead and ram into the box. I also changed the shot where Quolgers head is in position while the box is falling and instead just had the box falling onto the camera (through the eyes of Quolger).
Difference in these shots was the box was located on the other side. At the point of drawing these I didn't have my laundry and room set up yet so I had to improvise a lot of it in my mind. Still the actions are the same – however I did add two shots, a close up of Quolgers injured foot and him licking the wound. I thought this would emphasize the amount of damage that's done and evoke more sympathy.
These shots ended up like they are in the final film, I just experimented a little with transitions of the 2nd last sequence.
Now here's the ending as it is now, the crossed out parts were the sort of alternative/extended ending where it showed Quolger escape into the wild, and falls asleep/dies under a tree. There was a number of reasons why I changed this and didn't include any of it. A big issue was time, I can imagine I could have animated it on time but I thought it best to spend more time on fewer scenes then rush through them all. Another reason was I think it's stronger for the story. Enough is said to assume he made it into the wild, without actually showing it. I thought it would be stronger to leave it open ended and keep the story snappy rather than drag out too long. Also, technical issues were something that made it difficult. There are really noticeable exposure changes when the camera films outside, it's harder to control light. While there is some flicker throughout the film I think it's not too distracting at any point – and it even adds to the more emotional scenes. But for those last scenes it wouldn't have looked too distracting. I also was not so keen on the idea of letting the audience see him die. It's more of a uplifting ending, and I'm happy with the decision to change it.
