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Piggy Bank Gonzales -- An Animated Adaptation is a 3D animated adaptation of the book Piggy Bank Gonzales by Jack Kent. This adaptation was an exploration in adaptation studies as well as visual storytelling across mediums. This particular animation focused on one specific page of the story and building upon it into my own designer centered vision. It is a small scale version and prototype of a larger adaptation study I am working on.
This project focused on understanding the stylistic boundaries of adaptation. How much of the original art and content should be included? What can be left behind? What is too important to let go of? To do this, each shot of the animation was focused on a different degree of new versus original content.
Shot 1: Incorporation of the original storybook pages into the actual animation. This was an attempt of preservation of using as much of the original story as possible. The flipping of the pages worked as a homage to the source material and worked to honor the story as it was written.
Shot 2: This shot focused on replicating the 2D art style of the book into 3D animation. It was as close to a 'one-to-one' replication as reasonably possible in the scope of the project.
Line weight, shakiness of the lines, color selection, flat colors, lack of shadows, and shot composition are all important considerations in creating this. Each of these were designed to efficiently mimic the appearance of the book’s illustrations without having to hand-draw the entire animation.
Something of note: When working with hand-drawn content, each page of the book and iteration of the characters is slightly different. While the general feel of the characters and style stays the same, the scale and exact shape of them differs. For ease of consistency, one style of character was chosen and stuck with throughout the animation. Little inconsistencies in the hand and publication were randomized through the use of noise nodes as opposed to manually placing all of the same inconsistencies from the book.
Shot 3: While still incorporating a mimicry of the original style, this shot looks at the adaptation from a new camera angle. It is the first time where the film is straying into the territory of new content. It builds off of the words "He wanted adventure" from the text and starts emphasizing the emotion of longing that is attached to this. This new look at the story is a good mixture of using original style and new content, leaning more into the realm of adaptation and away from preservation.
Shot 4: This section of the film also built off the same line of text from shot 3, but now it is in a completely new style -- 3D animation. This shot is a dream sequence envisioning what the adventure might entail and incorporates different story elements to both tie it into the text and foreshadow what is to come. These include an abundance of coins, sombreros, and the pig playing the violin. This complete staying from the original style of the book builds upon the animator's vision. It works to bring the content into a new style and uses a further interpretation to build additional material.
In progress images:
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