I Love the Postman! is one of my second year films from my Animation Degree. It was my first short film animated in Softimage XSI.

 

 

 

Synopsis

A light-hearted story about a child-like character playing excitingly with letters received from the post.

 

Treatment

This film is about learning, where a young boy realises he can become different characters when placing letters of the alphabet onto his face. Here he can be like an actor with the doormat his stage, discovering eagerly through actions and speech. The film is intended for any age group, yet relating mainly to a younger audience or anyone who loved being that excited as a kid. It hopes to make people look at the alphabet in a new and different way than they previously know it for.

Aims for the film were to learn the computer animation program Softimage XSI, introducing working with a character rig, improving modelling skills and hoping to apply characteristics to a simplistic model.

Looking at achieving a playful setting that felt homely and warm, influences were taken from classic British films such as Aardman’s A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit (Park, 1989). To enhance the aesthetics children’s books such as Postman Pat and Raymond Rabbit were also looked at to take note of the settings of the rooms and also the use of colour and lighting within the scene. This film looked heavily at the design and style of the film as this is where my love is and hope to aim for in the future.

I Love the Postman! helped me to gain more confidence when working in computer animation and has taught me to consider the placement of cameras, lights and integrating forms of dialogue to actions whilst applying other diegetic sounds to add atmosphere and to aid explanation to the imagery.