Infinite Monkey Theorem Animated Short - Part 5

Scene 2 from my storyboard, Infinite Monkeys.

Work on my Infinite Monkey animated short is definitely back on track since my last update and my previous part 4 post.

To get things moving again I've decided not to spend time creating a final draft storyboard that uses all the actual props and characters.

This is something that you'd generally do if you were planning to show the storyboard to someone else for feedback. At this point I'm not planning to do that so I'm going bypass it and create and animate each scene as I go, saving a bit of time.


The next stumbling block was scene 2 of my storyboard (pictured above). Initially I thought I was going to have to design, draw and animate a whole new monkey character just for this scene. I wasn't really into doing that, then I remembered my existing Reddy the color monkey character has a three quarter view puppet rig that would be ideal, plus there's no reason why I can't use multiples of Reddy since, typically, monkeys from the same species usually look the same.

Once I'd realised that I set about animating scene 2 (if you remember from my last update I already animated scene 1).

My plan for the scene was to animate one monkey typing on a loop then reproduce the character and animation many times over simply by cutting and pasting copies into the scene.

Animating Reddy in CrazyTalk Animator 3.

I started by setting up my Reddy character in front of a typewriter, positioned similar to how the monkeys are in my storyboard. I probably could have drawn a typewriter but to save some time I made a prop that kind of looks like an electric typewriter out of existing props including, a reception desk (back piece), cash register (front piece), and a piece of prop paper by Garry Pye.

Next I knew I had a motion file of G3 character sitting and typing so I decided to see if I could utilize that to save time on animating my monkey's arms. Fortunately I could but it did require me to reposition my monkey back into the sitting position I needed rather than the pose from the motion file where the character is sitting in a chair.

Completed Reddy Typing loop.

From there I added all kinds of manual key frame tweaks to make the monkey feel more alive including, making the body move back and forth, making the head nod slightly, adding movement to the tail, hair and eyes, and even making the paper in the typewriter move.

Once the loop was finished it was just a simple case of copying and pasting the character multiple times within the same scene, adding a plain cream background, and key framing the character for a slow zoom out.

Still of the final scene 2.

I won't show the final animated scene - gotta save something for the final animation but here is a still shot for comparison to my scene from the original storyboard.

Whilst I was animating Reddy I did screen record my work so, if you're interested in a more detailed look at the process I went through watch my Animation Diary below.



I'm really happy to have gotten this scene done - and it only took me a matter of hours too. I started work on it first thing in the morning and, by the end of the day, with many other distractions along the way, the scene was done.

The rest of the animation is mostly animating Reddy through using a single typewriter. Hopefully each scene will be equally as quick as scene 2.