Moving Forward.

Lydia took the initiative and emailed Templar Publishing whilst I hunted down the Author Mr Dugald Steer. I found him on facebook and sent him an email. Obviously not the most ideal form of contact but worth a try.

Heres my message;

Dear Mr Steer,

I am very sorry to track you down on facebook, it seems a very rude way of asking this. My name is Andrew Bennett, and I am a second year student of Animation Practice at Ravensbourne College for Design and Communication.

I am about to participate in a term where we have to find an outside brief. There were some students from the year before whom managed to contact a book author and create an animated short from an exert of one of their works. Roughly a minute/minute and a half animation that the author would perhaps use on his website or for other purposes.

Being a huge fan of your Ology books I was perhaps wondering if we could do something similar? Maybe creating a short 3D Animation of one of the teachings from Dragonology or the other Ology books. If you would like to set us an outside brief it would be an amazing opportunity for myself, and team. We have contacted Templar Publishing and are awaiting a reply, however I thought perhaps emailing the actual author may be a better means of contact.

Please rest assured that you will not have to actually use this animation. All we ask is that you possibly set us a brief and allow us to bring something of your work to life.

If you are interested, We would absolutely love to hear from you. Our term starts on the 22nd of March and any response/interest would be greatly appreciated.

You can reach me by replying to this, or my email and phone number at the bottom.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and thank you again for creating such an inspired series of books. (And so sorry to contact you via Facebook.)

Kind Regards
Andrew Bennett

Luckily Lydia had more luck and to my amazement received response from none other than Nghiem Ta, the artistic director of the series. Heres her messages and our responses, including our brief rewritten to fit our proposal for the project.

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Hi Mike,

I'm hoping that you're the right point of contact for the media creation
of the Ology Series.

My name is Lydia Fabian and i am a student studying Animation Practice at
Ravensbourne College of Design and communication, London.

I am contacting you concerning the Ology series.

I would like to use the Ology series and take some extracts from the book
to create them in a 3d environment. Potentially using the books
illustrations and artists style from the book to animate the selected
chosen sequences from the book such as 'how to tame your dragon'.

It would be a great project for my university and i think that the Ology
website would maybe look as though it's a closer continuation from the
book, taking fans into the world of Dragonology!

Please contact me on this email,
or my mobile number is _______

Hope to hear from you soon,

Kind Regards,

Lydia Fabian

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15th March 2010

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Dear Lydia,

I hope you are well. My name is Nghiem (Neem) and I design and art direct
the Ology book series. Mike Jolley, our art director passed your email onto
me.

Your project sounds really interesting and it would be great to see another
dimension to the Dragonology book. Before granting an official approval for
your use of the Dragonology content, I will need to trouble you for a more
detailed project breakdown (detailing how you would use and treat the art
etc.) and also list any further assistance you may need from me.

In the meantime, may I ask for your postal address? I¹ll need to ask you to
sign a letter of agreement. I hope this will be okay.

Thank you for contact Templar and I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,
Nghiem

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16th March 2010

----------------

Good afternoon Nghiem,

Great to hear back from you!
I just wanted to let you know that this project will be my final unit for
this year, and I anticipate having the finished animation available for
you to view in 9 weeks time.

When I return to Ravensbourne next week I will be discussing and
finalising my Project Brief in detail with my Tutor, Jared Taylor, and I
will forward you a copy as soon as possible.

In the meantime, please feel free to look at some of my work as follows:

Here is some animation from the end of my first year-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG2ZTF8dCmk

This is the unit i did last term which was to create a 3D environment-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGnGAsDJPAE


My postal address is -

_____

Thank you for giving me this opportunity and I hope to be able to keep you
updated on a regular basis.

If you have any further questions or wish to discuss any finer details
once you have received my brief, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I will be in touch next week
bye for now


Lydia Fabian

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24th March 2010

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Hi Nghiem,

You will find attached to this email a copy of the brief which has been
assigned for this terms work with the University.

I have also attached a more detailed brief that defines what content we
will be using, and how, from the Dragonology book.


To fit the requirements of the brief we will need you to be involved with
giving us feedback, and constructive criticism at various points through
the next eight weeks. I was also wondering if you could outline the
parameters for exactly what we can and cannot do with this dragon’s design
and animation?

We have decided to use the ‘Spell to catch a dragon’ at the beginning of
the book for our animated sequence. Were there any 3D generated or 2d
animations you like the style or look of which we can reference closely
to?

Do you have any more information that you could send on the Knucker
Dragon? Maybe some images you could supply for more detail?

Also has anyone contacted you and attempted something like this
previously? If so what did you like about it?

One final thing!

We would like to showcase our finished work at a broadcast event Rave
Live. Rave Live is run by a collaboration of students from Ravensbourne
each year and this year is the first year it is being held at the o2 Dome
in London, Matter, Wednesday 19th May 2010.

do we need to sign anything for Copyright or using it at this event?

You are certainly very welcome to come to the event, all you need to do is
go to www.ravelive.co.uk and there is a big button saying 'register your
interest'. You will need to fill in the details and once you get to the
venue your name will be on the guest list at the door.


We could also send a CD with the animation on to you if you would like.

Kind Regards

Lydia Fabian

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Brief Requirements in more detail (the attachment i sent in the last email to Nghiem)

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Attachment
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Here is a more detailed project breakdown for what has been planned for the use of the Dragonology content.

We plan to create an animated short which will be suitable for use on the Ology website.
This is the extract from the book that has been chosen to work from;

Spell to catch a dragon
Take a mirror and sprinkle it with dragon dust,
Then place a sapphire or other treasure outside the dragons lair,
When the dragon emerges to investigate the gemstone,
quickly bring out the mirror so the dragon see’s it’s own reflection,
and cry,
“Ecce Narcisso Draconus Attractivae!”
This spell will tame the dragon – but watch out when it wares off!

We are going to bring this character to life in its personality and movement whilst showing it in its natural environment and delivered in a 3d medium.

To make this work in 3d, we are to create a dragon in the 3d application Maya.
We are to keep it as closely related to the book illustrations as we can,using textures, shapes, colour and size ratios from the book.

We also intend to use the sound and lighting to help generate the atmosphere.
The final outcome will be fit for broadcast standard and suitable for the Ology website.

The animation will be between twenty to thirty seconds in duration, and the final will be available from the 19th May.

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